Do you know how many grass tournaments will be organized this year by the ATP? Six, only six: ‘s-Hertogenbosch (Netherlands, 250), Stuttgart (Germany, 250), Halle (Germany, 500), Queen’s (England, 500), Mallorca (Spain, 250), Eastbourne (England, 250). They are so few that they are all concentrated in the month of June, all with their eyes turned towards the cathedral of tennis, towards Wimbledon and its unreachable aura. This alone would be enough to understand and toweighthe importance of the operation carried out by the FITP (Italian Tennis and Padel Federation). After acquiring the license for the Brussels tournament, it secured the right to organize an ATP 250 on the green, on the grass, on the lawn, on the grass – choose the definition you like best – starting from the 2028 season. More precisely, between the second and third week of June.
However, the matter is definitely bigger than that. First of all, it should be emphasized that this will be a historic first: our country has never organized a major circuit event on the oldest surface, the one on which modern tennis was born. And there is much more to say: compared to the ATP calendar of 2026, Italy will rise to four major seasonal events (the Masters 1000 in Rome, the ATP Finals in Turin, the Davis Cup finals in Bologna, and this new grass tournament) and will become the only country in the world to host at least one 250 tournament, or higher, on the three surfaces that characterize contemporary tennis (clay, hard court, and grass). The absolute record belongs to the USA, which this year has hosted/will host the US Open, three Masters 1000 (Indian Wells, Miami, and Cincinnati), two ATP 500 tournaments (Washington and Dallas), and two 250 tournaments (Houston and Winston-Salem). But none of these, as mentioned earlier, are played on the green.
Beyond the numbers and statistics, however, the real investment made by Italy essentially concerns its tennis prestige. And the reason lies in the concept of exclusivity, a concept that exists and is very central even in sports marketing. With its new tournament, in fact, our country will enter an extremely exclusive club, which seemed inaccessible and is no longer so: that of those who have everything needed to organize grass tournaments. Now it may seem like a romantic reading, nostalgic, but tennis is actually so loved – and therefore so rich – precisely because it is based on certain traditions, on certain suggestions. And indeed, it is no coincidence that the same FITP announced the birth of the new tournament in an official statement in which it refers to grass as the “iconic surface of international tennis.”
There is also another point not to be underestimated: the completeness of the offer, which inevitably shifts from surfaces to the calendar and to the players. From 2028, with its new grass tournament, Italian tennis will be an attractive hub from May (that is, from the start of the Rome tournament) until the end of the year, and for a practically uninterrupted time: after the clay specialists, our country will be able to “attract” players who want to prepare for Wimbledon without having to move to Northern Europe, and moreover, it will be able to do so in the first week after the Roland Garros, when there will be many excellent players eliminated in search of matches, points, rematches; then in the second half of the year, it will be the turn of the Davis Cup and the ATP Finals, both to be played on hard court.
The fact that a definitive venue for the new tournament has not yet been identified, but Milan or Northern Italy are clearly favored for climatic and logistical reasons, confirms the perception that the most important aspect of this new adventure is essentially strategic, in terms of positioning. Several very important foreign publications, including ESPN and the Washington Post, have written that San Siro could be the venue for the event. At the moment, there are no confirmations on this rumor, but the fact that it is being discussed in these terms is already significant, electrifying. Because it shines a light on Italian tennis and its golden moment, even more.