Tennis: Bologna prepares for Davis, Italy dreams of another show

It's a countdown in Bologna for the return of the Davis Cup for the second consecutive year. From 24 to 29 November the new exhibition pavilion of the BolognaFiere Arena will host the Final 8 of the tournament, with the eight best national teams competing for the silver salad bowl. For Italy, in search of the fourth title in a row, captain Filippo Volandri has called up Flavio Cobolli, Lorenzo Musetti, Luciano Darderi, Simone Bolelli and Andrea Vavassori: the Azzurri's debut will be on 25 November, against South Korea, while for the other opposing teams, players of the caliber of Carlos Alcaraz, Alexander Zverev and Félix Auger-Aliassime will take to the field.

"The Davis in Bologna is an event born years ago, consecrated in these years, which have been even more pleasant", like "when you see our team triumph with or without our champion Jannik Sinner. It is a trajectory that looks forward, because there is the pleasure of staying, even if the world is big and I don't know how long we will be able to defend Bologna, but we will do it. With the charm of the results obtained", said the Minister of Sport Andrea Abodi, inaugurating the presentation of the tournament in the Region Emilia-Romagna.

"Here we are playing the game of international supremacy for the umpteenth time," he says. During the event, the president of the Region, Michele de Pascale, and the mayor, Matteo Lepore, also expressed great satisfaction. "The 2025 Davis Cup Finals were probably the event that most excited Italians," said de Pascale, recalling the Italian triumph. And if we look at this year's squad, Fitp councilor Raimondo Ricci Bitti points out, we see that "there are the best players in the world, with the exception of those who cannot play like our Jannik".

"It will certainly be a complicated Davis game to win, as it was last year", also because "the presence of Alcaraz changes the balance", added Bitti, underlining that ticket sales "are going very well. There was anticipation to understand the participating teams and after the month of September we saw a notable growth, which grew further with the call-ups". Accompanying the great tournament this year is also the 'Road to Bologna': a project promoted by Fitp and Tpra, with the support of the Region, which sees the involvement of youth circuits and schools in seven initiatives to introduce young people to tennis.