With the qualifying matches on Sunday 16th (from 10am), the men’s ITF Fu-ture tournament ‘The Over’s Guys’ officially kicks off on the clay courts of the Queen’s Club of Cattolica with a prize pool of 25,000 dollars (free entry for the entire duration of the event),
Twelve months after the debut of the “Queen of the Adriatic” on the international stage, the great professional tennis returns to the sports center built in the area of the old Tennis Club in via Leoncavallo (adjacent to the Giorgio Calbi municipal stadium) .
There are 28 Italians among the 32 players chasing the eight passes to the main draw, which will instead start with the first four matches on Monday afternoon, the day on which the challenges of the decisive qualifying round are also scheduled . Among these, in particular, in a Romagna key, Alberto Bronzetti from Rimini (cousin of Lucia, fresh from qualifying for the Paris Olympics where she will play singles and doubles) and Alberto Morolli, immediately called to a “derby” with Alessandro Dragoni from Ravenna, and Jacopo Antonelli from Riccione, born in 2006, recipient of a wild card as well as Michele Mecarelli, both students of the Academy led by Giorgio Galimberti, who also holds the role of tournament director alongside the ITF supervisor Pier Luigi Grana. The other invitations for the qualifiers went to the very young (without ATP points) Pierluigi Basile, Matteo Sciahbasi and Mattia Pozzi.
Leading the list of contenders for success, as announced in Friday’s press conference, is the German Tim Handel, positioned just outside the Top 350, followed by Marcello Serafini from Riccione (n.377 ATP), semi-finalist twelve months ago and hunting for a prestigious result to continue his rise, and by the Spaniard Carlos Lopez Montagud, who performed well in the first edition, reaching the quarter-finals. Also aiming for a leading role are Andrea Picchione (n.405) and Francesco Forti (n.408), who has just returned to the tour after a six-month stop due to injury, two players who are based in Cattolica followed from the staff of the former Italian Davisman, as well as Giovanni Oradini (n.409) and the German Marko Topo (n.423).
Among the players most awaited by local fans is also the other player from Riccione Alessandro Pecci, winner of his first ITF title last month in Cervia, the other player from Romagna Daniel Bagnolini and the player from Rimini Manuel Mazza (Tc Viserba), to whom adds Filippo Mazzola, a young man from the Marche who trains at the Galimberti Tennis Academy, “rewarded” for his progress with a wild card for the main draw.
The tournament always includes an evening match from Monday, at 9pm, on the Central pitch, set up with ad hoc stands and equipped with an enhanced lighting system, a stimulating proposition both for tourists on seaside holidays and for lovers of local tennis, from Romagna and Marche, who wish to follow the competition live. The only exception is Friday, when the semi-finals will be played in the late afternoon because a gala evening has then been organized for the partner sponsors of the event, while the singles final is scheduled for Saturday at 6pm.
