MERANO. Summer season to frame for «Meranarena» which in Via Piave was sold out both with tennis – thanks also to the so-called Sinner effect – and with padel, which is the trendy sport of the moment. There has been a peak in both local players and tourists, but the facility has further room for growth thanks also to the long-promised winter restyling.
The Sinner effect and the growing trend of padel.
«Absolutely – explains the director of Meranarena Sandra Zambianco – we have recorded a greater influx of people approaching both sports. We have noticed an increase in foreign tourists, but also in tourists coming from outside the province. There have been groups from other regions who have rented tennis courts for weekly courses. Our structure is starting to be known not only in South Tyrol. As a tennis player I can confirm that the “Sinner phenomenon” has certainly made people who have never followed tennis up until now passionate about this sport.”
The president of Meranarena is on the same wavelength Luca Bordato. «Both padel and tennis are growing sports due to the media impact they have. Padel because it is considered a sport for all ages, social, healthy, pleasant and competitive and tennis with its perhaps difficult rules, but which meets more and more players out of passion.”
The figures: just under a thousand players involved.
Let’s start with the hours played by the 13 tennis courts: 1329 (+10%) while those played by padel customers on 3 courts were 924 (+15%) in the period June-September. The tennis players who trod the red clay of Via Piave were 629 while the padel players were 373. «We recorded a presence of tourists, especially foreigners but also from the rest of Italy, both in tennis and in padel with an increase of 20%. %». The tennis school is active in the morning for competitive players and in the afternoon for children and adults on 4 courts, the padel school has 4 teachers and the padel school for children has also started. Two tennis tournaments were held (youth championships with over 100 participants and Open with over 300 participants) and 3 in padel with an average of around 60 couples registered per tournament.
2024-09-28 03:44:40