Australian Open 2025: Jasmine Paolini on Italy's tennis boom, Jannik Sinner and Olympic gold
2025-01-14
Category: sports

When I was a child, tennis was nowhere near as big in Italy as it is now.Football has always been the number one sport in our country - people live for it.Now tennis is not far behind catching up with football in popularity.The amount of attention I received started to increase a lot after I reached the French Open singles final last year and again after I did the same at Wimbledon.But I felt the biggest difference after I won a gold medal for Italy in the Olympic doubles. It was crazy when I returned to Italy after Paris. The attention meant I couldn't go out! No, I'm joking with you, but it was intense. So many people were coming up and saying something about the gold medal when I was out in the street. I felt it was not just tennis fans who were recognising me now.When I reached the Roland Garros and Wimbledon finals, it was more tennis fans who were stopping me for a picture, but the gold medal was something more global.I haven't needed to hire a security guard yet, though!Sometime people shake my hand or sometimes they hug me and say "please, I want to give you a kiss".Older women in their 60s and 70s, they're the ones who come up and say they love me.
It felt a bit strange at first, but I'm trying to enjoy it because I see it as a positive thing.I understand because when you see people on TV or social media you feel like you know them - but they don't know you. Sometimes I will choose a different restaurant instead of another, somewhere where I think people won't recognise me as much. But I'm not in Italy often so it is nice to go back and feel the appreciation of the people. I always try to smile and embrace it. It's nice people love you.
'We're trying to catch football in terms of popularity'
It is so cool to see tennis become so popular and I'm proud of the part I've played.We are trying to catch football in popularity, but it is not easy to do. A lot of Italians are annoyed because the football team didn't qualify for the men's World Cup in 2022 and didn't do well in Euro 2024 either.So, with tennis going so well, people are turning to watch us instead.I saw a survey recently by La Gazzetta dello Sport - Italy's leading daily sports newspaper â that found 39% of Italians were now following tennis. Football still led with 51%.There are other reasons - not just the football team not doing well - why tennis is popular.Of course it helps to have the men's world number one in Jannik Sinner, who has become a superstar in Italy after the brilliant season he had in 2024.We also host the ATP Finals in Turin, and then we won the Billie Jean King Cup and  the Davis Cup. The Italian Tennis Federation has played a very important role, too. We have many, many tournaments organised by the federation so it helps the development of players.They are giving wildcards to the young players and we received a lot of support from them. I also think there was a rise in popularity during Covid because tennis was one of the sports which people could do for a while.
At the same time we also saw Matteo Berrettini doing great things, including reaching the 2021 Wimbledon final, and then came Jannik. It is a mix of all these things which makes tennis more popular in Italy like never before.I also saw in the newspaper article that the number of children joining tennis clubs rose by 30% last year - that's incredible.I don't feel like I'm a role model to children, but it is really sweet when some little girls come up to me and say 'you're my idol'.Whether it is young children or kissing nonnas, I hope I can give them more reasons to celebrate in 2025.Jasmine Paolini was speaking to BBC Sport's Jonathan Jurejko at Melbourne Park.