Giulio Graziotti : ‘It would be a dream for me to be one of the “Azzurri” at the International Games’

“Padel is continuing to grow very strongly in Italy”

Giulio Graziotti is one of the many converts to padel who came from tennis. The 25-year-old Italian grew up with tennis as his family owns a tennis club in Rome. But as the number of padel players started to grow exponentially, padel came to Giulio, and Giulio embraced it, finding a new calling after hanging up his tennis racquet along with his dreams of a pro tennis career. “I discovered padel 10-11 years ago because in the club my family owns, we built some padel courts,” he told Babolat interviewer, speaking from Lithuania where he was playing a pro tournament. “We saw that padel was growing quickly, so we decided to make an investment and build three padel courts. Of course, there are now more than three, since padel is continuing to grow very strongly in Italy.”

The decision to try his luck with padel as his main interest and occupation came much later. “Three years ago [2021], I stopped pursuing my tennis career and I started as a tennis instructor at our club. But I was missing competition, so I started playing padel more seriously. I moved to Spain from the very beginning to start training, and I set myself some short-term and long-term goals.” One of these goals was to be part of the Italian national team, and the dream became reality at the World Padel Championships in Dubai at the end of 2022: “It was an incredible honour for me, I had always dreamt of playing for Italy one day,” he said.

Giulio immediately loved the atmosphere at padel tournaments, so different from what he had experienced in tennis. “At tennis tournaments I could see all the players very focused on their routines, on their fitness, and on their games. By contrast, when I started playing padel I was getting a completely different vibe, the context was very different, it was not so laser-focused on performance.”

As his level started to improve, so did everything around the tournaments he was entering. “We now have Italian coaches who have been studying what happens in other countries like Spain and Argentina, and they have developed their coaching skills so that we can catch up with the best in the world. By now there are quite a few Italian players, including myself, who are playing full time on the tour and can compete with everyone except possibly the top 20-30 players in the world.”

"Four beginners can have a lot of fun playing padel"

The impressive growth experienced by padel around the world and especially in Italy has been fuelled by various factors: first of all, it’s a sport that allows participants to have fun right away. “Four beginners can have a lot of fun playing padel,” Giulio says, “just by trying all the shots, learning how to use the glass walls to their advantage, the smash outside the court, and all the shots that are shown on TV. I believe the sport has been very well promoted on television, helping the best players in the world to spread the ‘padel bug’”.

“Furthermore, in Rome we had an event at the Foro Italico with Francesco Totti, the former captain of AS Roma playing padel against each other. Totti is almost a legend in Rome, and I am an AS Roma die-hard fan myself. It’s incredible how many people had padel brought to their radar just because of this event.” Giulio is now in the top 200 and travels the world up to 35 weeks a year, looking for points to climb the rankings and make more dreams come true. “In 2023 I represented Italy at the European Games in Krakow. I really hope padel can be an Olympic sport one day, maybe starting with Los Angeles in 2028. I think this sport deserves a place in the International Games because it’s a beautiful sport and it would be a dream for me to be one of the ‘Azzurri’ at the International Games.”

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