The player nominations for the 2022 European Beach Tennis Championships have been announced. Over 150 players from 20 Tennis Europe member nations will participate in this year’s edition.
The tournament, held between 29 September – 2 October in Crete, Greece, will welcome many of the ITF’s Beach Tennis Tour’s top European players. The Hellenic Tennis Federation will be hosting this professional event for the first time, and has specially prepared 11 Beach Tennis courts. Prior to the main event, two Junior tournaments will take place, for players aged 14 & Under and 18 & Under.
While each country has nominated up to 8 players (4 men and 4 women), hosts Greece have an extra team in each category, with 12 players in total. In 2021, the gold medals went to Doriano Beccaccioli & Mattia Spoto (ITA) in the men’s competition, world #1 Giulia Gasparri & Ninny Valentini (ITA) in the women’s, and Eva Fernandez Palos & Antonio Ramos Viera (ESP) in the mixed, all of whom will be defending their titles.
Italy is once again the most powerful team in the women’s draw. The world’s top 4-ranked players are Italian and will all be present in Crete: Giulia Gasparri, Ninny Valentini, Nicole Nobile and Sofia Cimatti. Italian women have dominated the event to such an extent that they have won all but one gold and silver medal (the exception being Germany, 2013) since the first edition of the competition in 2008. Teams from France, Germany, Latvia, Spain, San Marino and Portugal all field Top 50 players and will be amongst their leading challengers.
On the men’s side, six top 12 players are participating this year. Four of them are representing Italy, whose team is comprised of the world’s co-#1 Michele Cappelletti, #3 Mattia Spoto, #11 Doriano Beccaccioli and #12 Diego Bollettinari. Spain’s team is led by co-#1 Antonio Ramos Viera. The tournament veteran will be hoping to add to his first ever gold medal for Spain, won last year in the mixed doubles. Meanwhile French Top 10 players Theo Irigaray and Nicolas Gianotti will be eager to improve on their silver medal from 2021.
EBTC 2022 - Player Nominations
Nominations (Pro) | Nominations (14&U) | Nominations (18&U)