Italy launches first official national pickleball championships in Varese

Italy put 140 athletes into Varese for its first official individual national pickleball championships, and the event carried more weight than a standard title chase. Held June 11-14 at Spartan Padel Altobelli, the tournament featured five Open divisions, an €8,000 prize pool and singles competition for the first time, with entry limited to Italian citizens holding 2026 FITP membership.

That eligibility line mattered. By tying the championships to federation membership, the Italian Tennis and Padel Federation used Varese to define a domestic ladder instead of simply staging another tournament weekend. FITP said the sport’s footprint was already widening fast, with memberships doubling in the first three months of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025, 6,619 members by the end of March, and nearly 700 tournaments already played by April 1. The federation said players were active in all 20 Italian regions, after 11,917 total members in 2025, and projected the annual total could top 15,000 by the end of 2026.

FITP is also building more than one pathway. Alongside the national championships, the federation has been pushing amateur entry points through the TPRA circuit and a national team event at the Foro Italico in Rome, giving Italy a structure that runs from local play to championship-level competition. Varese was the clearest sign yet that the country is no longer treating pickleball as a scattered novelty. It is building a calendar.

Spain is scaling from the other direction, through volume. The Madrid Open Pickle Pro Tour has drawn 771 entries from 388 players representing 25 nationalities, with 1,123 matches scheduled across El Tejar de Somontes and Plaza de España. More than 40 percent of the field is in professional divisions, but the real story is the size of the draw and the international reach behind it. Madrid says the Pickle Pro Tour is Spain’s only official pickleball circuit under the Real Federación Española de Tenis, open to players of any nationality and regularly featuring more than 26 nationalities in each edition.

England’s benchmark is even larger. The 2026 English Open is scheduled for August 11-16 at the NEC in Birmingham, where Pickleball England says the event will use 60 indoor courts, 120 divisions and a $50,000 prize purse. The organization said the tournament grew from 305 players and 694 registrations at its start to 2,350 players and 4,321 registrations in 2025, and the 2026 edition is being billed as the largest indoor pickleball event in the world. Spain is proving the sport can attract depth. England is proving it can fill a giant venue. Italy is proving it can build a national championship from the ground up.