What’s the Score?
The Italian Tennis and Padel Federation (FITP) has made a landmark decision that fundamentally changes the landscape of the sport in Italy. For the first time, the federation has published official rankings based exclusively on pickleball results, severing the sport’s statistical reliance on tennis rankings. This move establishes pickleball as an autonomous discipline with its own meritocratic pyramid. The new system identifies a “First Category” of elite players, a hierarchy that was immediately validated by the results on the court at the prestigious Siena International Pickleball Open.
Hit it deeper!
Previously, pickleball player ratings in Italy were derived from tennis classifications, a system that failed to account for the unique skills and nuances of the pickleball court. The new FITP ranking system corrects this by creating a distinct competitive structure. The pyramid is broad at the base, with hundreds of players in the 3.1 and 3.2 categories, and extremely selective at the top.
The “First Category” is now the gold standard for Italian players. The inaugural list features just 7 women, including Laura Boni and Vittoria De Pasquale, and 10 men, including Augusto Avanzini and Marcello Bettinelli. In total, the new rankings categorise 234 female and 490 male athletes, providing a clear pathway for advancement and professional development.
The legitimacy of these rankings was put to the test at the Siena International Pickleball Open 2025. The tournament featured nearly all the athletes listed in the First Category, serving as a live stress-test of the new system. The results were conclusive: the intensity and technical quality displayed by the top-ranked players confirmed that the rankings accurately reflect the “real level” of the national movement. As Pickleball Spot observed, this alignment between paper rankings and on-court performance is the foundation needed to build serious team championships and a professional circuit.
The World Pickleball Verdict
Italy’s move to separate pickleball rankings from tennis is a vital step toward Olympic-level legitimacy for the sport globally. By treating pickleball as a distinct discipline rather than a tennis derivative, the FITP is empowering specialists over generalists. This structural change will likely accelerate the development of Italian talent, as players are now incentivised to train specifically for pickleball metrics. It sends a message to the rest of Europe: Pickleball has graduated from being a “game” to being a fully structured “sport.”
