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Five Italians are already on the Levante Open 2026 acceptance list. They are not five names added simply to fill the draw: they come to Bari with very different ages, rankings and career paths. That is exactly what makes them worth following on the clay courts of Circolo Tennis Bari from 28 September to 4 October.
Gianluca Cadenasso and Lorenzo Giustino are the first Italians on the accepted players list. Further down are Stefano Napolitano, Enrico Dalla Valle and Francesco Forti. Five players who represent five different ways of competing on the ATP Challenger Tour: one close to his career-high ranking, others who have already been much higher, and others looking for a week that can get their ranking moving again.
The rankings shown in this article are those associated with the tournament acceptance list and reflect the situation at the time of publication. The composition of the field may change up to the start of the event.
Gianluca Cadenasso, the first Italian on the entry list
Gianluca Cadenasso appears on the acceptance list at No. 194, with a career high of 190. He is the first Italian on the Bari list and, by the numbers, also the one arriving closest to his career-best ranking.
That detail matters. On the ATP Challenger Tour, only a few ranking places can separate a straightforward week from a constant race between qualifying, main draws and alternate positions. Arriving in Bari close to a career high gives him the chance to consolidate what he has built and try to push that ceiling higher.
Lorenzo Giustino, experience and a career-high ranking of No. 127
Immediately after Cadenasso comes Lorenzo Giustino, listed at No. 201. His career, however, cannot be read from his current position alone: he has climbed as high as No. 127 in the ATP Rankings.
That gives his presence in the Bari field a different kind of experience. Giustino knows clay, Challenger events and the weeks in which solutions have to be found without much time to adjust. He will arrive in Bari with a different ranking from his best seasons, but with a level of experience that can carry considerable weight in a tournament of this category.
Stefano Napolitano, the highest career ranking among the Italians accepted
Stefano Napolitano is listed at No. 229 and has reached a career high of No. 121 in the ATP Rankings. Among the five Italians already accepted, he owns the highest career-best ranking.
That figure describes the level he has reached in the past; it guarantees nothing about the week in Bari. But it helps define the player: Napolitano has already spent seasons close to the Top 100 and comes to the Levante Open with the experience of someone who knows how fine the margin can be between a match turning your way and a week ending too early.
Enrico Dalla Valle, looking to push his ranking back up
Further down the list is Enrico Dalla Valle, ranked 333 on the acceptance list with a career high of 242. In his case too, the gap between his current ranking and his career best suggests a straightforward reading: Bari can be one of the weeks in which he tries to regain ground.
At Challenger level, big declarations are not what matters. Winning matches does. A first round, then a second, perhaps a quarter-final: rankings are built that way, tournament after tournament. Dalla Valle arrives in Bari with that kind of objective in front of him.
Francesco Forti and a surface he knows well
Francesco Forti is the fifth Italian already on the acceptance list. He is listed at No. 367 and has a career high of 303.
On his ATP profile, Forti lists clay as his favourite surface. That makes him even more natural to follow in Bari, where the entire tournament is played on outdoor clay. It does not mean he starts with an automatic advantage, but it does mean returning to conditions in which the player says he feels comfortable.
Five Italians, but the number can still change
Cadenasso, Giustino, Napolitano, Dalla Valle and Forti are the Italians already on the acceptance list. The picture, however, is not closed. Other Italians appear among the alternates, while the wild cards and qualifiers are still to be decided.
The Italian contingent may therefore grow before the main draw begins. That is why it is useful to distinguish between players already accepted and names who may still enter the tournament through the other available routes.
The overall situation is collected in the article dedicated to the Levante Open 2026 entry list, which will be updated as the composition of the field changes.
Why follow the Italians in Bari
A Challenger event also lives through stories like these. Not only the player with the highest ranking, but the one who is climbing, the one trying to return to a level he has already reached, and the one looking for a result capable of changing the final part of the season.
The five Italians expected at the Levante Open start from different points in the rankings. Cadenasso is close to his career high; Giustino and Napolitano have already occupied much higher positions; Dalla Valle and Forti are looking for room to climb again. Putting them all in the same category would be convenient, but inaccurate: they arrive in Bari with different objectives.
The Players section contains individual profiles of the players announced for the tournament, with ranking, career-high ranking and links to their official ATP profiles.
From 28 September, however, only one thing will matter: what happens on court.