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Ninety years is a strange measure for a sports club. It is long enough to see rackets, surfaces, rules, champions and even the way spectators watch a match all change. But it does not erase the thread connecting generations.
In 2026, Circolo Tennis Bari turns 90 and celebrates the anniversary by hosting a new stop on the men’s professional tennis calendar: the Levante Open, an ATP Challenger 50 scheduled from 28 September to 4 October. To understand why this venue carries so much weight in the tournament’s identity, you have to go back much further, to a time before Strada Martinez.
Tennis in Bari began before the club
The club’s official history says that tennis in Bari had already taken its first steps in the 1920s. There was a court on the Lungomare, near the San Nicola pier, within the facilities of the Skating Club Bari. A single concrete court, but enough to create an initial community of enthusiasts and local tournaments.
The decisive step came in 1936. On 21 April, Bari inaugurated new tennis courts thanks to the contribution of local authorities and institutions. The club’s records recall the work of engineer Francesco Ortona and Raffaele Perrone, as well as the arrival of Italian and international players for the opening.
This marked the beginning of the organised history of Circolo Tennis Bari. The club’s statutes identify 21 April 1936 as the date of foundation.
From one court on the Lungomare to three courts in Via Fieramosca
Tennis grew quickly and one court was no longer enough. The club moved to Via Fieramosca, near Angiulli, where the number of courts increased to three. Today that may sound like a modest step; in the accounts collected by the club, however, it emerges as a genuine achievement.
Membership grew, ball boys arrived and activity increased. Then the war interrupted that momentum. Tennis moved into the background, like everything non-essential in years when the city and the country faced far more urgent concerns.
The restart came after the war. During the reconstruction years, the club once again brought members and players together, while Michele Giannone’s presidency between 1950 and 1956 accompanied a new period of growth.
1957: the project for the Via Martinez venue begins
The decisive step towards the venue we know today came in 1957. Under president Jacobini, the club completed the purchase of the land in Via Martinez.
The new home was not built in a few months. It took three years to construct and prepare it; in the meantime, members were hosted first by Circolo Barion and then by Fiera del Levante. From 1960, activity moved permanently to the new venue.
It is here, now at Strada Martinez 4, that the Levante Open will be played. The same site has lived through decades of tennis in Bari, was renovated in 1989 and remains the centre of the club’s activity.
Champions developed within the club
The history of a tennis club is not measured only by the tournaments it manages to host. It is also measured by the players it develops and supports.
Among the names remembered by Circolo Tennis Bari is Gianluca Pozzi, who became Italy’s No. 1. There is Nicoletta Virgintino, Italian singles champion in 1977 and a multiple national doubles champion. And there are the Italian men’s doubles titles won by Gianfranco Favia in 1972 and Dodo Alvisi in 1977.
They are results from different eras, but they tell the same story: the club has not merely hosted events. It has produced tennis.
From the Internazionali to the Grand Prix
Between 1978 and 1987, the courts of CT Bari hosted a stop on the international Grand Prix circuit. Players including Pat Cash, Stefan Edberg, Paul McNamee, Adriano Panatta and Corrado Barazzutti competed in Bari.
That history deserves a story of its own, because it belongs to professional tennis from another era. We reconstructed it in the feature From the Grand Prix to the Levante Open, without confusing the tournament of that time with the Challenger launched in 2026.
What matters most here is another aspect: for almost half a century, Strada Martinez has been a place where international tennis was not something to watch only on television.
Team results and the CONI award
Team competition has also produced important results. The club’s history page recalls the Italian men’s B1 title in 2003 and, in 2004, the A2 and Under-14 titles.
In 2005, Circolo Tennis Bari received the CONI Bronze Star for Sporting Merit. The award came almost seventy years after the club’s foundation and sums up a significant part of the work carried out both on and off the courts.
A venue that is also a community
There is another part of the story that rankings do not record. For generations of members, Circolo Tennis Bari has also been a social meeting place. The club’s own historical account describes the venue as a “second home” and places cultural and community activity alongside sport.
That is an important detail for understanding the Levante Open as well. A professional tournament does not arrive in a neutral space: it enters a place that already has habits, memories and an audience. Part of the atmosphere around the courts grows out of that community.
2026 and the 90th-anniversary gift
When the Levante Open was presented, president Nicoletta Virgintino explicitly linked the new Challenger to the club’s anniversary. First the major women’s tournament, then the objective of bringing an ATP men’s event back to Bari: 2026 is the year in which that project is completed.
FITP Puglia described the tournament as one of the central events in the celebrations for the club’s 90th anniversary. It is easy to see why. An anniversary inevitably looks back; a new tournament, by contrast, forces you to look forward.
The Levante Open brings those two perspectives together.
Circolo Tennis Bari is now the home of the Levante Open
From 28 September to 4 October 2026, the clay courts of Strada Martinez will host the Levante Open draw, with 32 players in singles and 16 teams in doubles.
For one week, the club will once again become a meeting point between its own history and contemporary international tennis. There is no need to burden the tournament with a legacy it has yet to earn: this is the first edition and it will have to build its own identity on court.
But the venue itself already has a ninety-year history.