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Before the Levante Open, Bari had already experienced international men’s tennis. And not merely in passing. For years, the courts of Circolo Tennis Bari hosted players who would go on to leave their mark on the world game, in an era of tennis very different from today’s.
Pat Cash, Stefan Edberg, Paul McNamee, Adriano Panatta, Corrado Barazzutti. These are some of the names Circolo Tennis Bari remembers among the players who competed in the international Grand Prix circuit event held on its courts between the late 1970s and the 1980s.
Almost forty years after the last of those seasons, men’s professional tennis returns to Bari in a new format: the Levante Open 2026, an ATP Challenger 50 scheduled from 28 September to 4 October.
When Bari was a stop on the Grand Prix circuit
The official history of Circolo Tennis Bari contains a passage that takes on particular significance today: from 1978 to 1987, the club’s courts hosted a stop on the international Grand Prix circuit.
The name may sound distant to anyone who follows tennis today. The Grand Prix belongs to an era before the modern ATP Tour structure. But for Bari it meant having a place on the men’s professional tennis calendar for several years and seeing some of the most recognisable players of that period up close.
The club itself mentions, among others, Pat Cash, Stefan Edberg, Paul McNamee, Adriano Panatta and Corrado Barazzutti. There is no need to turn that list into nostalgia: reading it is enough to understand that Bari’s relationship with international tennis did not begin in 2026.
1985: Claudio Panatta wins in Bari
One of the clearest chapters of that history is dated 1985. Claudio Panatta won the singles title in Bari, defeating American Lawson Duncan 6-2, 1-6, 7-6 in the final.
For Panatta, it was the singles title of his career on the Grand Prix circuit. The ATP still records it today in his official biography: “1985 — Bari”. During the same week, the Roman also won the doubles title alongside Argentina’s Alejandro Ganzábal.
It is one of those details that restores the real scale of the event at the time. Not an exhibition, not a local tournament with a few international guests, but a week that formed part of the professional circuit of its era.
1987: an all-Italian final
Two years later, Bari staged an entirely Italian final. Claudio Pistolesi defeated Francesco Cancellotti in three sets: 6-7, 7-5, 6-3.
The official ATP archive for 1987 still lists Bari among that season’s tournaments and names Pistolesi as the singles champion. The FITP also remembers that success as the most important title of his career on the world circuit.
The match against Cancellotti has also remained part of the history of all-Italian finals played at tour level. In Bari, international men’s tennis therefore produced results that also belong to the history of Italian tennis.
The tennis of that era is not today’s Challenger Tour
The comparison has to be made without forcing it. The Bari Grand Prix and the Levante Open are not the same tournament, and their categories cannot be placed side by side as if the circuit had remained unchanged.
Decades of transformation lie between them: the way calendars are organised, the ranking-points system, tournament categories and the structure of the ATP itself have all changed. The Levante Open is being launched today as an ATP Challenger 50, within the modern Challenger Tour.
The thread connecting the two eras is different: Bari is once again hosting an international men’s professional tennis competition on the courts of Circolo Tennis Bari. It is the return of a vocation, not the administrative continuation of a tournament from the past.
A history that runs through the same club
The circuit changes, the players change, even the way the public follows a match changes. The venue, however, remains Circolo Tennis Bari.
The Strada Martinez site has been home to the club since 1960, following the purchase of the land in 1957 and the work needed to build the new facility. In 2026, the club celebrates 90 years since its foundation: its first official act dates back to 1936.
It is difficult to find a more fitting coincidence for the debut of the Levante Open. The tournament arrives as the club looks back on ninety years of activity while, at the same time, placing an international men’s event back on its calendar.
After women’s tennis, a new challenge
In more recent years, Bari continued its relationship with international tennis through the women’s tournament that was later moved to Foggia. With the Levante Open, the club has chosen a different path and is again investing in a men’s event.
During the tournament presentation, Circolo Tennis Bari president Nicoletta Virgintino recalled setting herself two objectives at the beginning of her term: to organise a major women’s tournament and then to bring an ATP men’s event to Bari as well. The 2026 Challenger completes that path.
FITP Puglia presented the Levante Open precisely as the return of major international men’s tennis to the Apulian capital and as one of the central events in the club’s 90th-anniversary year.
From the Grand Prix to the Levante Open, without erasing the years in between
Telling the story of men’s tennis returning to Bari does not mean pretending that nothing happened between 1987 and 2026. That would be a shortcut. The club continued its competitive activity, tournaments, tennis school and international events; the city saw generations of players and spectators change.
The Grand Prix remains a precise reference point because it shows how far Bari had reached in men’s professional tennis. The names of Cash, Edberg, Panatta and Barazzutti belong to that era. Claudio Panatta’s victory in 1985 and Claudio Pistolesi’s in 1987 are two clear snapshots of it.
The Levante Open starts from a different category and a different era. But it starts in a place that already knows what it means to host international tennis.
The new chapter begins on 28 September
From 28 September to 4 October 2026, Circolo Tennis Bari will host the Levante Open, an ATP Challenger 50 played on outdoor clay. The singles draw features 32 players and the doubles draw 16 teams.
Dates, format and general information are collected in our feature on the Levante Open 2026.
This time, we do not yet know which name will become associated with the first edition. That is the beauty of tournaments that have yet to begin. Bari already has its champions from the past; in a few weeks it will start looking for the first champion of the Levante Open.