The 78th edition of the Internazionali Bnl d’Italia got underway at the Parco del Foro Italico in Rome, the second in Covid. If last year, in the unprecedented September edition, the gates of the central court were opened to only a thousand spectators per session on the occasion of the semifinals and finals, this time the facility opens its doors to the public in the last four days, from the round of 16 on Thursday 13 May at the finals on Sunday 16 May, with a capacity limited to 25% for the three clusters provided, strictly not communicating with each other: the first in green color of the central field (capacity of about 10 thousand seats that will therefore become 2,500), the second orange color including the Pietrangeli stadium and the side fields (the so-called ground) and the third blue of the Grand Stand Arena.
All places will be numbered and it will not be possible to occupy places other than those assigned. “The priority will be given to the sponsors, then to the subscribers and finally to those who have purchased the individual tickets in order of purchase priority”, announced the president of the Italian Tennis Federation Angelo Binaghi on the occasion of the presentation of the tournament in the presence, among the others, the undersecretary for sport Valentina Vezzali and the president of Sport and Health Vito Cozzoli.
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And the others? Those who have purchased tickets in advance but do not fall within the expected capacity, or have the entrance ticket in their pocket for the sessions until Wednesday 12 May, will receive an email with an indication for refunds, on request. On the other hand, those who had purchased tickets using the 2020 SuperVoucher, as an alternative to reimbursement of the nominal net price of the tickets (without, that is, the 25% surplus value linked to the use of this instrument), may decide to reuse their credit by purchasing season tickets in advance. and / or tickets valid for the Next Gen ATP Finals 2021 (scheduled in November in Milan), the Nitto ATP Finals 2021 (scheduled in November in Turin) and for the International BNL of Italy in 2022.
In short, for the second consecutive year, the organizers will not be able to score yet another record collection which in 2019 was over 13 million euros with the record of attendance with 224,360 paying spectators.
The prize pool
Like all the events on the international men’s and women’s circuit at the time of the pandemic, the Roman tournament also saw its prize money fall to 2,563,710 euros for the men’s Master 1000 and 1,577,613 euros for the women’s Premier. 245 thousand euros will go to the winner, 178 thousand euros to the winner, the difference is due to the different category of the two events.