In 1995 in Italy the 1st edition of the European Padel Championships was held, called Mediterranean Cup.
The tournament took place from 6 to 9 July in Lido di Savio (Province of Ravenna) at the AS Beach Paddle Club.
For Italy, the organization of the first European Championship was a great success, since Padel had a recent history in the peninsula (1991) as well as our Federation.
The Italian media did not give a great result to the event, except for the local ones of Emilia Romagna and Veneto, instead the Spanish specialized media on Padel praised the management of the Italian event.
Two types of tournaments were held :
– Mediterranean Cup for national representatives – European Championship (male and female) reserved for countries affiliated to the International Padel Federation
– Mediterranean Cup by invitation for men
The organizing committee of the tournament had a general coordinator Daniel Patti (President of the Italian Paddle Game Federation) and a tournament director Mauro Zanzi (President of AS Beach Paddle) and the competition official Stefano Bacchi.
The system of competition of the Mediterranean Cup for national representatives, to which were enrolled the nations of Italy, Spain and France, provided that each country had to be represented by a minimum of four to a maximum of 7 players, a captain and a manager, it was played with a round of three Italian style.
La rosa delle 3 squadre partecipantiL’italiano Baldi in azione
The Tournament was won by Spain in both the men’s and women’s tournaments also because they brought their best players to the championship.
Men tournament results :
The winning spanish male team
Women’s tournament results:
The winning Spanish women’s team :
Regarding the male Open each European country had the right to enroll two couples (at that time the European countries where Paddle was practiced were Spain, France, Italy, Great Britain, Belgium, Ireland, Austria and San Marino) plus the organizers could invite players from other nations to participate and to complete the picture the invitation was addressed to Italian players.
At the end 16 couples of 7 different nations (Italy, Spain, France, San Marino, Argentina, USA and Austria) participated with direct elimination starting from the round of 16.
The tournament was won by the Spanish couple Pablo Martinez Semprun / Jose Maria Montes who defeated in the final another Spanish couple Choya/Almazan
Photo in which the Daniel Patti delivers to the President of the Spanish Federation Gongora the trophy:
Other photo gallery :
Italian men’s national team
Italian female national team
Spanish media magazine specialized in Padel
Sources : documentation and images by Mauro Zanzi, Daniel Patti.
