Rome's clay Masters, played among the marble of the Foro Italico in the two weeks before Roland-Garros.
An event page tells you when it happens (with how sure we are of the date), why it matters, how the week around it feels, when to arrive and leave, where people stay, how access works, and which events come before and after it on the circuit.
The Internazionali BNL d'Italia is played at the Foro Italico, the 1930s sports complex beneath Monte Mario, and the setting is the point. Twenty-one clay courts are laid across a site built for other purposes, and the tournament has never fully domesticated it: Campo Centrale, completed in 2010, holds 10,400, but the court everybody photographs is Stadio Pietrangeli, a sunken 3,500-seat bowl ringed by marble statues.
Rome has been a combined event since 2011 and now runs 96-player singles draws on both tours across roughly twelve days of main draw, with qualifying and public pre-tournament days pushing the total closer to three weeks. It is the last big clay tournament before Roland-Garros. As a day out it is walkable, shaded by pines and organized around a food and sponsor village; nothing is covered, and Roman storms are the recurring risk.
01Why it matters
Rome is the last full-scale rehearsal for Roland-Garros and, since the rise of a generation of Italian players, has become the single biggest sporting week in the Italian calendar outside football. In our reading, its value to a visitor is that it puts good tennis inside an extraordinary piece of architecture in a city that is at its best in May, and that the combination is available for the price of a grounds ticket.
02The week around it
May is the best month in Rome and the tournament sits in the middle of it, competing for attention with the city's spring programme rather than dominating it.
Sponsor activity is concentrated in the tournament village at the Foro Italico, which functions as an open-air club through the fortnight, with the Italian banks, carmakers and fashion houses that back the event taking pavilions.
03When to arrive
The first weekend and the Monday to Wednesday that follow are the best days: all courts running, Pietrangeli and the Grand Stand at their most accessible, and a grounds ticket sufficient.
04Where to stay
The Flaminio and Prati districts, between the Foro Italico and the Vatican, are the closest and the most practical, twenty minutes on foot or one tram stop from the gates, with the trade-off that neither is where you would otherwise choose to stay in Rome.
05Access and hospitality
Tickets are sold through the tournament's appointed ticketing platform and are priced by court and by session: Campo Centrale is sold as separate day and evening sessions in the later rounds and as morning and afternoon sessions in the early days, while a lower-priced grounds ticket admits the holder to the outside courts and, in the first days, to the Grand Stand and Stadio Pietrangeli.
06Where the social activity happens
The village at the Foro Italico is the tournament's public living room, with sponsor pavilions, bars and food stands open to any ticket-holder, and the terraces around Stadio Pietrangeli are where most of the day is actually spent.
07Getting there
08Practicalities
09History
The championship was founded in 1930 in Milan by Count Alberto Bonacossa and moved to Rome's new Foro Italico in 1935. War interrupted it, and it settled permanently in Rome from 1950, with a single edition in Turin in 1961.
10Who is there
Overwhelmingly Italian: Roman families and students on grounds tickets, a large national following that travels in for the weekend, Italian corporate hospitality across the banking, automotive and fashion sponsors, and the touring tennis industry.
What else is happening
Overlap finder →Same country
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20 Apr → Apr 25, 2027Milan · Italy · Design Salone del Mobile.MilanoMajor
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21 May → May 23, 2027Cernobbio · Italy · Automotive Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'EsteSignificant
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8 May → Nov 21, 2027Venice · Italy · Architecture Venice Architecture BiennaleSignificant
The circuit continues
Part of: International Tennis Circuit
Dates on record
| Edition | Dates | Status |
|---|---|---|
| 2027 | ConfirmedRome's city tourism office lists the 84th edition as 27 April to 16 May 2027 at the Foro Italico. The official ticketing platform has dated Campo Centrale listings from 5 May 2027 through the final on 16 May, so the span recorded here is the full event including qualifying and pre-tournament days, with the main draw beginning in the first days of May. | |
| 2026 | CompletedThe 83rd edition, played 5 to 17 May 2026 on the clay of the Foro Italico with 96-player singles draws and 32 doubles teams on each tour. Published total prize money on the men's side was EUR 8,235,540, with EUR 1,007,165 to the singles champion. |
Related events
Sources
- Italian Open (tennis), Wikipedia encyclopedia accessed 6 September 2026
- 2026 Italian Open, Wikipedia encyclopedia accessed 6 September 2026
- Internazionali di Tennis BNL d'Italia 2027, Turismo Roma (Roma Capitale) tourism accessed 6 September 2026
- Internazionali BNL d'Italia 2027 - Campo Centrale listings, TicketOne official accessed 6 September 2026