By Elliott West
Introduction
Italy is probably not a country that you would immediately associate with snooker. Football is the predominate sport, followed by tennis, volleyball and basketball with five-pin billiards very popular. However, if you strip these sporting layers away, there is a small but gradually iincreasing love for this cue sport amongst this historic race with a number of snooker clubs scattered across the country and tournaments such as the Italian National Snooker Championship won previously by Marco Palmieri in 2021 and the Italian Amateur Championship won by Massimiliano Sabetta in 2017. The hotspots for these growing shoots of snooker seems to lie in Bolzano and Milan.
Anglo-Italian
Anyone who knows anything about the history of snooker will recall that Barry Hearn touched the Italian shores previously, a Matchroom team came here in the late 1980s during the Norwich Union Grand Prix and there were several talented snooker players with Italian blood in the 1990s including Daniele Zagaroli, Andrea Barbacane, Roberto Frezza and Claudio Ravagnani. Several left their mark on the green baize. You may recall:
-Roberto Frezza, that won a match vs a young Neil Robertson 5-1 at the Benson and Hedges Championship in 2000.
– Sergio Beggiato, a talented player since a young age that used to practice at Kings Cross Snooker Club, Pentonville, London
– Claudio Ravagnani, that faced Neal Foulds at the 1991 Mita World Masters
-Carlo Giagnacovo, that was ranked number 120 and played between 2001 and 2004.
– Tony Pierucci, that used to practice at the Rainbow Snooker Centre in Manchester.
– Tony Rampello, that was finalist of the 1993 Merseyside Professional Championship and a former winner of the 1990 Pontins Spring Open.
Most recently there is Maria Catalano, who currently plays on the World Women’s Tour and who is a cousin of Ronnie O’Sullivan, having won tournaments such as The British Championship and the British Open. Maria was extremely proud of her Italian heritage and even wore an Italian flag logo on her waistcoat when he played at last year’s World Seniors Championship.
A Digital Connection
Much of this Italian development stems from the Snooker Italia website. Founded by Marco Staiano, the website has created a sturdy platform, building on from informative in the Italian language about snooker in general to actually promoting and sponsoring talented Italian snooker players. A task that would have previously been fruitless and one that seems closer to putting Italy on the snooker map. Such has been the interest that several Italian amateurs have had coaching sessions from
Peter Devlin and Michael Holt. Snooker Italia wants its small team of players to be able to travel to the UK to train and hopefully they will be able to increase the number of snooker tables for players to practice and play on in Italy.
Breaking News
At the time of writing this piece, there is the exciting news that the Italian Snooker Masters has become a reality. This event will be held in Torino in April and will be streamed on Andy Scorer and a Twitch channel. The promotion poster shows Nigel Bond, Tony Drago, Maria Catalano, Patsy Fagan and Sean Maddocks. Definitely, a tournament to watch out for and hopefully, that one will grow in this beautiful land of culinary delights, fine wine, opera and an encyclopedia of history.
