In the week that would have been the 2020 Beach Tennis World Championships we look back at the history of the competition and reflect on the 2019 edition, which was hosted for the first time in the beautiful town of Terracina in eastern Italy.

History

The first edition of the Beach Tennis World Championships were staged at the historic Foro Italico in Rome, Italy in 2009. Players from 13 nations took part in the inaugural Championships, which became the largest event since the inception of the ITF Beach Tennis Tour in 2008.

The Championships left Rome for the first time in 2012 when they moved to Burgas City in Bulgaria, and despite the change in location it was an all-Italian affair on finals day. Italian pairings dominated the early years of the event, winning every title for the first seven years.

In 2013 the event returned to Italy and it was the Bagno Delfino in Cervia that would serve as the home of the Championships for the next six years.

The first non-Italian pairing were crowned World Champions in 2016 as Brazil’s Joana Cortez and Rafaella Miiller were triumphant in the women's final.

In 2017 the World Championships staged night sessions during the main event for the first time. Two years later the event moved to Terracina and was supported by ITF Beach Tennis Global Development Partner, SANDEVER.

2019 Men’s Final

Italy’s Alessandro Calbucci and Michele Cappelletti won the ITF Beach Tennis World Championships after a convincing 6-3 6-0 victory over Nikita Burmakin and Tommaso Giovannini.

The Italian pair, who had both been crowned World Champions three times each in the past, had never previously won a world title together but they proved to be a dominant force at last year’s event in Terracina.

The duo didn’t drop a set en route to a fourth World Championships title, knocking out defending champion Antonio Ramos Viera in the semi-finals, before making light work of the World No. 1 Burmakin and world No. 2 Giovannini in the final.

Reflecting on the victory, Cappelletti said: "We have lost many times to Giovannini and Burmakin but today we have been simply perfect. We have won our fourth title - no-one else has done it - so we wrote a bit of beach tennis history."

Calbucci added: "Beach tennis is a technical game but it's very mental. The margin of error is very small so 50 per cent is in your mind. Although we lost sometimes with them we were confident that we had prepared for three weeks in a row for this tournament.

"We played as a team and as friends and this is a great, great victory for us."

2019 Women’s Final

Germany’s Maraike Biglmaier and Brazil’s Rafaella Miiller clinched a stunning comeback from 5-3 down in the final set to defeat Sofia Cimatti and Giulia Gasparri 6-3 1-6 7-5 to win the Beach Tennis World Championships.

The duo, who revealed in the post-match interview that they hadn’t actually trained with one another much before coming to the championships, battled back from the brink of defeat against the home favourites.

Biglmaier said: “In a final like that, in a World Championship, anything can happen. We had to fight until the last point and we kept on fighting. In the end we took it – that was important!”

Miiller added: “I felt pressure and I didn’t play my best beach tennis today. My partner helped me because I was a little bit lost. It was amazing.”

For Biglmaier it is a first World Championship title, while Miiller has doubled her tally having also triumphed back in 2016 alongside countrywoman Joana Cortez.