It is my pleasure to welcome you to Salerno for the ITFR III World Tennis Championship.

It gives me great delight as an honorary member of the Comitato d’Onore to wish you a wonderful week of tennis, and I hope that you will go home from here and try to encourage others in your region to become involved in tennis.

The Rotarian culture around the world espouses the use of vocational talents within its membership to provide opportunities for young people and to give back to individual communities.  I believe sport is a way of contributing to the community that you come from, and as President of the International Tennis Federation, I can assure you this is one thing we believe in strongly.

The International Tennis Federation has an extensive development programme in over 150 countries worldwide with the aim of raising the level of tennis worldwide and increasing the number of countries competing in mainstream international tennis.   The ITF Development Programme is funded by the ITF and the Grand Slam Development Fund, which is itself funded by the Grand Slams and administered by the ITF Development Department. Since the inception of the fund in 1985 over $60 million has been spent on the ITF Development Programme which includes a broad range of initiatives in less developed countries ranging from the grass roots to Grand Slams, including touring teams, funding for junior and professional tournaments, funding for tennis facilities, travel grants for talented players, training centres and coaches education, the supply of tennis equipment and Junior Tennis Initiatives.

Of course development work involves not only the ITF but many people like yourselves, who inspire other generations to take up the game through personal contact and teaching.  I hope many of you will chose to give back to a sport which you obviously enjoy immensely and has given you so much.

Finally I would like to thank ITFR Chairman, Tomislav Maravic and Tournament Director Marco Marinaro as well as the many volunteers involved in this event, without their hard work and dedication none of this would have been possible. I wish you all a successful and enjoyable week.

London, 02.05.2007

Francesco Ricci Bitti
President, International Tennis Federation