Founded in 1967 on the initiative of seven local tennis lovers – Rino Gazzarrini, Mario Giannoni, Mario e Piero Pantani, Franco Riccioni, Mauro Sabatini, Romano Settesoldi – Santa Croce sull’Arno Tennis club, since the 70’s, has highlighted itself at regional and national level for the organizational initiative realizing high level events.

Santa Croce Tennis school has always had excellent trainers who launched their players at high level (among them the florentine brothers Simone e Pierfrancesco Restelli, Silvia Marchetti and Ettore Rossetti, Matteo Catarsi and Elisa Balsamo, Matteo and Martina Trevisan).  In the field of tournaments organization, we recall that in the 70’s (for five seasons, 1973-78) the red-and-white club hosted the II category Italian Championships, and since 1979, the ITF International Junior Tournament has been held on its courts, traditionally in mid May (Gabriela Sabatini, Thomas Muster, Marcelo Rios, Anna Kournikova, Gustavo Kuerten and Martina Hingis have played here).

Santa Croce sull’Arno Tennis club, today a modern reality, has 90 members and its tennis school (lead by trainers Matteo Catarsi e Monica Corsoni) has 80 pupils. Santa Croce tennis teams compete every year to junior and senior championships.

From “Cerri” tennis school came out very good players came who later became renowned players at national and international level. At the beginning of 80’s, under Abruzzi’s trainer Cesare Agresti guide, florentine brothers Simone (class 1968) and Pierfrancesco Restelli (class 1966) reached very prestigious results. The first one succeeded at the Lambertenghi Cup in Milan, being then part of Italian junior teams. In 1985, the second oe was elected II Rank Italian Champion reaching the A rank.

Still in the 80’s, the female team of Tennis Club Santa Croce took part to A2 championships in 1981 ending up among the top four teams. In this teams played Elisabetta Lazzeri (italian junior champion), Anna Iualè (italian champion in 1982), Cristiana Marcucci and Silvia Marchetti.

One more excellent athlete out of Santa Croce tennis school is Ettore Rossetti, in the first spots of B rankings in the 90’s, up to gaining the 240th position in ATP rankings. The 90’s were also the years of the consecration of Matteo Catarsi from Pontedera and Elisa Balsamo from Staffoli in the italian panorama.

Still today the Tennis Club Santa Croce keeps his activity, thanks to the successes of the two brothers of Ponsacco, Matteo and Martina Trevisan, who started playing on its courts. Matteo, class 1989, has reached in 2007 tyhe 3rd place in world junior rankings; his sister Martina, class 1993, represents at national level the most important prospect of this moment.