NEWS

The San Marino National Team left yesterday morning for Plovdiv, in Bulgaria. From Wednesday to Saturday, it will be engaged in the Davis Cup Group III (European zone). The team, led by the captain Carlo Conti and the technical director Giorgio Galimberti , is composed by Marco De Rossi (photo) , Antoine Barbieri, Tommaso Simoncini and the new entry Filippo Tommesani . De Rossi will join his teammates today, after the success achieved yesterday in the final of the 47th Open Tournament of the City of Riccione (4000 euros prize money). "We are going to Bulgaria with the goal of the 5th or 6th place - Giorgio Galimberti comments -, for us it would be a good result. To aspire to something more would mean, objectively, to make a real exploit, because there are nations with a tennis base much wider than ours. We have a very young team, which runs from 1997 to 2001 and so we have a few years to work on this basis. Personally I am very happy: De Rossi in Riccione played very well; Simoncini is growing rapidly, even though he has decided not to be a full-time tennis player; Barbieri has come out of a year of injuries and is finally better. Finally Tommesani is a boy from Bologna, with a San Marino passport, a very interesting second category ".
Tomorrow is scheduled the draw of the two groups, which will take place with the formula of the round robin. Eight teams at the start of Event A, staged in Plovdiv: in addition to San Marino and, of course, Bulgaria, there will be representatives of Monaco, Macedonia, Cyprus, Iceland, Andorra and Albania . So two groups of four teams, with playoffs scheduled on Saturday.