When I was a kid, tennis in Italy wasn’t nearly as big as it is now.
Football has always been the most important sport in our country; people live for it.
Now tennis is not far behind catching up with football in popularity.
The amount of attention I received started to increase dramatically after I reached the French Open singles final last year and again after I did the same at Wimbledon.
But I felt the biggest difference after I won a gold medal for Italy in the Olympic doubles.
It was crazy when I returned to Italy after Paris. I couldn’t go outside because of the attention! No, I’m kidding, but it was intense.
So many people came up to me and said something about the gold medal when I was on the street.
I had the feeling that it wasn’t just tennis fans who recognized me now.
When I reached the finals of Roland Garros and Wimbledon, it was more tennis fans who stopped me for a photo, but the gold medal was a little more global.
I haven’t had to hire a security guard yet though!
Sometimes people shake my hand or sometimes they hug me and say “please, I want to give you a kiss.”
Older women in their 60s and 70s are the ones who come forward and say they love me.
It felt a bit strange at first, but I try to enjoy it because I see it as something positive.
I understand, because when you see people on TV or on social media, you feel like you know them, but they don’t know you.
Sometimes I choose another restaurant instead of another, somewhere where I don’t think people will recognize me so easily.
But I’m not often in Italy, so it’s nice to go back and feel the appreciation of the people.
I always try to smile and embrace it. It’s nice that people love you.
‘We try to catch football based on popularity’
It’s so cool to see tennis becoming so popular and I’m proud of the role I’ve played.
We are trying to capture football’s popularity, but that is not easy.
Many Italians are annoyed that the football team failed to qualify for the 2022 Men’s World Cup and did not do well at the 2024 European Championship.
So now that tennis is doing so well, people are watching us.
I recently saw a survey from La Gazzetta dello Sport – Italy’s largest daily sports newspaper – which showed that 39% of Italians now follow tennis. Football still led with 51%.
There are other reasons – and not just the football team not doing well – why tennis is popular.
Of course it helps to have the men’s world number one in Jannik Sinner, who has become a superstar in Italy after the brilliant season he had in 2024.
We also host the ATP Finals in Turin, and then we won the Billie Jean King Cup and the Davis Cup.
The Italian Tennis Federation has also played a very important role.
We have a lot of tournaments organized by the federation, so it helps player development.
They give wildcards to the young players and we have received a lot of support from them.
I also think the popularity increased during Covid because for a while tennis was one of the sports people could play.
At the same time, we also saw Matteo Berrettini do great things, including reaching the 2021 Wimbledon final, and then along came Jannik.
It is a mix of all these things that makes tennis in Italy more popular than ever before.
I also saw in the newspaper article that the number of children joining tennis clubs increased by 30% last year – that’s incredible.
I don’t feel like I’m a role model for kids, but it’s really sweet when some little girls come up to me and say, ‘you’re my idol.’
Whether it’s young children or kissing nonnas, I hope I can give them more reasons to celebrate in 2025.
Jasmine Paolini spoke to BBC Sport’s Jonathan Jurejko at Melbourne Park.
