Focus on Clément Geens, the Belgian number 1 in padel, who just joined the Kuikma team and who is preparing for the qualifications of the Premier Padel Riyadh P1. The 27-year-old player from Uccle tells us his story with padel, his news…

A family of hockey players

“I come from a family of field hockey players. My mom played for twenty years in the national team, my dad and my cousin played very well too, my uncle coached the men's and women's national teams... I also started with hockey then I moved on to tennis, where I reached 245th place in the ATP rankings in 2016.

I had a lot of injuries at the end, which made me stop and turn to padel. I started with friends when a club opened near our house. At first it was a hobby because I was still playing tennis. But when I ended my tennis career, I started giving padel lessons, we created an academy (Padel Event Academy) with one of my best friends, François Azzola, who is also in the national team. I started playing more and more, and being competitive, I started getting results. I realized that I was playing pretty well, I had good results in Belgium so I let myself be tempted by the idea of ​​playing tournaments abroad.”

A busy schedule

“I live near Brussels, in Ottignies with my girlfriend, we have this padel academy with François and we organize courses, internships in three different clubs and I also work at the AFT Padel as a sports director so I am very busy outside of padel. I give lessons but I don't have fixed hours because it is too complicated with the travel, but I still take care of good young people, I replace the coaches when they are not available and I can... and I also try to find time to be able to train more.”

Enter the world Top 100

“My current personal goal is really to try to get into the Top 100 in the world. There I am in Saudi Arabia for the P1 in Riyadh, then I am going to do the Major in Doha, the idea is to try to do all the tournaments Premier Padel where we can return, and also do FIP. At the same time I will participate in Belgium Padel Tour, the national circuit which consists of four tournaments with the best Belgian players (the equivalent of the P2000 in France), and the Belgian Championships.

This year I will play all the international tournaments with the Italian Marco Cassetta, and in the tournaments in Belgium I will be with Maxime Deloyer.”

What place for Belgium in the next competitions?

“With the Belgian national team, we will try to stay at the top, we would obviously like to do better than other years but it is always more difficult because all the nations are progressing. We finished in fifth place at the European Championships so we will try to do at least as well, and a Top 8 at the World Cup, after the sixth place obtained during the previous edition, would once again be a positive result for a small country like ours.

Geens Peeters victory Belgium 2022 Mondial Dubai
Peeters Geens

Belgium can be competitive against France, Sweden, Italy… We beat Italy during the last World Championship. On paper, these nations are favorites when they play against us, they are bigger countries with more players, more clubs, but we have the quality to compete.

In the long term, we need to develop young people even more through academies, through clubs, the federation... Many things are being put in place and we are moving in the right direction, but as in all sports, it will always be difficult for us to compete with nations like France or Italy which have ten times more inhabitants.”

A new adventure with Kuikma

"Padel Events Academy works with Decathlon, all our teachers are equipped with Kuikma, including my best friend François Azzola who has been with them for over a year. He was very happy with the material, very happy with the follow-up… I was also hooked, I was very well received in the team, they are very close to their players which I find pleasant. Additionally, players can really get involved in research and development, and it's great to have the opportunity to help grow the brand.

I tried all the palas, and I quickly preferred the LS Pro. I find that the ball sticks in the racket and I can really decide when I want to accelerate more. I have a lot of control and maneuverability in defense, and still a great feeling of power when I want to hit!”

Xan is a fan of padel. But also of rugby! And his posts are just as punchy. Physical trainer of several padel players, he finds atypical posts or deals with current topics. He also gives you some advice to develop your physique for padel. Clearly, he imposes his offensive style as on the padel court!

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