Frenchwoman Carla Touly decided a year ago to embark on the Cupa FIP Tour, in order to accumulate experience and progress. As you will see, his entry into this new world of padel does not come without difficulties.

Many players criticize the stages of the FIP Tour, often behind the scenes, rarely publicly. This time, after the elimination at FIP Rise Koksijde, Carla, usually discreet, decided to speak with the hope of seeing things improve.

In order to avoid any misunderstanding, she first insists on a fact: “We do not lose our match because of the horrible conditions, but because our opponents were better than us on the whole match.”

The foundations are laid. Let's go for the “turbulent adventure” in Belgium of Carla Touly and the one who shared the track with her during the tournament: the Englishwoman Tia Norton.

padel belgium touly fip tour

Registration not easy

It was before the tournament that Carla began to feel frustrated. She is approached by Tia Norton, who is looking for a player to replace her partner, injured at Wimbledon. A great opportunity for the tricolor, but not everything goes as planned: “The FIP replied that we could not have the wild-card given to us by the referee because the registrations had been closed for a week,” says Carla. After a fierce battle led by Tia, the FIP finally recognize their mistake and accept the duo's participation.

Organizational maze: the challenge continues

On the day of the tournament, the table was changed several times, the players not knowing either who they were going to play against or at what time... The two teammates were finally forced to prepare for their match in a hurry: "We have two hours to get back to the hotel, eat, get ready and play,” explains Carla.

An uncertain future

Despite the loss, Carla's main concern is not the result of the match, but the lack of respect and consideration shown towards the players. She underlines: “What is difficult to digest is the fact of training and investing every day to perform in this kind of tournament, spending a lot of money (€500 in two days) and to be so little considered/respected… That’s the hardest part…”

Carla expresses her concern about the evolution of the padel. "The padel is exploding in all countries of the world, it's great, but before you can call it a "professional sport", there is still a long way to go...”

Franck Binisti

Franck Binisti discovers the padel at the Club des Pyramides in 2009 in the Paris region. Since padel is part of his life. You often see him touring France going to cover the major events of padel French.

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