Damien Bayard confesses to having been inspired by Zapata in his game with his partner Jérémy Macchi in his incredible match in the 8th round of these French Championships against the pair Baptiste Moura / Jérémy Garcia.

If the former tennis champion says it in a tone of irony, there is certainly a little truth in the second part of the match, where we saw him cover a very large part of the court to compensate for the physical glitches from Jérémy, who nevertheless managed very well to stay in the match.

“We probably owe this quarter-final to them a little. Because Teo Zapata and Cyril Hanouna are very intelligent on the track. It's not everything to be able to take up space on the track, you have to be able to let your partner take up more space, to position yourself well” says Damien.

Cramps in the middle of the 2nd set

In the first set, Bayard / Macchi has two 5/2 double break balls. Finally, Moura and Garcia come back to 4 all and then win the set 7/5.

In the second set, a break was enough in the 5th game to allow the Grand Est champions Damien and Jérémy to win the second set 6/4, despite the cramps from which Jérémy suffered in the middle of this set. They hold on.

In the 3rd set, Jérémy and Damien made a break in the 3rd game. At that moment, on a counter-smash, Jérémy Macchi blocked his left leg. The game seems to be over, because the Lorraine has a lot of difficulty running because of the cramps, but he continues the fight while Damien takes up more and more space on the track, sometimes occupying almost the entire field to help his partner.

A tie-break under high tension

The former 76th French tennis player and top 800 in the world, Damien Bayard, hits the ball very hard at certain times. With the fatigue and cramps of Jérémy Macchi, who continues to hold the game, they are broken in the 6th game. At 5 all, they have a break point which they do not convert. The other Jérémy (Garcia) and Baptiste fight to push for this decisive, high-tension tie-break. But in this game, it was the Bayard / Macchi pair who achieved a very good tie-break to win 7/4. Final victory 5/7 6/4 7/6.

Heading to the quarter-finals of these French championships for the Bayard / Macchi team. They will thus have the opportunity to take their revenge for the P2000 two weeks ago (defeat 6/4 6/3) against the favorites of the competition: Bastien Blanqué and Thomas Leygue.

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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