Lefevre / Ros: The enlarged France group seems possible to us

Focus on two rather discreet players who nevertheless manage to perform very well on the pitch: Marie Lefevre and Mélanie Ros. Respectively 8th and 10th French players, they look back on their journey and their hopes.

Le padel : a start in competition

Franck Binisti: before talking about the future, can you say, for those who don't know you, how you got into the padel?

Marie Lefevre: I started at the National Padel Cup. Moreover, it was with you Franck, at the time you launched and organized the NPC with the National Tennis Cup. We had our first tournament of padel and I loved the atmosphere.

If I remember correctly, the second match was against Géraldine Sorel and Sandy Godard. Moreover, they are the ones who told me to play on the right because when I started I was wrong on the left (I am left-handed).

In the beginning, I had a lot of problems with the windows. And with the Covid, in tennis it was complicated. So I started playing padel which was allowed outside. I played a lot and I improved.

Afterwards, among the ladies, there aren't that many of us playing, and we get into the top 20/30 quite quickly.

Melanie Ros : Like many players, I come from tennis where I was 2/6. I then did a lot of beach tennis until I was introduced to the padel thanks to Setteo. So I almost discovered the padel on the team competition in Malaga: there is worse! Now I don't touch any other racquets!

Discreet but top 10!

FB: You are respectively 8th and 10th French players. And yet, you are very discreet. A choice, a chance?

Marie Lefevre: It is not a particular choice to be discreet. We have had results for a year. When we are seen in the tables, we are never expected, but in the end we make our way and we are in the top 10.

Melanie Ross: We are discreet, it's true. This is due to our character but also probably to our results. We haven't been able to beat one of the favorite pairs so far despite very close matches. It would have helped to make us know more

FB: What do you think are your biggest victories, your best results?

ML: Last year at the P2000 des Pyramides, we hooked up Géraldine Sorel and Elodie Invernon. We do 3 sets against them.

We also finished ninth in the French championships by taking Vandaele / Invernon in the second round, which is not a very favorable draw for a second round. And behind we win all our matches.

We beat the Detrivière / Ligi pair last year. And during the last P2000 of the Pyramids, we had two match points against Fiona Ligi and Laura Clergue, who made the final behind. We are a little below but we are not far.

This defeat is a shame because the victory could have helped us to obtain this precious sesame for the internship of the extended French team in Barcelona.

MR: In any case, this match showed our regularity in all tournaments and encourages us to do even better.

“Making our big matches happen”

FB: Speaking of the France team, do you hope to be part of the extended France team?

ML : For me, there is a very big pair in front, and then there are 4 teams in my opinion in front of us. For a place in the extended France team, I therefore think that for the 8th and 10th French players, there is an opportunity to go to Barcelona. This would already be a first step before hoping to go further. But that would mean a very important commitment on the part of Mélanie and me, because the competition is very tough.

We hope that the captain will ask us to test us at least.

We know that we still have a lot of technical and tactical work to overcome. We are perfectly lucid about the fact that everything remains to be done. This is why we try to train as much as possible and take part in the biggest French competitions.

MR: We know that there are very good players ahead of us but we have improved a lot in one year and we know that we still have a lot of room for improvement. Our classification and our results during the P2000 necessarily allow us to think about it. It would be a reward for us to participate and above all an opportunity to progress even more.

Robin Haziza gives us some tips from time to time to improve. We are concentrating for the moment on our matches, our victories and our defeats to improve ourselves. The objective is for us to finally concretize all these matches hung against the favorite pairs.

For my part it will pass by the fact of playing more (unfortunately I do not have a track of padel less than an hour from my house. Suffice to say that playing is very complicated…) but also to be coached during matches. We perceived the importance of this role thanks to Fred Pommier who coached us on the P2000.

Today we need to improve technically. We need to get closer to a coach and really start talking padel. It's no secret, you're going to have to train if you want to compete against girls who train! But we are ready for that!

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.