You may be wondering how, in Spain,  Madrid , one of the  lungs of world padel , in a test  Premier Padel P1 , two players ranked far down the rankings –  Laura Buteau (202nd in the world)  and his Spanish partner  Angela Lorenzo Martín (285ᵉ)  – found themselves participating in the tournament by going through the qualifications. The answer lies behind the scenes of this circuit, so well known for its glitz, but which hides real  “padel fighters”  (or galley slaves of padel if we use tennis expressions), as their coach explains to us,  Alexandre Prevert .

A last minute adventure

It all happened in the middle of the night. "The last time we experienced this was in Valladolid, and Laura hadn't slept because she was so excited," Alexandre recalls. "This time, she managed to sleep a little in the car; the experience is starting to sink in."

Having left Barcelona at 8 a.m., the duo and their coach headed to Madrid in the hope of securing a place in the qualifying table. "It was a very long half hour between 8 a.m. and 30:XNUMX a.m., when signings were due to close. In the end, we got in by a hair's breadth, third pair out of three."

The paradoxes of the circuit

This scenario illustrates the flaws of the  personalised tour Premier Padel "The rules between the FIP and Premier mean that some tournaments are deserted by players who are not very attracted by these first rounds of qualifications: few points, very low prize money, differences in level...", explains the coach. "This paradoxically opens the door to much lower-ranked pairs, like us."

This is where all the anticipation work comes in. "My role is to go through the list, communicate with others, monitor withdrawals... and try to guarantee entry. In Valladolid, we were completely certain. This time, we had some guarantees, but until the last minute, we were trembling."

A challenge against the number 1 seed

The draw did not give them any gifts:  Sofia Saiz Vallejo / Marina Lobo , seeded No. 1 in the qualifiers. "In Valladolid, we had Talaván / Navarro, here we come across the best again," smiles Alexandre. "They're a younger pair in the game, more modern in padel, capable of varying, of changing pace."

The goal: learn and enjoy

The coach's pre-match speech was clear: "The idea wasn't to aim for Marina's head to win by default," he joked. "We mainly wanted the girls to play their game, have fun, and play a consistent match at their level."

A step too high

Sporting logic has finally prevailed:  Laura Buteau and Ángela Lorenzo Martín lost 6/1 6/1  against the Spanish. A tight but unsurprising score, which in no way detracts from the value of this experience.

Franck Binisti

Franck Binisti discovered padel at the Club des Pyramides in 2009 in the Paris region. Since then, padel has been part of his life. You often see him touring France to cover major French padel events.

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