The French team of padel- wheelchair is in the starting blocks: from Thursday 11 to Sunday 14 May, she will compete in Madrid in the first World Championships ever organized for wheelchair players. This unofficial competition – the padel- wheelchair not yet integrated into the International Federation of padel – will bring together seven teams with representatives from eight countries: spain, host country, argentina, France, Chile, Costa Rica, Morocco and a common team Netherlands and Belgium.

Each team is made up of three pairs, with potential substitutes. On the Spanish side, we will find all the "stars" of the wheelchair game, with the best players in the world: Oscar Agea, Coco Bernal, Iñaki Ramperez, Marcos Cambronero, Topher Triviño, etc.

Some of them were present last summer at Le Mans for the first international tournament padel-armchair : they had been favorably impressed by the level of play of other nations, where the practice of the wheelchair is however much more recent than in Spain.

At least six players per team

On the French side, six players will be on the trip: the new French n°1 Dorian Navarro, who has just taken the throne from Sébastien Husser-Walter, now n°2 and of course present in Madrid. With them, we will find Nicolas Vanlerberghe, Tony Boval, Jean-Marc Keghlian and Serge Garnier, all regulars on the French wheelchair circuit.

From left to right the French team composed of Dorian Navarro Serge Garnier Nicolas Vanlerberghe Sébastien Husser and standing Tony Boval and Jean Marc Keghlian

The other nations present are those that have managed to gather at least six players, most of whom finance their travel without subsidies. As for accommodation, it is taken care of by the organizers, in this case the Spanish Handisport Federation.

The seven teams present will start the competition on Thursday. After a draw made on Monday, pool A will bring together Morocco, France, Costa Rica and Spain, and pool B will feature Argentina, the Netherlands / Belgium and Chile.

A place to avoid absolutely

The final will oppose the team that arrived first from each of the pools; the 2nd of each pool will compete for 3rd place and the 3rd of pool for 5th place. Unfortunately, the absence of an eighth team will not allow the lowest ranked team in Pool A to play a classification match: this will therefore be the place to be absolutely avoided for France.

Without a doubt, the next editions of these Worlds of padel-armchair will bring together many more nations in the future. But for this inaugural edition, the important thing was to start the movement so that nothing could stop the momentum of the padel in a wheelchair.

Padel Magazine will be present all week long at the competition venue to make you experience the event and in particular the performances of the Blues.

READ also our article “Du padel-armchair in September at Roland-Garros: they believe in it"

After 40 years of tennis, Jérôme falls into the pot of padel in 2018. Since then, he thinks about it every morning while shaving… but never shaves pala in hand! Journalist in Alsace, he has no other ambition than to share his passion with you, whether you speak French, Italian, Spanish or English.

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