Last chronicle of the Eye of Cap'tain Fouquet and the Eye of Cap'tain Salles on these European Championships of padel 2017. They come back to these two big confrontations, ladies and gentlemen, against Italy for this bronze medal.

“Among girls, the 3rd best European nation is French”

Cap'tain Fouquet, captain of Team France Padel among the ladies looks back on their great adventure yesterday with the girls and this great victory for bronze.

Facing the Italians, we had to be very hungry because the team is competitive. There were actually 2 medals to go against the Italians and we had to lead the way!

The girls therefore attack at 9 a.m. We decided with the team to change the composition of the team to put our team 2 and not 3 as we had done so far. A bet that will work!

Our team 2 is propelled into 1 with Audrey Casanova and Laura Clergue, our vice-champions of France of padel 2017. Faced with the Italian pair composed of former tenniswomen Sandrine Testud (who lives in Italy), the French have never been worried. Best in all behavior in the game, Audrey and Laura put together a serious match to win their match and get the team back on track.

Behind the French front numbers Alix Collombon and Jessica Ginier are making short work of the Italian pair by winning their match 1 and 0, thus offering the bronze medal to the French team.

For the record, team 3, Lea Godallier and Marianne Vandaele will lose in 3 sets the last match against the Italians. A match obviously without stake.

Congratulations to our French who deserve this medal.
Note, however, that the confrontation that had to be won was against the Swedish team that we won 2/1 in the jump-off 2 days earlier.

“With the gentlemen, we haven't gone far”

We are disappointed for these gentlemen who were keen to do well and create a small feat by winning this confrontation against Italy. But two men Capitani and Britos were too strong for France. Alexis Salles, the captain of the France team of padel gentlemen looks back on these 3 matches.

1ère meets: Haziza / Moreau against Britos / Gurzi

The tactical scheme was relatively simple in that Britos, 50eme player in the WPT is significantly superior to Gurzi who has the level of our French players. The match on paper seems very unbalanced but we hoped to compensate for this gap by a lot of courage and self-sacrifice! In 1 word our luck resided on the fight!

Tactical So we focused the game on Gurzi while regularly trying to play softly on Britos to prevent him from intercepting the balls in the middle. The French have made a very good 1er set during which they have a lot of opportunities including 2 balls 4 games 2! 

Our tactics were in place and the Italian players began to get more and more excited. Unfortunately the Italians managed to conclude the set with a lot of success 7 / 5. The gain of the 1er set galvanized them and they rolled into the 2nd set 6 / 1 even though the French have always been in the fight and defended their chances to the end!

2eme meets: Scatena / Ritz against Capitani / Cataneo

The tactical scheme was similar to that of the meeting because Capitani is a great player of Padel !

Our game scheme was as follows:

Jeremy Scatena aimed to smash almost all of his banderas on Cataneo right player to put pressure on him! Ditto on his forehand volleys! And he had to hit his smash as soon as he had the opportunity…

As for Jeremy Ritz he had to "work" to the maximum Cataneo by varying the kicks in the feet (because it is a large size) and well-sharpened lobs to avoid his slap smashes… Scatena had to regularly go to the net on the lobs of Ritz to put pressure on Cataneo and intercept from time to time!

Ritz was also instructed to regularly block Capitani on his side to prevent him from nibbling ground. 

Our French 2 have never let go of this tactical scheme that achieves an incredible match!

Our regret is the loss of the 1er set 7 / 6 (7 / 5) because our players managed the break and led 3 / 1 in the tie-break!

They then made 1 perfect second set 6 / 1 but during which they burned a lot of energy. 

The 3eme set becomes very balanced again and the French got 2 break points at 3 / 3. They have a little lack of clarity by replaying a little too much on Capitani!

It's really the turning point of the game because the French are a little poor at the last 2 games finally losing 6 / 3

But what a match and what a performance of 2 Jeremy!

3eme meeting: Blanqué / Bergeron

Ce game that was out of contention saw the victory of our 2 youth 6 / 7 6 / 1 6 / 3 

Congratulations to them for not letting go and saving the honor by winning this match!

We have regrets of not finishing 3eme of these championships but the team of Italy is very strong and we approached the exploit!

The players have learned a lot during this competition and they are even more motivated to progress and come back stronger!

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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