Manu Vives: “I'm going to train for a year in Spain! “

The French number 25, Manuel Vives, went to the microphone of Padel Mag during the Greenweez Paris Premier Padel Major. The rising player has agreed to look back on his debut in the padel, on what has changed for him in recent months as well as on his ambitions.

“It changed my game a lot”

Padel Magazine : Since when do you play padel ? What made that in the space of a few months you had this meteoric rise in France?

Manu Vives "I've been playing football for three years. padel about, and a little less than a year that I'm into it. I had already started to train by increasing the pace a little more: two or three training sessions per week. I haven't been training much for four or five months now. But what changed was before the P2000 that we won with Yann in Perpignan, I did a week in Barcelona at Pablo Ayma's academy. It changed my game a lot, and just this little boost where I took a little level made a lot of difference in France.

So it makes you want to invest fully, I'm going to Spain to do just that and I think I have a lot of room for improvement. »

“I made good progress in defense”

Padel Magazine : What made your game evolve?

Manu Vives : “I have progressed well in defense, because I have big gaps in defense that I always drag. But I made a lot of progress on it with the windows, I learned a little more to temporize and even to highlight my teammate's game so that he himself could do the work for me. And above all it's the fact of playing a non-stop week with very high level players, it's something I never do in France. It changes a lot to have rhythm, to play with good players, to have the volume of play, it changes a lot. And to benefit from Pablo's very good advice as well. »

“My athletic qualities of tennis stuck perfectly with the padel"

Padel Magazine : We will go back to the very beginning of your story. We want to know what made you go from tennis to padel.

Manu : “I was not bad at tennis, I was 0/6 when I was 17. Afterwards I went through three years of injuries, from my 17 to my 20 years. It was very hard physically and mentally as well, and it was around the age of 19 that I discovered the padel. I had pain in tennis and quite a bit in padel. So I got into it, I quickly got into the game, I agreed to play with the windows. I quickly had fun.

My athletic qualities of tennis matched perfectly with the padel. I saw that I was not bad and that there was much less competition than in tennis. You get strong fast and that's something I loved right away. Since then I have been completely passionate about padel."

Padel Magazine : What made tennis so complicated and why padel did you have any problem?

Manu “It wasn't complicated in tennis either. It's just that there are a lot of very good players in tennis, in padel we are less. In tennis I am very explosive, I had a very good arm, I was very relaxed and I go very fast. It's something that works perfectly padel and that we find in my game: I'm very fast, I move quickly, I smash very well and then there you go.

As we play on carpet and not on hard ground where there are fewer slips, less strong support, with resistance it is easier to padel. The fact that there is carpet and sand, it absorbs the shocks I think. »

In France always alongside Yann, but with whom in Spain…?

Padel Magazine : What does the future hold for you? You play with Yann Auradou, but is it a pair that will last?

Manu : “We didn't play very well the day before yesterday, it was particularly bad. I tell you again, you were bad, but it doesn't matter, you always carried me and it's thanks to you that I'm here. He plays very very well.

The future is to go to Spain from the start of the school year, after the P2000 of the Pyramides". I'm going to Spain for a year to train thoroughly. It will really change my life.

In France I will always be at Yann's side, because he is one of the very best French players and I am extremely grateful to him for everything he has done for me. So we will continue together.

In Spain I don't know yet. Either with one of the French people I'm going with: there are my friends Dylan Guichard, Julien Seurin, Philémon Raichman. There will be Ben (Tison) and Scat' too. We're all going to train together, it's going to be very nice. Maybe it will be one of the French or a young Spanish prodigy who will play alongside me. »

To follow the interview in full, it happens here:

Published by
Nasser Hoverini