Focus on one of the best players in the world: Marta Marrero. The team player Black Crown Padel tells us about her way of working on the professional circuit, how she got into the padel when she was a professional tennis player who reached the quarterfinals at Roland Garros in 2000. 

How does your story begin with the padel ?

My story with the padel starts when I seriously injure myself in tennis. An ankle injury that will not allow me to continue my professional career in tennis.

I had reached the 48th world place. But my ankle will cut me off.

It was then that a friend introduced me to the padel by inviting me to play… From that day on, I started playing very regularly. At first, I had no idea that I was going to make it my job. But the more the days went by, the more it seemed obvious.

So it will be almost 8 years today that I started to padel. Tennis is behind me.

Can we say that your development has been rapid?

I have a great tennis base, so to evolve padel was very quick. Even if the shots are not necessarily the same, with training we can manage to acquire these specific shots of the padel. Obviously, you have to be well surrounded and use what you have learned.

It is also necessary to be ready to go against its possible counterproductive tennis automatisms for the padel.

It took a lot of effort to get rid of certain "tics" and acquire the strong shots of the sport. But I was able to adapt and fight to discover all the joys of playing with the walls for example… Because at the start, it was the most complicated for me.

Who will you be coached by at the start?

I started on padel with one of the grown-ups of the padel world: Juan Alday. He's the one who taught me everything.

Now, the padel therefore became my job. The work is there every day!

When did you start the tournaments of padel professionals? and with who ?

After a year of practice, I started to participate in tournaments of padel professionals. This year is my 7e year on the pro circuit.

I played a year with Nela Brito. Then 2 years with Cata Tenorio. And finally I play now since 3 years with Alejandra Salazar. I hope to be able to play one more year with her and become again the first pair worldwide.

Last year however our adventure was suspended following an injury of Alej who kept it away from the courts. I played with Cata last year.

I have the impression that the changes of pairs are less important than in the gentlemen?

Yes indeed. This is due to the options for men much larger than the ladies.

In the ladies, we have fewer options. Overall, there is less opportunity to change your pair or to change your game.

The other reason is that in the men, you have a lot of young people who play very well and who land on the circuit. Again for the ladies, this is not yet the case.

It can be said that on the professional circuit, the 8 best ladies pairs stand and have a very close level. So inevitably rotations between girls are not obvious even if some girls want it.

When you embarked on the padel, how did you know your game was left?

It was obvious. I never played right or maybe once ... But I think about it and I think that it might be interesting to test me right a year. It would be a challenge ... And maybe I'll be even more efficient ...

Alej and you don't live in the same place. How are the training sessions going?

Unlike many pairs, we don't train together for one simple reason: She's in Madrid and I'm in Barcelona.

And it works. We are not really the only ones (at the men's, Juan Martin Diaz and Fernando Belasteguin also did not train together when they played together and only saw each other during tournaments ...)

Alejandra is training in Madrid with his own coach Manu Martin. And I'm training my club in Barcelona with Juan Alday.

On the other hand, there is a lot of communication between our coaches and between Alej and me. So, our workouts are synchronized. On the tactical part, there is also a lot of communication to improve and put in place game strategies during our tournaments.

I'll go even further, not only does it work, but maybe even in our case, more complete and effective than if we train together.

Interview by Franck Binisti

 

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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