In addition to being one of the best padel players in France (19th), Amelie Detriviere is the captain of the French Senior Ladies team in France.
With the senior world championships approaching, the player spoke about her ambitions for this year with her team, with some new features from this second edition. As a reminder, the World Senior Plus will take place on April 15 to 20, in Alicante.
New categories
“At the time, there was only three categories. Now there are two additional for women. In Las Vegas, there were +35, +40 and +45 years among women. For gentlemen, there were, in addition, +50 and +55 years. This year, they decided to make the number of categories fair. So, for women, there are now +50 and +55.
It's going to be a big team of fourteen players, compared to eight in Las Vegas. For me, you have to find the good players for the composition. The advantage: we go in large numbers so we can tour from time to time. If there are any injuries, we will have replacements."
A composition already ready
"I have my team in mind. On the other hand, there are players aged over 55 that I don't know well. I'm waiting to see them play to finalize my typical composition. However, as I know most of them, I still a good idea of what it can look like on the ground.
For the +55 category, it's quite complicated to see them play before because they mainly do local tournaments. Once we are there, we will play matches, to train, to see a little bit of all that. This will allow me to see the chemistry between the players."
This year's ambitions
“We want to do better than last time. We have had the bronze medal in Las Vegas, two years ago. We hope to reach a final and therefore, the silver medal.
Each time, it's a bit of an unknown, because we don't know what's going to happen in the other nations. We know that the Spanish can be complicated. Although, last year we bothered them a bit.”
A cohesive team
“Last year, we competed in the European Championships in Alicante. What was really nice was that we were a very united team and that we could really count on each other. The pairs were very homogeneous.
This year, I can already say that this will be the case and I hope that it will give us the possibility to go further in the tournament."
It was her brother who one day told her to accompany him to a padel court, since then, Gwenaëlle has never left the court. Except when it comes to going to watch the retransmission of Padel Magazine, World Padel Tour… or Premier Padel…or the French Championships. In short, she is a fan of this sport.