As told us in an interview the famous trainer Rodri Ovide, a game of padel is sometimes made up of a few haphazard shots, random rebounds or vicious grids which, he says, can tilt the victory in one camp or the other.

The 1/16e final of the Human Padel Toulouse Open between Benjamin Tison / Victor Mena and Javi Leal / Juan Cruz Belluati provided us with an illustration of this on Wednesday.

To speak of "hazardous shots" would not pay tribute to the superb level of play displayed by these four players, to the delight of the public at the Palais des Sports. We will rather speak here of “strokes of fate”, sometimes provoked by the players, sometimes involuntary.

From the second game, it was Victor Mena who opened the chance ball – and even the “chance ball” – with a smash hit with the edge of his racket, with a ball that just passed the net and returned. on his side because of the retro effect. A point that makes everyone smile, even if that of Leal and Belluati was rather yellow...

Audacity and success

In this first set, the audacity is on the side of Mena and Tison, to whom the spell and the net seem to smile: they are the ones who try the most, with sometimes a little success with the band. From the 4th game, they concretize this domination by taking the service of Javi Leal.

But to padel, luck rarely chooses sides all the time. After a point won following a band of Mena, the grid makes a smash by Belluati, winner, unplayable. And the band is also versatile, giving Leal a good point right after, under the sorry gaze of Tison...

Au 9e game of the first set, the band seems to clearly take the side of Leal / Belluati: at 15-30, Leal misses his return but asks and obtains a net that no one else has seen, after video review. Despite everything, the French and the Spaniard keep their break and win the first set 6/3.

A smash hit 9m from the net

Because of course, chance does not always have the upper hand over the talent, the touch of the ball, the power and the combativeness of the players. When Javi Leal, for example, unleashes a spike while glued to his window, 9 meters from the net, the fact that his ball hits the opponent's window with violence and rises to a phenomenal height owes nothing to the chance. But all about the extraordinary power and extreme topspin breathed into the ball by this "little" player, only 1,75m tall.

Game after game, Leal and Belluati work to give small boosts to fate, such as this double let in the same point which forces Tison to defend – successfully and on punto de oro – a break point….

A ball dropped from the pocket

But the next punto de oro will be the one for the Spaniards, shortly after Mena hit a winning par 4, but invalidated because his racquet hit the net before the ball left the lane.

Rarely have there been so many twists of fate as in this match, sometimes even with twists and turns: on a decisive point, Mena landed a furious winning smash, immediately challenged by Belluati. For what ? Quite simply because while jumping, a ball fell from the pocket of the great Victor (1,93 m), which cancels the benefit of the point and obliges to replay it!

This time again, Tison and Mena are doing well, but that will not be enough: in the end, it is Belluati and Leal who win in three sets (3/6 6/3 6/2). A victory which, if it owes a little something to luck, rewards those who knew best how to seize it.

The matches can be followed or relived on WPT-TV.

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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