Two finals, the same story: the veterans hold their own against the challengers

Premier Padel’s debut tournament on the African continent has come to an end. We warned right from the start that this event had all the makings of a game-changer, and that’s exactly how it turned out, just as we predicted. Here’s how the finals of the Pretoria P1 played out.

How did the Pretoria Premier Padel P1 finals go?

Galán and Chingotto hold off the challenge from Leal and Guerrero

Javi Leal and Fran Guerrero are making an increasingly strong case for a place in the Spanish national team, and it’s no coincidence. After a dream week, they fell just short today, but they’ve written an important chapter: whilst they already had some very good tournaments together last season, in 2026 they’ve had the pleasure of knocking out several top seeds along the way.

Today, moreover, they even had match points against Fede Chingotto and Ale Galán in the Pretoria P1 final, and what they showed on the court was, to say the least, strange. Strange in a good way: surprising. They started off playing poorly, with Jorge Martínez’s team dominating and Fran racking up as many as twelve unforced errors in the first set, which resulted in a resounding 6-2 for what is currently the world’s second-best couple.

But here’s the crux of the matter: after putting in a poor performance, a far cry from what we’d seen all week, they got into the match and never let go. They produced the form that had seen them knock out the world number one and number three couples, and levelled the tie with a 7-5 win for the young Andalusians.

The whole stadium was behind them: Guerrero dictating the pace of the match from start to finish, and Leal fearlessly moving to the net against Galán. It all came down to the sudden-death tie-break in the third set, where Chingotto and Galán had that bit of luck that only experience brings, and they took the title.

Claudia Fernández and Martina Calvo are set to make history

What a debut for these two players in their first tournament together. And that’s not setting the bar too high, nor putting them on a pedestal: it’s just being realistic. Martina Calvo’s emergence at this age makes no sense; it’s daunting to see her going head-to-head, quite literally, against Gemma Triay. We were already familiar with Claudia Fernández, and it’s equally astonishing that she looks like a seasoned veteran.

Gemma Triay and Delfi Brea clinched their fifth title of the season – their second in a row – with a tight 6-2/6-7/7-6 victory. It felt very much like the other final. Martina and Claudia even had the chance to serve out the match, and they only lost the third-set tie-break because their opponents have that extra bit of experience and know-how that makes all the difference; for no other reason. It was a match between the older players and the youngsters, in which a stunning upset came within a hair’s breadth.