The summer break feels like the end of a cycle, but in Premier Padel it marks the start of the part that truly decides the season. From the Madrid P1 to the Barcelona Finals, there are nine tournaments left on the circuit, plus the World Cup in between, and within that period lie three of the year’s four Majors and the final title. Counting only the winner’s points from each tournament, this final stretch accounts for 11,500 of the 24,000 points awarded over the entire season: practically half the year is decided in just over a third of the tournaments.
The FIP rankings, based on the latest data, continue to be led by Arturo Coello and Agustín Tapia, on 20,980 points. Alejandro Galán and Federico Chingotto are hot on their heels, just over 3,000 points behind (a 1,290-point gap in the RACE). It seems a comfortable lead, but between a Major (2,000 points) and the Finals (1,500), there is more than enough scope for that gap to disappear.
September: the decisive moment
Madrid kicks off the competition again in the first week of September with a P1 event that awards 1,000 points to the champion and serves as a warm-up for the couples after the break. A week later, the Paris Major (7–13 September) gets underway, the first of the three remaining Majors on the calendar, with 2,000 points up for grabs for each winner. In just fifteen days, 3,000 points will already have changed hands.
Ver esta publicación en Instagram
October: the most intense month
This is the stretch with the most consecutive tournaments, and none of them can be overlooked. Rotterdam P2 (28 September to 4 October) and the Germany P2 (5–11 October) award 500 points each: less prestigious than a Major, but crucial for couples fighting to break into the top sixteen ahead of Barcelona. Next comes the Milan P1 (12–18 October), with 1,000 points up for grabs, and the month concludes with the Kuwait Major (26–31 October).
This last event has its own story. Kuwait was originally listed on the calendar as a P1 event, but in May Premier Padel and the FIP promoted it to Major status, on an exceptional basis and for this season only, after the Doha Major was suspended due to the conflict in the region. The result is a tournament that, overnight, came to be worth double the points, right at the stage where every position in the rankings begins to be decisive.
November and December: the countdown
November kicks off with the Padel World Cup, from the 2nd to the 7th, in Doha. This is the first time Qatar has hosted two consecutive editions of the tournament (it will also host in 2028) and here it is no longer the usual couples who compete, but national teams: sixteen men’s and sixteen women’s teams battling for the title by country, with a prize fund of 1.2 million euros. It does not award points towards the individual rankings, but it does determine who Spain, Argentina or Brazil choose to represent them, and that carries weight in the dressing room even if it doesn’t shift a single ranking point.
The calendar soon returns to business as usual with the Dubai P1 (9–15 November) and the Mexico Major (23–29 November), the penultimate stop of the season and the last chance to bag 2,000 points in one go before the season draws to a close. And the season finale already has a name: the Premier Padel Finals in Barcelona, from 7 to 13 December, with just sixteen couples in the draw and 1,500 points up for grabs for whoever lifts the trophy. There’s no room for anyone to fall behind there: it’s a knockout competition from the quarter-finals onwards, and an entire season can be decided in a single weekend.
|
You may be interested in: |
