Riyadh Season P1, day 3: The tournament’s ‘fab three’ advance, Yanguas-Garrido soar

A surprise, but not too much. The Riyadh Season P1, the tournament that opens the Premier Padel season, continues to make excellent victims: After the elimination in the second round of Paquito Navarro and Sanyo Gutierrez against Javi Rico and Juanlu Esbri (who also made it through to the round of 16 and seem to be serious about it) and Fernando Belasteguin and Lucho Capra, it was the turn of Federico Chingotto and Momo Gonzalez (5), beaten 6-3 7-6 by Mike Yanguas and Javi Garrido (10), with the latter having played with Gonzalez until a few weeks ago.

The top three seeded pairs at Padel Rush are still running. Juan Lebron and Ale Galan (1) defeated Coki Nieto and Jon Sanz (9) 7-5 6-3 and now await Campagnolo/Gutierrez (13), just as Franco Stupaczuk and Martin Di Nenno (3) over Gonzalo Rubio and Maxi Sanchez (11) in two sets (6-4 6-1). Arturo Coello and Agustin Tapia (2) needed the third set, to beat the resistance of Denis Perino and Alex Chozas. The bottom half of the draw is the one that lost the most seeded players: in the quarters for Coello/Tapia there is Alejandro Arroyo and Edu Alonso (14), in a half of the main draw that also saw the defeat of Alex Ruiz and Juan Tello (7) by Sager/Oria, now awaited by Rico/Esbri.

WOMEN In the women’s draw everything went according to predictions. Seven of the eight top seeds reached the quarter-finals, with the only ‘exception’ being the victory of the eternal Carolina Navarro Bjork (48 years old) and Marina Guinart, who defeated Iglesias Segador/Las Heras (8) and in the quarters will face Delfina Brea and Bea Gonzalez (6-1 6-2 to Soriano/Mesa). The other quarter in the top half of the draw will be between Castelló/Jensen (6) and Ortega/Triay (3). At the top, ok Paula Josemaria and Ari Sanchez (1) 6-1 6-3 over Sharifova/Carnicero; in the quarters, for the world number 1s, there is Aranzazu Ozoro and Veronica Virseda (7). The other quarter is between Virginia Riera/Sofia Araujo (5) opposing Alejandra Salazar and Tamara Icardo (4): until a few weeks ago they played ‘crossed’, tomorrow they will be back on the same court but in two different halves.