Lotto Brussels Premier P2, day 2: Lebron-Paquito, the new era begins with a smile

Juan Lebron and Paquito Navarro were the most awaited players on the day 2 of the Lotto Brussels Premier P2. And the number 2 pair on the draw of the second P2 of the season after Puerto Cabello immediately thrilled the crowd at the Gare Maritime. Lebron and Navarro, who had already played together, beat Chipi Muñoz and Javi García in a comeback (3-6 7-5 6-1) and will face Javier Ruiz and Pablo Cardona in the round of 16. Fede Chingotto and Ale Galan, who had reached the final in Puerto Cabello on their debut on the circuit, defeated 6-3 6-4 Edu Alonso and Alex Arroyo and will face Gonzalo Rubio and Jairo Bautista on Thursday. It was also a comeback for Momo Gonzalez and Alex Ruiz: the number 6 on the draw closed out their first match against Miguel Semmler and Juan Tello in two sets (7-6 6-3), with the latter having started the season with Ruiz. Another win by the top seeds was that of Mike Yanguas and Javi Garrido (5) over Cepero/Benitez (6-3 7-5) and the one of Coki Nieto and Jon Sanz (4) already in the quarterfinals thanks to 4-6 6-1 6-4 over Windahl/Solano Marmolejo.

WOMEN If Thursday will be the day of the first four seeds in the draw (Josemaria/Sanchez, Brea/Gonzalez, Triay/Fernandez and Salazar/Icardo), Wednesday was the day of the first victory of other seeds, such as the number 7 formed by Virginia Riera and Sofia Araujo – finalist in Acapulco – who beat 7-5 6-2 Ksenia Sharifova and Lucia Martinez Gomez. Lucia Sainz and Patty Llaguno (8) also did well, 6-4 6-1 over Marta Barrera and Marta Caparros, while Ana Catarina Nogueira and Marta Talavan won the marathon of the day, 5-7 6-2 7-6 in two hours and 50 minutes over Barbara Las Heras and Victoria Iglesias. In the evening, Marta Ortega and Veronica Virseda (5) needed three sets (3-6 6-4 6-2) to beat Guinart/Martinez and reach the quarterfinals.

SAIVE At the Gare Maritime, today, there was a special guest: Jean Michel Saive, president of the Belgian Olympic Committee. “I come from table tennis, but I really like padel – said –. There is a great atmosphere here, with a lot of people in the stands enjoying the show, both in the women’s and men’s draw. Padel has had an incredible growth in recent years, with more and more people playing it and a lot of people preferring padel to tennis. I see a great future for this discipline”. A five-rings future? “Every sport would like to become one and make this extraordinary journey, padel has already been proposed in the European Games in Krakow, so its journey has already begun. So many sports are ‘fighting’ to be part of the Olympic programme and stay there, we’ll see”.