Day 5 men Italy, another heroic feat. Saturday’s challenge to the super champions of Spain

Not one final, but two. Just as in the women’s, the men’s FIP European Padel Championships will also be a duel between Spain and. On one side, the dominators of European and world padel, on the other the hosts who, also on the decisive day, will count on the Cagliari crowd to conquer their second (in the case of the men, after the 2019 title, also in Italy, in Rome) or first continental title, in the case of the women.

Just like the women’s one, which lasted over seven hours, the men’s tie between Italy and France was a very long battle. The French had started well with Bastien Blanqué and Thomas Leygue’s 6-3 6-4 win over Giulio Graziotti and Aris Patiniotis, but Johan Bergeron and Adrien Maigret had also started well, winning the first set against Facundo Dominguez and Riccardo Sinicropi. Then, however, Italy’s great heart (already shown in the quarterfinals against Sweden) came out and led to a comeback in the second match (which lasted two hours and 37 minutes with the score of 6-7 6-3 7-5) and to Simone Cremona and Marco Cassetta’s victory in the decisive match against Maxime Joris and Maxime Moreau. Cremona and Cassetta waited from the sidelines to enter during the last points of the match for Dominguez and Sinicropi (to whom Cassetta promised to reward all the hard work), then did their duty by closing 6-1 6-7 6-3.

On the other side will be Spain, winners of 10 of the previous 12 editions of the FIP European Padel Championships, and who took only two matches to win the tie against Portugal. But they were two hard-fought matches: Alex Arroyo and Pablo Cardona needed three sets (6-1 4-6 6-0) against Pedro Araujo and Antonio Luque, while Javi Leal and Alex Ruiz stayed on the court for an hour and 42 minutes before defeating brothers Nuno and Miguel Deus 6-4 7-6.