Focus on…Finland. All set for the world’s northernmost tournament

After the FIP European Padel Championships, the Premier Padel circuit comes back this week with the Finland Premier Padel P2, the fourteenth stop of the season, scheduled to take place at PadelOne, an indoor arena with a capacity of 3,000 and six courts located in Pitkäniemi, between Tampere and Nokia. An arena, this one, built specifically for padel competitions. The Finland Premier Padel P2 2024, a tournament that precedes the August break, is also the northernmost tournament on the entire world professional tour. It’s also the first tournament in Finland of an official FIP circuit, in a nation that has 230 clubs and 1,100 courts.

Padel, in Finland, has lived strong growth in recent years: in 2016 there were only 20 courts, which became just over 200 in 2020: today, according to the FIP Research & Data Analysis Department, the number of courts has more than quintupled, and a strong impetus to the movement is due to the work of Suomen Padelliitto, the Finnish federation founded in 2009 and joined the FIP in 2016, which now has around 100 affiliated clubs and more than 4,300 professional licences. At the international level, Finland has participated in the 2018 and 2022 FIP World Padel Championships qualifiers, with the women’s team recently competing in the FIP European Padel Championships in Cagliari, finishing in 12th place, while the men’s team didn’t reach the final stage.

In the FIP ranking there are four Finnish players with at least one point: the best-ranked is Max Sjovall (24 points, number 376), born in Turku in 1986 and the only winner of a CUPRA FIP Tour tournament, the FIP Promotion Munich in June 2021 paired with Spaniard Manuel Fernandez. Sjovall, last February, achieved a great feat, making it with fellow Argentine Juan Pablo Andrada to the final of the FIP Rise Kaunas (Lithuania) after defeating the number 7, 4 and 1 seed on the draw before losing against Italian pair Graziotti-Abbate. Also with Andrada, the Finnish number 1 is in the main draw of Finland P2 thanks to a wild card; the same goes for an all-Finnish pair of Saska Huttunen and Pyry Hyrkkönen. Martina Minetti (born in 2001 in Tampere), 15 points and number 286, is the most representative Finnish player among the five women who are on points in the FIP world ranking: she is followed by the pair formed by Ella Sillanpää and Saana Saarteinen, both ranked 358th, who will play in the main draw thanks to a wild card.