Focus on…Madrid. A city with courts, passion and top players

The Premier Padel circuit restarts at the WiZink Center in Madrid. The Comunidad de Madrid Premier P1 is the third event of the Premier Padel season to be held in Spain after the Sevilla P2 and the Malaga P1: this is the third edition after those of 2022 and 2023. Spain, where padel began to spread since the 1980s, is the country with the largest number of practitioners in the world (more than 5.5 million) and courts (more than 16,500); Madrid is also the province of Spain with the largest number of clubs (more than 380) and facilities (more than 2,230) and is also the local area with the most courts in the world, followed by Barcelona and Rome (in terms of number of clubs Madrid is in second place after Rome). According to estimates by the FIP Research & Data Analysis Department, in 2024 the Comunidad de Madrid is currently the first region in the world with the highest number of fans following professional padel (16%), followed by Catalunya (9%) and Andalusia (8%). The Madrilenian padel movement is led by the Federación Madrilena de Padel (FMP), in concert with the Federación Española de Padel (FEP): the latter has reached a record number of professional licences this year, more than 102,000 throughout Spain. The FMP, created in 1998, presents in 2024 a number of licences of 9,979 players (38.7% women),134 federated clubs, 175 national coaches and 24 national referees (Data source: FEP – update August 2024).

Tournaments. More than 100 tournaments of the official FIP, CUPRA FIP Tour and Premier Padel circuits (23% of the total world tournaments) have been held in Spain since 2020, of which 55 were men’s and 49 women’s. There were 278 triumphs (including 43 Premier Padel) with at least one Spaniard on the court in the 458 FIP tournaments played. In the men’s category, 104 pairs formed by all-Spanish players and 62 with partners from other countries have won, in the women’s category 78 all-Spanish pairs and 34 with foreign partners. The total number of Spanish athletes who have won a FIP professional circuit title is 230: the multiple winners are in the men’s draws Arturo Coello (13 titles, including 11 Premier Padel) and Ale Galan (11, all Premier), in the women’s one Ari Sanchez (7 Premier titles) followed by Bea Gonzalez, Jessica Castelló and Laura Lujan with 6.

Ranking. There are 27 Madrid-born players in the Top 100 of the FIP World Ranking, 12 among men and 15 among women. In the men’s category, the highest ranked and already winner of six Premier Padel stages this year is the great champion Ale Galan (3), who together with Federico Chingotto will be seeded number 2 in the tournament. The number 8 seed is instead Coki Nieto, paired with Jon Sanz. Among the women there are many icons of the sport such as former number 1 Ale Salazar – number 12 and who will be seeded number 5 paired with Jessica Castelló – and Marta Ortega, number 7, who with Sofia Araujo will form the tournament’s number 4 pair. Also to watch are Claudia Fernandez (6), who with Gemma Triay forms the world number 3 pair, and Claudia Jensen (10), who despite having an Argentinean passport was born in the city where the Premier Padel resumes after the summer break.