Day 6: What a night in Acapulco! Feats of Stupa-Yanguas and Ortega-Araujo

One of the most exciting days of the season, a very high level of padel, four matches one more uncertain than the other. In the end the Premier Padel GNP Mexico Major elected its finalists, who from 5 p.m. Mexican time (midnight CET) will play for the last Major in 2024. Arturo Coello and Agustin Tapia against Franco Stupazcuk and Mike Yanguas among the men, Gemma Triay and Claudia Fernandez against Marta Ortega and Sofia Araujo among the women. But the semifinals could have ended in a thousand other ways.

MEN Juan Lebron and Martin Di Nenno, in the second men’s semifinal that ended when it was past 3 a.m. in Acapulco, seriously challenged Coello and Tapia’s record of 38 victories. In the end, after two hours and 8 minutes of show, the tournament’s number 1 seed managed to win, closing 6-3 3-6 7-6 at the end of a tiebreak that started with a masterpiece by Di Nenno and ended with a crazy point by Tapia. Credit, however, to Di Nenno and Lebron for forcing the dominators of 2024 (and chasing their 13th title of the season) to play at their highest level to win. In the other semi-final, however, came the second consecutive feat of Franco Stupaczuk and Mike Yanguas who, as happened in Kuwait City, stopped in the semi-final the run of Fede Chingotto and Ale Galan (2), who after 14 finals in the first 14 tournaments played together stopped for the second time in a row on Saturday. It ended 7-6 7-5 in two hours and 19’, with the first set lasting as long as an hour and 20’, and with a point at the start of the second set from 94 strokes. Second final in a row, then, for Stupa and Yanguas, with the Spanish surpassing Lebron in the FIP Race, moving up from eighth to seventh place and playing his second Major final of the season after Doha when he was paired with Javi Garrido. There are two precedents between the finalist pairs, both won by Coello and Tapia: before the Kuwait City final, in fact, victory had come in the semifinal of the Major in Paris.

WOMEN If the semifinals of the men’s draw were exciting, the women’s ones were no less so. Paula Josemaria and Ari Sanchez will not be able to win their fourth Major in a row: after their triumphs in Doha, Rome and Paris, the number 1 in the FIP ranking lost against Marta Ortega and Sofia Araujo, the number 4 seed, who were able to come back from a set down and impose themselves after two hours and 59 minutes of struggle (3-6 6-3 7-6) and after a breathtaking tiebreak that ended 11-9 for the Spanish and Portuguese players. In the first semi-final, however, Gemma Triay and Claudia Fernandez (2) defeated Delfi Brea and Bea Gonzalez (3) 7-5 6-2. Five breaks in a first set characterised by the twists and turns, while in the second the all-Spanish pair raised the level by closing in one hour and 38 minutes. Only one precedent between the two finalist pairs, in the semi-final of the P1 in Rotterdam, with the victory (6-4 6-3) of Gemma and Claudia, who will go hunting for their fifth title of the season. It would be the first Major as a pair, as for Ortega and Araujo, winners in the P2 in Genova and NewGiza. Triay and Ortega, by the way, had triumphed together last year in Rome in the first Major played in ‘combined’ mode.