Sevilla Premier Padel P2, day 1. La Cartuja on fire with Paquito and Lebron

All eyes, at the Estadio de la Cartuja, were on them: Paquito Navarro and Juan Lebron, the most awaited men of the day 1 of Sevilla Premier Padel P2. And the debut of Paquito, who plays at home in Sevilla, and Lebron, was a winning one: the number 2 seed in the men’s draw beat 7-5 6-3 in an hour and 20 minutes Javi Rico and Juanlu Esbri, whom Paquito had faced – when he played as a partner with Sanyo Gutierrez – both in Riyadh (losing), and in Doha, where a rematch had come. For Paquito and Lebron, in the round of 16, there will be Coki Nieto and Jon Sanz, semi-finalists in Puerto Cabello and Brussels, or the very young Argentines Tino Libaak and Leo Augsburger. In any case, a match to be lived and watched.

RESULTS Many balanced matches in day 1 of the sixth round of the season’s Premier Padel circuit: Alex Ruiz and Momo Gonzalez, the number 7 seed, needed a double tiebreak to eliminate Gutierrez/Rico, as did Lucho Capra and Alex Chozas who won by the same score over brothers Pedro and Alvaro Melendez. In the evening, after the game was delayed due to rain, Maxi Sanchez and Sanyo Gutierrez completed their winning debut (6-1 6-4) against Moyano/Gil. In the women’s draw, the only seeded pair to take the court was Lucia Sainz and Patty Llaguno, number 8 on the draw: they made a winning debut with a 6-2 7-6 win over Ksenia Sharifova and Lucia Martinez Gomez, respectively numbers 37 and 27 in the FIP ranking.

DAY 2 Wednesday at La Cartuja will be a show: in the fifth and sixth matches on the centre court the two finalist pairs of the Lotto Brussels Premier P2 will play, with Fede Chingotto and Ale Galan (3) opposing Javi Ruiz and Pablo Cardona, followed by Arturo Coello and Agustin Tapia (1) against José Antonio Diestro and Pablo Lijo. For the ‘Superpibes’ Franco Stupaczuk and Martin Di Nenno (4), on the other hand, there is the Italian Denis Perino and the Spanish Marc Quilez, a pair from the qualifiers. But one of the most interesting matches of the day will be the one between Miguel Lamperti and Juan Cruz Belluati (who arrived in Brussels just a point away from beating Coello and Tapia) against Fernando Belasteguin (who will come back on court) and Juan Tello. Among the women, debuts for pairs number 5 (Marta Ortega and Veronica Virseda against Ana Catarina Nogueira and Marta Talavan), 6 (Jessica Castelló and Claudia Jensen against Carmen Castillon and Carolina Orsi) and 7 (Virginia Riera and Sofia Araujo against Elena De La Rosa Ramos and Maria Portillo).