Focus on…Malaga. The province of Andalucia with the most courts

The Premier Padel circuit this week stops in Malaga, on the Costa del Sol, with the Palacio de Deportes José María Martín Carpena hosting the second Andalucian stage of 2024 of Premier Padel after the P2 in Sevilla. Malaga is the province of Andalusia with the largest number of clubs and facilities (around 200) and courts (more than 740) and, at a national level, it follows Madrid, Barcelona, Valencia and Alicante. Throughout the Spanish territory, according to estimates by the FIP Research & Data Analysis Department, there are more than 4,300 structures and 16,500 courts, while the Andalusian padel movement (over 3,100 courts) is led by the Federación Andaluza de Padel (FAP) in concert with the Federación Española de Padel (FEP). In 2024, the FAP has a number of licenses of 8,746 players, 200 federated clubs, 156 national coaches and 43 national referees (data source: FEP, updated in June 2024).

The P1 of Malaga is the twelfth tournament (of which 11 combined) of the FIP circuits to be played in this province, the first in the history of the Premier Padel circuit. Five tournaments were held in Mijas (four FIP Rise and one FIP Star), then three FIP Rise in Estepona, two in Marbella (FIP Promotion and Rise) and one FIP Promotion in Torremolinos. The curiosity lies in the fact that all the winners of these tournaments were Spanish, with the exception of the Italian (but resident in Malaga) Lorena Vano, who won the FIP Rise Mijas in 2021 with her Malaguena partner Alba Perez and in 2023 the FIP Promotion of Torremolinos with Lorena Alonso. There are 10 native players from the city of Malaga in the Top 100 of the FIP world ranking, distributed equally between the two genders: five men and five women, all registered in their home tournament with the exception of Maria Del Carmen Villalba, who retired at the end of 2023 but still present in the rankings in position number 71.

Among the men, the highest in the ranking is Miguel Yanguas (born in 2002, currently number 10) who is seeded number 5 in the tournament with Javi Garrido; the other seed, number 7, will be Alex Ruiz (born 1994, number 14), paired with Momo Gonzalez. A pair entirely made in Malaga is the one formed by the young Jairo Bautista (born in 2001, number 36) and Francisco Guerrero (born in 2003, number 45), who reached the round of 16 at the BNL Italy Italy Major after defeating the winners of Bordeaux Nieto-Sanz and the young Argentine promises Libaak-Augsburger before giving up the match against the pair that would go on to win the tournament, the one formed by Chingotto and Galan, due to Guerrero’s injury. Last in the Top 100 is José Solano Marmolejo (born in 2000, number 62) paired with the Swedish Daniel Windahl, directly qualified for the main draw.

Among the women, the star is certainly Bea Gonzalez (born in 2001, number 5), already winner of six Premier Padel tournaments (including four P2s in 2024 in Puerto Cabello, Bruxelles, Sevilla and Asuncion), who plays with Delfi Brea as seeding number 2; always in the main draw the ‘evergreen’ Carolina Navarro (born in 1976, number 42), paired with Laia Rodriguez; then there are Marta Caparros (born in 2001, number 44) with her partner Marta Barrera and, finally, Carmen Castillon (born in 2002; number 63) who with Raquel Piltcher was eliminated in the qualifiers.