GNP Acapulco P1 Premier Padel
Acapulco, Mexico
Acapulco
Mexico
Arena GNP Seguros played host to the GNP Acapulco P1 Premier Padel contest after some high-drama action that took place at the first events of the season in Riyadh and Doha – get up to date with everything that happened right here.
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Highlights – Acapulco Premier Padel P1
Watch the highlights of the third stop of the season in Mexico for the Acapulco Premier Padel P1.
01
Bringing the heat
High temperatures affected the way padel was played at the Acapulco P1 tournament. The constant beaming sunlight in Mexico forced players to adjust to unusually hot conditions. Athletes were allowed to take more frequent and longer breaks to hydrate, which resulted in longer matches that rewarded the teams in the best physical shape. Since heat causes the ball to reach higher speeds, these temperatures benefitted attacking pairs who use the smash often.
Where all the action happened
© Premier Padel/Red Bull Content Pool
Conditions, however, drastically changed once the sun set. The lower afternoon temperatures and the high humidity in Acapulco made the ball substantially slower, making for two very distinct styles of padel depending on if matches were played in the morning or in the evening.
02
The final matches for some big players
Acapulco marks a before and after in the 2024 padel season. A notable amount of highly ranked players will change team-mates starting in the next tournament in Venezuela. We saw top pairs like Alejandro Galán - Juan Lebrón, Paquito Navarro - Sanyo Gutiérrez, Fede Chingotto - Momo González, and Fernando Belasteguín - Lucho Capra play their last matches together.
End of the road for Juan Lebrón and Alejandro Galán
© juan-lebron-alejandro-galan-premier-padel-acapulco
The new landscape kicking off in the upcoming Puerto Cabello P2 tournament will already provide the most curious padel fans with a glimpse into how the world’s top pairs will look like going forward.
03
Coello and Tapia go back to back
After winning the Qatar Major in dominant fashion, top-ranked pair Arturo Coello and Agustín Tapia entered the Acapulco P1 as the favorites to take the trophy. Despite the added pressure of being the team everyone wants to beat, they managed to win consecutive trophies after displaying an excellent level yet again in Acapulco.
Agustín Tapia was in fine form
© Premier Padel/Red Bull Content Pool
Arturo Coello got his point across in Acapulco
© Premier Padel/Red Bull Content Pool
Coello-Tapia only lost a total of 15 games adding the quarter-finals, the semi-finals and the final, where they defeated Alejandro Galán and Juan Lebrón 6-0, 6-4. This final was a much anticipated one, as it involved the final appearances for Galán and Lebrón, who couldn’t end their historic partnership – 33 trophies in four years together - with another win.
Galán will team up with Fede Chingotto (ranked eighth), while Lebrón will have Momo González (ranked 15th) as his team-mate for the Puerto Cabello P2 tournament, and then play with Paquito Navarro (seventh seed) for the foreseeable future.
"There are a lot of things on my mind right now," said Coello after the match. "The support we got this week was amazing. I want to congratulate on what Ale and Juan have done – it has been an amazing journey."
"Juan and Ale made us play our best," added Tapia. "We have to be our best to beat them and I have a partner who always pulls that out as well since our very first time. He is extraordinary."
Claudia Jensen and Jessica Castelló make history
26-year-old Jessica Castelló and 18-year-old Claudia Jensen achieved a historic win in Acapulco. Entering the tournament as the seventh-seeded team, they defeated two of the three highest-ranked pairs in the world: three-seeded Gemma Triay and Claudia Fernández in the quarter-finals (6-7, 6-2, 6-2), and two-seeded Bea González and Delfina Brea in the semifinals (7-5, 6-3). In the final, they defeated six-seeded pair Virginia Riera and Sofía Araújo, 6-3, 6-4, en route to the first top-tier professional trophy in their padel career.
Claudia Jensen and Jessica Castello got the win
© Premier Padel/Red Bull Content Pool
Jensen and Castelló’s win puts an end to the initial winning streak held by the top-seeded pair Paula Josemaría and Ariana Sánchez, who won the two first tournaments of the season in Riyadh and Doha. With this win, Jensen becomes the youngest player ever to win a Premier Padel trophy (18 years, seven months and three days old).
"It was a difficult match," said Castelló. "The court felt like it was a little bit slower, which we had to adjust to. We felt that if we played well, we would win it."
"We could feel the warmth of the crowd in their response to us," added Jensen. "We were very nervous, but as the match wore on the nerves wore off and I was able to play better."
04
Coming up: Puerto Cabello Premier Padel P2
Premier Padel now heads to Venezuela, a country with a deep passion for padel, for the Puerto Cabello P2, which will mark the first-ever Premier Padel tournament in this country.
Puerto Cabello will also mark the debut of the P2 category, which awards winners 500 points, compared to 1000 in P1 tournaments, 2000 in major tournaments and 1500 in the Barcelona Tour Finals tournament, the last tournament of the season in December.