Padel
Play padel like Alejandro Galán: master the skills that set him apart
He runs like a defender, hits like a heavyweight and reads the game two shots ahead. A look at the five qualities that make Alejandro Galán so difficult to beat.
There is a kind of player who can be beaten by taking away a single weapon. Alejandro Galán is not one of them. He doesn't lean on one thing he does better than everyone else. He has a wide range of weapons, and they tend to surface in the same match.
For three seasons, he and Juan Lebrón owned the top of the rankings, forming one of the most successful pairings the sport has produced. He's now achieving a version of the same feat with Federico Chingotto, forming the duo widely known as 'Chingalán'. They lead the race in 2026 and sit near the summit of the FIP list. The consensus on the circuit is consistent: the man on the left side is about as complete as padel players come.
For an opponent, the difficulty is that there is nowhere to attack him that genuinely hurts. Close one door, and another opens. Any single one of his strengths would place him among the elite. Together, they form the basis of a serious argument that he's the best player in the world.
The five key skills below explain why.
01
Physicality: the best engine in the game
Alejandro Galán matches technique with endurance
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At the very top, talent only goes so far without the physical base to support it, and Galán's base is among the strongest on tour.
He is a big man, listed at around 1.86m and built to match, yet he moves like a player half a head shorter. That combination is unusual. The reach and power of a tall athlete and the court coverage of a small, quick one arrive in the same frame. His mix of speed, endurance and strength comes from a relentless work ethic. “I don’t consider training a sacrifice”, he says. Unsurprisingly, “Ale” is widely known as one of the hardest-working players on the tour.
Galán’s athletic ability shows most clearly on points that look lost. A ball driven into the corner, the type that should be a clean winner, is somehow retrieved off the glass, and the rally is dragged back to neutral. Many players defend well, but few turn hopeless positions into level or winning ones as often as he does.
The same physicality drives his aerial shots, the smash, and the x3, from positions where most players would settle for keeping the ball alive. His preparation allows him to hit shots at the right time and in the right position. And it's still there in the third set, when opponents begin to fade, and his speed around the court does not.
Technique can be taught, tactics can be drilled, and physicality can be improved. The raw athletic foundation Galán plays on, however, is rare, and it underpins everything else on this list.
02
Versatility: no holes in his game
Alejandro Galán is an elite-level all-rounder
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Most players, even very good ones, carry a weapon and a weakness, and matches turn on hiding one while exposing the other. In Galán's case, the weakness is hard to locate.
Defence, attack, overhead shots, serve, volleys, smash… Galán sits at or near the top of every single aspect of the game. Forced to the back wall, he throws low bombs or precise lobs, countering and grinding his way forward until the rally is level again.
Once he's reached the net, he closes the point down with relentless volleying and unstoppable smashes. A baseline war tends to end with his consistency outlasting the other side, and an attempt to overpower him is usually met and then raised.
That all-around mastery is what wears teams down, especially across three sets in a long match, and it’s the reason why his nickname is “The Alien”. Against him, there is no single plan to fall back on, no soft spot to attack, no shot that can be fed to him repeatedly in the hope of a breakdown. Beating Galán requires beating almost every part of his game on the same afternoon, which is a demanding ask for any pair.
03
Reflexes: the instincts that bring crowds to their feet
Anticipation and instincts are key to Galán's game
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Galán’s collection of jaw-dropping shots is unparalleled. At the net, the ball travels faster than the eye can comfortably track, yet Galán plays as if he has already seen it. A shot drilled straight at his body at full pace, the kind that handcuffs most players, comes back off his racket under control and lands somewhere useful. His blocks are replayed again and again, and still defy easy explanation.
Much of it is anticipation and instincts, rather than pure hand speed. It’s almost as if Galán can read the ball’s trajectory off the opponent's racket face, registering its direction before contact. Whatever the pace or shot coming at him, he is ready to answer. The behind-the-back volley, the between-the-legs that drops in against the odds, the instinctive scoop off the glass… All of these seemingly impossible shots trace back to the same quality.
Reaction time can be sharpened in training. Being in the right place that consistently sits closer to a sixth sense than to anything that can be drilled.
04
Decision making: the brain behind the power
Alejandro Galán rarely makes the wrong decision on a padel court
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All the movement and shot-making in the world mean little if the wrong option keeps being chosen, and Galán's decision-making may be his most underrated asset.
He seldom plays the wrong ball. He knows when to take the pace off with a chiquita and when to commit to the smash, how hard to strike it, how high to take it off the glass, and when a lob is the smarter choice to make. Where others force the issue and miss, he plays the percentages and waits for his opponents’ expected error.
That judgement is the line between a great athlete and a great all-around padel player. Each point contains numerous small decisions, and over the course of a match, the player who keeps choosing correctly and makes fewer mistakes pulls ahead. Galán does so often enough that opponents rarely receive the cheap free points that decide tight sets. Everything has to be earned against him, and very little is handed over.
05
Leadership: putting the team on his shoulders
Alejandro Galán is a leader on the court
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Padel is a doubles sport, and the strongest left-side players do more than hit the ball: they lead the team.
As a left side player, Galán covers more ground and absorbs a larger share of the shots than his team-mate, and he has turned that responsibility into something close to an art.
He communicates constantly: where the opponents are positioned, which ball to take and which to leave, which type of shot to play, when to switch sides... His partner receives that stream of information almost shot after shot.
It sounds minor, but it's not. When both players know the plan before the ball arrives, the pair moves as one unit rather than two individuals reacting separately. It's likely why Galán has built winning teams alongside very different partners. First with Lebrón, a versatile and aggressive right-side player, and now with Chingotto, a precise defender and builder, who has said openly that Galán is the best partner of his career.
The best pairs win because both minds work in tandem. On Galán's side of the court, there's rarely any doubt about whose voice is setting the tempo.
06
Bonus: the mindset of a winner
Alejandro Galán's mindset wins matches
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Most of what appears above can, in some form, be trained or taught. The mentality Galán carries into a tight third set is the exception. Training under the guidance of his coach and mentor Jorge Martínez, who provided him with the opportunity to train and bet on him when he was just a junior, he operates under a key principle: “daily work, effort, and to give back the trust to people that trusted me.”
With this mindset, Galán manages a match the way seasoned competitors do, judging when to make noise and when to fall silent. At times, he places an exclamation mark on a point with a thunderous smash and a roar, a clear signal of control to the opposing pair. At others, he does the reverse, lowering the tempo and staying ice-cold while the pressure settles on the other side of the net.
Above all, Galán desire to win is constant. He takes losses as an opportunity to reflect on what he could have done better to fuel his next win. “Defeats made me stronger. They made me realise that winning is what I truly wanted”, he says.
His focus is always sharp, and the right mental gear seems available whenever he reaches for it. That mentality is the thread connecting the rest: the athleticism, the all-round game, the reflexes, the decisions, and the leadership, and a large part of why, on the right day, it is genuinely difficult to name a better player.
07
The 'Alien' factor
The truest measure of Galán is not the ranking or the trophy count. It is the look on his opponents’ faces across the net in the closing games of a tight match: the slow realisation that the ball keeps coming back, the gaps keep closing, and the points that felt won somehow were not.
Power can be matched and patterns can be scouted. Facing a player with no soft edge and no sign of panic is much harder to rehearse. His opponents tend to walk off having tried everything they had, only to find that everything had already been covered.
08
Where can I watch Alejandro Galán play?
You can watch Alejandro Galán and every Premier Padel match live on Red Bull TV. For full tournament schedules, results, and player news, head to the Premier Padel website.
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