The rise of paddle tennis is amazing to see. Just as in the nineties the most exaggerated say that in the City of Buenos Aires there was one court per block, now this sport, driven by the pandemic and by a surface – synthetic grass – much more friendly to the body than the hard cement, is experiencing a second spring that reaches amateurs and also professionals. This fashion that is back is reflected throughout Argentina. There is almost no corner of the country without a paddle tennis court.
Even in the middle of the center court of the Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis Club, the Cathedral of Argentine tennis, that structure with glass walls and bars was set up. And there, where the Argentina Open 2025 will be held in February with the stellar presence of the German Alexander Zverev, this Friday the 20th, Saturday the 21st and Sunday the 22nd of December a paddle tennis tournament on clay will take place for the first time in history. Within the framework of Argentina Padel Tour, circuit that seeks to generate its own brand and, in turn, promote young talents by Prime Minister Padel, A new team competition will be held that will feature four world champions.
On one hand, Leandro Augsburger and Valentino Libaak, Members of the squad that won the 2024 Qatar World Cup, will share a team with Ignacio Piotto, number 84 in the FIP ranking, Octavio Álvarez (403rd), Lautaro Mambrini (460°) and Fabricio Peiron (522nd). From the other, Alex Chozas and Sanyo Gutiérrez, Other heavy names on the major circuit will fight for the trophy alongside the Spanish Ignacio Sager (41st) and the Argentines Juan Ignacio Rubini (153rd), Gabriel Marchesani (398th) and Cristian Ozan (497th). It will be broadcast by TyC Sports.
The coaches of each team, Ignacio Magno and Fabián Chozas, must use their six players during the three days of competition to each play a doubles match on Friday, one on Saturday and another on Sunday. That is, new matches will be played during the weekend and the one who scores the most points will be the champion.
However, not all matches add up to the same points, but will increase, as is the case with the Laver Cup, which since 2017 pits the best European tennis players against those from the “Rest of the World”. In this case, the matches played on Friday will give 1 point, those on Saturday 2 and those on Sunday 3, 5 and 7 respectively. Therefore, a battle between the four world champions is expected on the last day of action.
Ultimately, there will be 24 points at stake. Therefore, in the event of a 12-12 tie, the champion will be defined a super-tiebreak to 10 points.
The fashion of a sport that grows and is not satisfied with being world champion
The ideologist of the Argentina Padel Tour is Lisandro Borges. Passionate padel fan and businessman by vocation, he threw himself fully into the world of organizing sporting events and in 2016 he had his first contact with the world of padel rackets when he managed to get the World Padel Tour (WPT) to pass through Argentina. “I had just done the Peace Match with the Pope in Rome (2014) and two events with Tiger Woods, the last of which was the Americas Golf Cup in 2015 in Mexico, and there I contacted the people from the WPT because I was interested in to bring a date to Argentina. Everyone told me that I was crazy, that paddle tennis no longer existed, that it was going to hurt me to bring it: it cost 500 thousand dollars to buy the date and do the entire event. That same year in La Rural we had 20,000 people all week. It was incredible,” Borges told Clarín.
“When creating the Argentina Padel Tour brand we copied everything that is done in the World Padel Tour with the best players in the world and we turned it over to the kids of Argentina. They enter the court with a presenter, electronic scoreboards were incorporated, began to use the same application that the WPT uses to register for tournaments, the slips at the prize ceremonies… It is something that local players were not used to. In addition, the financial prizes were increased tenfold,” he explained. .
― Does the Argentina Padel Tour seek to train players to make the jump to the Premier Padel? (NdR: it is the circuit that, starting this 2024 season, replaced the World Padel Tour as the reference professional circuit)
― We try, first, to continue developing paddle tennis in Argentina, to keep it growing and for those who seek to be professionals to be able to make a living from paddle tennis and not teach classes or have to look for other jobs. There are tournaments that distribute up to 20 million pesos, with which players can dedicate themselves to training and competing, dreaming… just as footballers dream of taking the leap and going to Europe, in this case that leap would be the Premier Padel .
― Is it common for Argentine padel players to have to look for other jobs to live?
– Yes, practically all of them taught classes, had some other job or their parents helped them because they couldn’t afford to travel around the country. There are many expenses in transfers, travel expenses, transportation, lodging. And they played for prizes of 500 thousand or 1 million pesos. Then, it became practically impossible for them to make a living from this profession or at least try to cover so many expenses. That is now changing. Read more.