The entire Dutch padel top gathered in Norg last weekend for the Order Padel Siux P5000 Open Padel Tournament. Local hero Ids Hannema stranded with yet another new partner in the quarterfinals.
P500 tournaments are the highest regarded tournaments of the KNLTB and so the entire Dutch top reported this weekend in Drenthe. Ids Hannema, number 22 in the Netherlands and living in Norg, lobbied among the top players to come to Norg. A few had to be convinced, because the Drenthe village is still quite a drive away for many. The promise of hotel stays in the area convinced the last doubters.
Hannema stranded with his brand new partner Xander Aué in the quarterfinals. At the Cream Crackers P500 tournament in Groningen, the former FC Groningen youth football player had reached the semi-finals with Thijs Roper, but in Norg Roper played this time with Jorrit Notenboom, his best padel friend.
‘It seems a bit GTST’
It is not uncommon in padelland: players change partners faster than Gordon. ,,Xander is already my sixth partner this season”, says Hannema. ,,Six different partners, unbelievable. In my student days I would have been proud of those numbers, but now I would have preferred to see it differently”, de Drent chuckles. ,,Thijs chose after the tournament in Groningen to continue with his best padel friend. I get that. We parted well. It seems a bit GTST, doesn’t it?”
In addition to Roper, Hannema also played with Groninger Werner Lootsma this season. That padel marriage was also not a happy one. ,,We hoped to improve each other’s strengths, but our weaknesses were magnified when we played together”, Hannema explains. However, a final break between the two has not yet come. Hannema would have liked to play with Lootsma in Norg, but he in turn played in Italy last week. A LAT relationship doesn’t work for padellers.
Get used to it
And so Hannema had to look for a new padel love again. He found it in the young Xander Aué from Utrecht. In the first round in Norg, played on Saturday, the two were on the track together for the first time. The duo of Ralph Boekema and Rick Landa was defeated 6-3, 6-4. An excellent start to the weekend, although it took some getting used to for the two.
,,Of course you know each other from the circuit, but you don’t know what it’s like to play together”, says Hannema. “You find out during the game. We noticed that we both very actively defend the center of the field, because our previous partners did less. We both had to get used to that and we still have to make good agreements about it in the future.”
After the victory over Boekema/Landa, a meeting followed in the quarterfinals against Nikander Damianos and Moos Sporken, the numbers 7 and 8 of the Dutch padel rankings. Hannema and Aué went down 4-6, 6-7 (4). ,,Rightly so”, concluded Hannema. ,,Moos played in the youth at the national tennis top. The courts were wet and then a tennis background helps even more. His backhand was unparalleled.”
Newlywed couple extends honeymoon
With the defeat in the quarterfinals in Norg, the padel marriage between Hannema and Aué does not end yet. The brand new couple is extending their honeymoon with a nice trip to the Italian Agrigento. Hannema hopes to become more and more attuned to Aué and to have found a partner for the near future.
Bram Meijer and Uriël Maarsen have proven that a permanent partner for padeller players can be a key to success. For years they were unapproachable. The duo became Dutch champion no fewer than five times. Last year, the couple decided to separate. The results were somewhat disappointing and Meijer found a new partner in Sten Richters. That duo has been together for a year, a long relationship in padel land.
Meijer and Richters, the current numbers 1 and 2 in the Netherlands, defeated former professional football player Mark Veldmate and his partner Jort Nijdam 6-3, 6-2 in the first round, a result that Veldmate, now a padel teacher, was extremely satisfied with.
Meijer and Richters steamed through to the final and won on Sunday in front of two hundred padel fans in two sets against the numbers 3 and 4 of the Netherlands, Menno Nolten and Bart van Opstal. The match point, a spectacular rally, as there are many in padel, was used by Richters.