Premier Padel: Brea-Triay stop Giulia Dal Pozzo’s run, in the final they will face Ustero-Sanchez who win the longest match in history (over 4 hours)
“An incredible week.” This is how Giulia Dal Pozzo defines the ride at the Foro Italico, which made her become the first Italian to gain access to a semi-final of a Major on the Premier Padel circuit. The 21-year-old from Romagna concluded her fantastic tournament on a Saturday which still gave her an ovation from Central: “Nuria Rodriguez and I understood that we could compete with the top couples in the world, but my level of padel still has to improve a lot.”
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To stop Giulia and Nuria it took the number 1s in the FIP rankings, namely Delfi Brea and Gemma Triay. The Argentine and the Spanish never gave their opponents the chance to believe in yet another feat, prevailing with a double 6-3. The second semi-final was infinitely more competitive, lasting 4 hours and 12 minutes: in the history of Premier Padel only one match had lasted over 4 hours, for a few seconds, therefore a record broken. After winning the first set 7-5, Josemaria-Gonzalez seemed ready to seize the 23rd consecutive victory, but they missed three match points and ended up losing in the tie-break. From there an interminable third set began, also lengthened by a series of “reviews” for dubious balls. To decide the second finalist couple, another tie-break was needed, after two match points missed by Ustero-Sanchez in the 12th game: Andrea and Ari came out on top, thanks to a few too many gifts from Bea.
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In the comparison between former “Galacticos”, speaking of men’s padel, Ale Galan once again prevailed over Juan Lebron. The “Chingalan” can count on Federico Chingotto who is always a monster of solidity, while the “pareja” Lebron-Augsburger is capable of very high peaks but also susceptible to blackouts at any moment. A missed smash by Augsburger sent the tie-break of the first set towards the Chingalans, an error by “Lobo” cost the break which led to the second set leading to 6-3 with which the match ended. The last match of the day pitted Coello-Tapia against Gonzalez-Campagnolo: the number 1s on the scoreboard had no problem eliminating the most surprising pair of the tournament, capable of beating Yanguas-Stupaczuk and Di Nenno-Navarro: the score was 6-1 6-4.