Roland Garros: The Padel Major casts its shadow ahead
At the beginning of July, a padel major will be held for the first time at the Stade Roland Garros. The trend sport has been paying its respects to the French Open for a few days.
by Jens Huiber
last edit: Jun 05, 2022, 02:45 pm
By Jens Huiber from Roland Garros
One could almost have thought that the organizers of the French Open wanted to establish their padel court quietly and secretly in the Stade Roland Garros. While Rafael Nadal and Novak Djokovic were contesting the 69th edition of their eternally young duel on the Philippe-Chatrier court on Tuesday evening, some resourceful specialists set about converting Court 5, which had previously been used for training, into a playground for the padel experts.
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Of course, nobody here wants to let the upcoming Padel Major, which is scheduled to start on July 11th, fall under the table. There was a press conference on Thursday, followed by an exhibition fight, which showed one thing above all: when really good players do a sport really well, then the whole thing looks really easy. Of course it isn't - but the frustration tolerance does not have to be nearly as pronounced in padel beginners as it is in people who are inspired by the performance of tennis professionals to try their first shots in the local tennis club.
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The search for the local heroes
In any case, the French Tennis Federation is keen to take advantage of the boom in padel sport. The problem with this, which basically affects all countries: So far, only the Spaniards and Argentines have dominated the world rankings. Among the top 50 men's rankings at the International Padel Federation (FIP) are three Brazilians and one Chilean. The best Frenchman is Benjamin Tison in 65th place. It's difficult to promote the local heroes in a similar way to tennis, for example.
The prospects for women are a little better: Alix Collombon is in 20th place, but of course the Argentines and Spaniards set the tone here.
Tournaments like the Major in Roland Garros are exactly the right stage to increase the general awareness of padel. But it is probably even more important that local players also get a chance at international tournaments. And be it via wildcards, like those received by the top Austrian couple Christoph Krenn and David Alten for the Vienna Padel Open next week in the STEFFL Arena in Vienna.
In Roland Garros, the Philippe-Chatrier court is to be played, as Gilles Moretton, President of the French Tennis Federation, announced on Thursday. Not at full capacity, but at least with up to 8,000 spectators in the stands.
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