The Circuit

The lead note

Three of the four players in Sunday's women's final at the Paris Major are the last three to have held Premier Padel's record for its youngest title winner. On Court Philippe-Chatrier, Ari Sanchez and Andrea Ustero, the third seeds, beat Claudia Fernandez and Martina Calvo, the fourth, 6-2, 6-0. The International Padel Federation's report puts the match at an hour and 11 minutes.

The record is for the youngest winner of a Premier Padel title, and the FIP has counted it on that basis in the three releases that reported each new holder. Fernandez took it at the Santiago P1 on 3 June 2024, aged eighteen years and three months, breaking the mark Claudia Jensen had held since winning the Acapulco P1 on 24 March that year. Ustero took it from Fernandez at Bordeaux on 6 July 2025, at eighteen years, one month and 24 days. Calvo took it from Ustero at the London P1 on 9 August this year, at eighteen years, one month and four days. The FIP's release from London gave the margin: "superando en 20 días el récord de Andrea Ustero". The English, here and after each Spanish quotation below, is ours: beating Andrea Ustero's record by 20 days.

Each of those steps is the FIP's. Connecting the three in this final is ours, because the federation's report of the final does not mention the record at all.

So the player in the middle of the sequence won the final, for the loss of two games. Ustero, afterwards: "No podía haber elegido una mejor manera de ganar mi primer Major". I could not have chosen a better way to win my first Major. The FIP's report records that she had been forced to miss the tournaments in Malaga and Pretoria through injury, and that she and Sanchez had also been finalists in Rome.

Sanchez spoke about the injury: "Cuando Andrea tuvo la lesión estábamos a un buen nivel, pero forma parte del deporte". When Andrea was injured we were playing well, but it is part of the sport. And about the court: "Ganar aquí, en una pista como Philippe-Chatrier, jugando a nuestro mejor nivel, es realmente especial." Winning here, on a court like Philippe-Chatrier, playing at our best level, is really special. The same report gives Fernandez and Calvo their due for "haber alcanzado su primera final de un Major en apenas su cuarto torneo juntas", having reached their first Major final in only their fourth tournament together.

In the men's final, Arturo Coello and Agustin Tapia, the top seeds, beat Fede Chingotto and Ale Galan, the second seeds, 6-3, 4-6, 7-6, and the FIP has the final tie-break closed out 7-1. The FIP's report counts "Cuatro títulos consecutivos en París", four titles in a row in Paris, and records Sunday's as the pair's 40th Premier Padel title together. It puts the week's crowd at 81,000.

On Sunday the last three to have held the record played in the women's final, while the men's title, on the same court, went to the same pair for the fourth year running.

At Roland Garros

The Paris Major has been played at Roland Garros since 2022. The French Tennis Federation, the FFT, announced it on 2 April that year, for 11 to 17 July, "dans le cadre d'un accord pluriannuel", under a multi-year agreement (the English after each French quotation in this section is ours). The same release described the Paris event as "le premier tournoi de la catégorie Major annoncé en Europe", the first tournament of Major rank announced in Europe. On 20 January this year the FFT wrote that September's event would be played at the stadium for the fifth consecutive year. The FIP's event page lists six competition courts, at an outdoor venue.

In its release of 13 May, the FFT said that it "poursuit sa volonté de développer la pratique du padel partout en France", pursuing its wish to develop the playing of padel throughout France.

Rome's Major has reached a fifth edition as well. The FIP's release of 14 May placed this year's at the Foro Italico, from 31 May to 7 June, and said the event had been on the Premier Padel calendar since 2022.

In Britain, the LTA announced on 13 November 2020 that padel had been "officially recognised as a discipline of tennis in Britain, with the LTA being confirmed as its national governing body". Premier Padel's London P1, in August, was played at Olympia. Wimbledon is the All England Club's tournament: the club's own jobs site says it "organises and stages" the Championships. We found no public statement from the All England Club about padel.

Whether padel could one day be played at Wimbledon is, on everything we can document, an open question.

This week in the game

Alejandra Salazar, whose farewell in Madrid led last week's edition, went out of Paris in the quarter-finals. Sanchez and Ustero beat her and Aranzazu Osoro 6-3, 3-6, 6-2.

Neither of the top two women's seeds reached the final. Marta Ortega and Sofia Araujo, seeded five, beat Paula Josemaria and Bea Gonzalez, the second seeds, 2-6, 7-6, 7-6 in a quarter-final in which Ortega and Araujo, on the FIP's account, saved five match points. In the semi-finals Fernandez and Calvo beat Delfi Brea and Gemma Triay, the top seeds and defending champions, 6-4, 6-2, and Sanchez and Ustero came from a set down to beat Ortega and Araujo 5-7, 6-4, 6-1. On the men's side, Coello and Tapia beat Juan Lebron and Leo Augsburger 7-5, 6-3, and Chingotto and Galan beat Martin Di Nenno and Paquito Navarro 7-5, 6-2.

In Bucharest, at the FIP Gold, Lucia Martinez and Leti Manquillo won the women's title in their first tournament as a pair, beating Araceli Martinez and Laura Lujan 6-2, 7-5. David Gala and Enzo Jensen took the men's final from Manuel Aragon and Albert Roglan, 7-5, 7-6.

The FIP Senior World Cup reaches its final phase in Buenos Aires today. The FIP's tournament information runs the event from 11 to 19 September in two parts: men's qualifying from 11 to 13 September, then the final phase for men's and women's teams, which ends with the medals on Saturday. That accounts for both ranges printed here last week: the FIP's range is the whole event's, and LTA Padel's matches the final phase. Each tie is five matches, one in each age band from 40+ to 60+. Great Britain and Ireland each have a men's and a women's team in the final phase, and LTA Padel names Libby Fletcher as captain of both British teams. No tie in the final phase had been reported when this edition was compiled.

Amendments

Where we change something we have already published, and why.

Edition №4, on 17 August, reported Natividad Lopez Diaz's win in the women's Bronze final at Barcelona El Prat. It said she went into that final "with a record already in her name", and that "FIP's own headline calls her the Cupra FIP Tour's most successful woman, the first to eight titles on it."

That was stronger than FIP had put it, and out of date. The record clause was ours. Of the rest, only "most successful woman" came from the headline, on FIP's release of 13 January 2025. The body underneath said something narrower: she had become the first woman to eight titles on the tour, level with several men, with Jairo Bautista ahead on nine. We took the headline, 19 months after it was written, and printed it as though it described the week.

FIP's release of 17 August 2026, the day №4 went up, said the El Prat win took her to 15 titles, "a record she shares with Leti Manquillo". The record clause has now been removed from №4, the sentence after it follows the body of the January release, and a dated note at the foot of the edition sets out both releases.

№4's paragraph on the final also said she and Aida Martinez Sanjuan "came through the main draw without dropping a set". That was our error: FIP's event page puts the final in the main draw, and she won it from a set down. The sentence is deleted, and the full before and after are in the amendments index.

The week ahead

Europe's qualifying event for the FIP World Cup is played in Madrid from 22 to 26 September, and Padel Federation Ireland has named men's and women's teams for it. The places at stake are for Doha, where the World Cup runs from 2 to 7 November.

The LTA Padel National Championships are at Rocket Padel in Bristol from 1 to 4 October, and admission is free. For entries, the LTA's page says: "The deadline for entries is Monday 21 September at 14:00."

Premier Padel resumes with the Rotterdam P2, from 28 September on the FIP's calendar.

Padel is also on two Games programmes. The FIP's event page for the South American Games gives 22 to 25 September in Santa Fe, Argentina. At the Asian Games in Aichi-Nagoya, the FIP has padel starting on 28 September.

From the club

Issue Three went up on 7 September. Episode Three of The Sessions, recorded courtside at the London P1 with Alex Robinson and Andy Galt, was published the same day, as was the second of The B Sides, Alex Robinson's monthly editorial, on the ratings problem in UK padel.

See you at the club.

How this was compiled. The Paris Major results and quotations are from the International Padel Federation's Spanish finals release of 13 September 2026, read in the Spanish original, with our own English throughout; its English twin was read and not quoted. The quarter-final and semi-final results are from FIP's Day 5 and Day 6 releases of 12 and 13 September, and the seeds from its draws piece of 6 September. The youngest-winner record is from three FIP releases: 5 June 2024 (Santiago, and Claudia Jensen's previous mark), 6 July 2025 (Bordeaux) and 10 August 2026 (London). Bucharest is from FIP's Spanish release of 13 September 2026. The Senior World Cup format and dates are from FIP's Tournament Information (version 6) and Competition Format; the British captaincy is from LTA Padel's announcement of 28 August 2026. The Madrid qualifier, the South American Games and the Asian Games dates are from FIP's event pages, and Rotterdam from FIP's Premier Padel calendar; Ireland's entry is from Padel Federation Ireland, 28 August 2026; Bristol is from LTA Padel's National Championships page. The note on Roland Garros and Wimbledon is from the FFT's releases of 2 April 2022, 20 January 2026 and 13 May 2026, FIP's Paris Major event page and its Italy Major release of 14 May 2026, the LTA's announcement of 13 November 2020 and the All England Club's jobs site; the London P1's venue is as Edition №3 reported it, and that we found no public statement from the All England Club about padel rests on our own searches of 14 September 2026. All pages read on 14 September 2026.