By RJ Mitchell
TOURNAMENT DIRECTOR Barry Coffey believes this weekend’s Six Nations Masters Padel Tournament will be, to quote Tina Turner, ‘simply the best’.
It is the fourth staging of the event and is being held in the state-of-the-art Padel House, in Espoo, just outside Helsinki, Finland – a venue which boasts a mind-blowing 33 padel courts, 30 of which are indoor.
A strong entry means that England, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, and Switzerland are all ready to battle it out.
However in keeping with the event’s fun aspect there is one subtle difference, the age category is +100 years per pair with a minimum age of +45 years for an individual, all of which means the combined age of each participating pair must total +100 years.
With each country playing against the other in a tie of three matches over the best of three sets duration, if a third set is required it will be in the form of a 10-point ‘champion’s tie-break’.
Coffey, who is also the President of the Irish Padel Association, has revealed that the idea for the event was spawned from ‘friendly fire’: “I had the idea for the Six Nations Masters back in 2017. I had just organised a seniors international match between Ireland and Monaco which was a great success and the first international match for both countries so I was thinking that we could and should do more.
“I was playing a British Padel Tour event in what is now called West of Scotland Padel Club and while chatting with some of the other players I asked the question: ‘What do you think of a Four Nations seniors padel team event?’
“The response was positive but I knew that I would have to do all of the legwork myself to get it off the ground and thankfully Paul Ross, Managing Director of Padel Tech Ltd was part of the conversation.
“Paul came up to me afterwards and said that if I could launch it then Padel Tech would sponsor it to the tune of £1,000. When you have to find a venue, pay court hire etc £1,000 was a great start, so we were up and running!
“The first event was a Four Nations Masters Tournament which took place in 2018 at Casa Padel in Paris and Casa Padel became a sponsor of the event too for which I was very grateful. This meant I could present an international tournament without charging an entry fee to the players or their national associations. This is something I am proud to say which has continued to this day.
“The original four nations were England, Ireland, Monaco and Scotland and it was won by England with Ireland in second place.
“The reaction to the tournament was so positive that I was encouraged to go again but this time expanding to six countries.
“So, in 2019 the Six Nations Masters Tournament as it is now known took place and once again Casa Padel played host. The original four nations were joined by teams from Switzerland and France, with France ending worthy winners.
“It was after this that I started receiving messages from other countries asking if they could take part and if I would consider expanding the event to eight or even ten nations.
“It was an easy decision to make as expanding beyond six nations would start to look like a rival European Championships, so the six nations it remains.”
Sadly the COVID pandemic took care of the 2020 event with a new venue, Helsingborg Padel in Sweden already chosen.
But by 2021 the Six Nations was back on track as Barry explained: “In 2021 we were joined by Sweden and Finland with the remaining four nations, England, Scotland, Ireland and Switzerland and we headed to Helsingborg in November 2021.
“The standard of seniors padel was clearly rising especially in the Scandinavian countries. As I had suspected Sweden were streets ahead of nearly all the teams, only given any sort of trouble by a strong Finnish team but everybody had a good time which is what it is all about.”
When it comes to the ethos behind the Six Nations Masters Padel Tournament enjoyment is very much to the fore as Barry underlined: “The whole point of the event is to give older padel players an opportunity to enjoy the experience of playing competitive padel for their country and given that many players came to padel from other sports the seniors padel scene is very lively indeed. Events like the Six Nations give them an opportunity to relive those years.
“But we also have many players who are enjoying the experience of representing their country for the very first time and it makes for a great atmosphere both on and off the court.”
This year’s event will be the first time the Six Nations Masters has a headline sponsor and Barry revealed: “We are extremely grateful to Adidas Padel Finland for hosting and sponsoring every aspect of this year’s tournament.
“It is a big commitment for this company but also shows that Masters padel is commercially worthwhile.
“We are also very fortunate to have other partners in this year’s event including the ever-present Padel Tech Ltd, who once again supplied the Irish team’s kit.
“I’d also like to say a huge thanks also to another Scottish based company Game4Padel who, once again will be providing a welcome shirt to all the players and whose CEO, Michael Gradon will be captaining the English team.
“Further I am delighted to announce, that for the first time, we have an Irish sponsor for the Six Nations Masters and that is Rackets.ie, who have been a major force in the Irish racket sports industry for many years.
“Their coming on board is a sure sign that the sport of padel is growing in Ireland thanks to the hard work put in by many people, not least of course the Irish Padel Association.”
Going forward The Six Nations Masters Tournament will continue to be held on an annual basis with the venue changing as will the participating countries.
Yet there can be no doubting the Six Nation’s importance to the European Masters scene or the superb job being done by the ebullient Coffey in positioning the tournament at the apex of the continent’s vibrant veterans’ tour.
Andrus Sammelselg, one of the Estonian players, said “the Estonian team is very excited to have this opportunity to play with other national Masters players”, while Marten Jensen of Germany described the Six Nations Masters Tournament as “the perfect combination of sport, networking, international understanding and socialising”, and added “we are thankful and proud to be part of this legendary event”.
Reflecting further Coffey said: “When I started the event on a wing and a prayer, I didn’t dare think that it would become as popular as it is now, so in some ways I suppose that it has become part of the Masters scene while remaining an independent event.
“Recently I was pleasantly surprised to be contacted by a padel association to help them set up and organise a new Masters event and this will hopefully take place in the spring of 2023 and have a new format.
“All of this shows that the Six Nations Masters Tournament has indeed had a positive effect on seniors padel in Europe, much more than I ever expected.”
There is also a superb poster for the Six Nations Masters which has been designed by Irish Padel Association board member and certified coach Peter Cranny.
The poster uses an iconic structure from the host city and works it into the theme and this year the theme is ‘The Guardians of Padel’ with the massive statues featured in the poster forming part of the facade of Helsinki’s central station.
Despite having the heavy burden of organising the Six Nations Masters in all its minute detail amazingly Coffey is also the driving force behind Team Ireland: “Strange as it may seem, getting the Irish team together and organising squad training sessions has been remarkably easy this year, more so than in previous years,” said Barry.
He continued: “To ensure that we were being inclusive to all, we posted on social media that the Irish Padel Association were sending a team to participate in the event and that any player above the age of 45 who held an Irish passport was welcome to apply and attend the squad sessions.
“We have more facilities available to us than in the past, not least the recently opened PadelZone-Celbridge which is the only indoor pay and play padel centre in the Republic of Ireland.
“Padelzone-Celbridge as well as the magnificent Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club kindly hosted squad sessions which allowed all of the interested players to get together which was a big help to the selectors.
“Almost all of the players in the Irish squad, with the exception of myself, live in or around the Dublin area so getting them together several times wasn’t that difficult and I was delighted to travel from my home in France to attend two of the sessions.”
Coffey has no doubt that when it comes to the tournament’s favourites there is only one way the event is likely to ‘Finnish’: “I think it is fair to say that the out and out favourites for this year’s tournament are the home nation Finland who will be led by Kim Grenner, a very strong player indeed.
“We first saw Finland compete in 2021 in Helsingborg and with the exception of home nation Sweden they were well ahead of the rest of the field.
“The new format of ‘+100 years’ might have an impact on their strength but I wouldn’t bet against them.
