The 2022 Home of Padel (HOP) Tour and Pro series are set to come to an end this weekend at the Harbour Club Chelsea, for a blockbuster event. HOP have hosted eight Tour events this year and five Pro events, with some of the winners of these events are set to feature on Saturday.
Co-founder of HOP Javier Serrats has won a couple of the pro titles this year but will be taking a more backseat role in Chelsea, in an event he expects to be ‘very competitive’.
“It is two invitational events; the HOP finals of the Tour and the HOP Pro finals. The HOP finals of the Tour are comprised of the winner of every event this year, but with the absence of a couple of the winners the next best ranked players have been invited instead. The pro finals feature some winners and runners-up from events this year, and then a couple of other players came in for players who could not attend.”
The draw is in a compass format, meaning that every pair will play more than once, “After the first match the winners play the winners and the losers play the losers. So, we will find out the position of everyone, from first to eighth in the tour event, and then first to fourth in the pro event.”
The finals event last year also took place at the Harbour Club Chelsea, and Serrats suggested that the response from 2021 was too good not to use the venue again. “Last year we also chose Harbour Club Chelsea and it went very well. People were delighted with the facilities and with the way the tournament was organised, so we took all of that feedback into account and chose to host the event here again.”
Despite there being a HOP women’s tour, there will not be a finals event due to a lack of availability and the location of the event. Serrats is aware that this is something that they need to sort out next year.
“It was the plan to have a women’s finals event as well this year, but as most of the female players were not available or are not around the London area it was asking too much of them to come all that way for maybe only two matches. We are planning to put a solution to that next year, but this year it was more of a struggle. In fact, the pro event was a last-minute decision it just so happened that all of the players were from around London.”
The winners of the event on Saturday will receive some very enticing prizes including a Dunlop Inferno bat, a Padel Shack trophy and a delicious meal at an award-winning Lebanese restaurant in the capital city. But even if the players don’t win the event, they will still receive some very exciting and exclusive gifts.
“Like in all of our events, the players in the finals will receive a welcome pack which we are really thankful to our sponsors for. They will receive an exclusive HOP Finals Performance t-shirt, a drink from one of our sponsors Nocco, also some gifts from WowHydrate and some vouchers from the rest of our sponsors.”
“In terms of prizes for the winners and the runners-up, they will both receive trophies, and some high quality padel bats, on top of other things. Hopefully the main prize is becoming the champion of the HOP tour!”
Due to the quality of the field, Serrats was reluctant to choose a favourite for the HOP tour event, “It is difficult to say in the case of the HOP tour event, because they are mostly winners of the respective events.”
“We would say that Rafa Vega and Chris Salisbury would be the favourites in the HOP Pro event, because they are the only pair that have competed in a tournament together before. The rest of the pairings were formed specifically for these finals.
“I am quite interested to see the pairing of LTA number one Jorge Martinez and newly selected member of the GB Team Francis Langan. Jorge being a left-handed player, he will play on the left side. Frankie needs to practice for his position on the GB team so he will be playing on the right. It will be interesting to see how they adapt to each other.”
The HOP tour has had another successful year in 2022, with organisers Serrats and John Leach doing a great job, and the finals event seems like a fitting way to end the season of competition. Although the tour will come to a close on Saturday, there will still be HOP leagues taking place until the end of the calendar year.
