GB no.1 Aimee Gibson earned her first ever victory at a Premier Padel Major event on Monday — and got to play on the iconic Suzanne Lenglen court at Roland Garros while doing so!
The left-hander from Essex, now ranked 87th in the world, teamed up with Spaniard Lucia Micaela Fernandez Lopez and recorded a highly eventful 3-6, 6-3, 6-2 victory over Spain’s Alicia Blanco Rojo and Arantxa Soriano Perez in the first round of qualifying.
Starting on an outside court at the famous French Open venue, play was suspended due to rain midway through the first set and moved under the closed roof of Court Suzanne Lenglen.
After losing the first set, Aimee and Lucia levelled the match in contentious fashion when the umpire intervened to overrule an ‘out’ call by their opponents at 30-15 in the ninth game. That gave them set point, on which Perez touched the net with a big smash and was forced to concede the point.
Aimee and Lucia went an early break up in the decider and despite some gamesmanship from the Spanish duo to try to slow the game down, they saw the victory through.
That win set up a clash just a few hours later in the final qualifying round against second seed Lorena Vano and Alba Perez Momha, against whom Aimee lost in the semi-finals of the recent FIP Silver Porto Sant’Elpidio despite holding three match points.
Unfortunately, this one didn’t go the Brit’s way either, as she and Lucia lost to the second qualifying seeds in straight sets.
“It’s been an amazing experience playing here,” Aimee told The Padel Paper. “I’ve played in two Majors before but I’ve heard great things about this one.
“There was quite a lot of drama in this [first] match, but the luck went our way a little bit in the second set and in the third set we fought really well, tried to stick in the long rallies and we came through.
“It was my goal to try and win one match here at a Major. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough energy for the second match today, but I feel like I learned a lot. To beat these top players you have to be 100% ready and unfortunately we lacked that energy but overall I’m happy to get a win.
“I play FIPs every week and to come here and have everything organised for you, it’s definitely different and something that makes me want to keep pushing an try to play at this level more often.”
Aimee was only the second British woman ever to claim a victory at a Premier Padel Major following Tia Norton’s win alongside Dutch partner Stefanie Weterings in Acapulco last November.
Reporting by Sara Wooland in Paris and Mike Dale in the UK
