A huge weekend lies ahead for British padel with the ground-breaking FIP Silver R3 Bullpadel Cup taking place in Bristol and a new milestone being set in Qatar.
The R3 Bullpadel Cup at Rocket Padel Bristol will be the highest-level professional padel tournament ever staged in the UK and has an unprecedented prize pool of €18,000.
Running simultaneously will be the UK’s first FIP Promises tournament, a junior international competition featuring U18 and U14 boys’ and girls’ categories. This will double up as the first leg of the R3 Junior Cup, a national series designed to provide a structured competition pathway for emerging British padel players.
The bullion and points on offer in the FIP Silver have helped to tempt top-seeded men’s pairing Jose Antonio Diestro and Agustin Gutierrez (world no.39 and no.58 respectively) over to compete on British shores, as well as top women’s pair Carla Touly (84) and Ana Dominguez Gracia (76).
The main crowd-puller on the men’s side, however, is expected to be GB no.1 Christian Medina Murphy (pictured above), who partners Alberto Garcia Jimenez as the second seeds. British no.3 Louie Harris plays with Alex Loughlan and they have drawn fellow Brits Alfonso Patacho and Chris Salisbury in the first round.
Sam Jones/Nikhil Mohindra and wildcards Jake Bewley/Theo Garton are also in the main draw, while nine other British men’s pairings will attempt to battle through qualifying.
GB no.3 Tia Norton is the highest-seeded Brit amongst the women. The 21-year-old plays alongside Belgium’s Helena Wyckaert and they’re seeded fifth. Tia’s GB team-mates Lisa Phillips and Abi Tordoff are seventh seeds.
Another Brit, Hanna Maddock (pictured above), has flown over from the Canary Islands with a new partner, Paula Hoyos Miranda. Hannah told The Padel Paper: “It’s so exciting that we’ve now got a FIP Silver in the UK. I love coming out to play here. The pressure is definitely on because we’ve got all the GB team watching!”
The R3 Bullpadel Cup’s poster girl, Catherine Rose, will not be in Bristol, however. She will instead be over 4,000 miles away, having qualified to play alongside GB no.1 Aimee Gibson at the Premier Padel Ooredoo Qatar Major.
It will be the first time either Aimee or Catherine has played in a Premier Padel event, and only the second time that any British woman has played at such a level (following Tia’s participation in last year’s Premier Padel Major in Mexico). The first qualifying round begins on Friday.
Check out draws, order of play and results from the FIP Silver R3 Bullpadel Cup here.
Follow Aimee and Catherine’s progress at the Premier Padel Qatar Major here.
