PIC: LTA
BY RJ Mitchell
TIA NORTON has admitted that her triumph in the FIP Rise London Padel Open is still sinking in.
The 18-year-old and Spanish partner Carla Fito Fernandez confounded the seedings to beat top-ranked Maaike Betz and Natalia Sanz Garcia 7-5, 6-1 in Sunday’s final after coming through a gruelling 1hr 29-minute semi-final in which they had to save four match balls – all in one day!
But as the GB No.1 revealed her travails did not end when she took her place on the winners’ podium.
Norton said: “With the semi being so tough and then having to go again with the final it was really draining on Sunday and also you use a lot of nervous energy up, so that was very tiring in itself, especially after the adrenaline has drained away.
“But things weren’t helped by the fact that Carla had to get a flight at 6am on Monday morning because she was unable to catch her plane on Sunday evening due to us going the whole way and winning the tournament with the final over running because of our semi-final lasting so long.
“So I drove for two-and-a half hours through the night to Bristol Airport to drop her off and then back to Leamington but I didn’t care I was just so happy with the victory!
“Really I don’t think it has quite sunk in yet but I am absolutely ecstatic with the victory at the National Tennis Centre and to be honest I switched off my phone and left Instagram alone for a couple of days just to take time to let things settle and enjoy the win with my family.
“But now that it has finally sunk in it is just a really satisfying feeling and I am just proud of what Carla and I have achieved.”
The FIP Rise London Open is the Norton/Fernandez pairing’s second title of the year and the GB No.1 is hoping they can continue to go from strength-to-strength as a team: “For sure, we have said that this year we want to play as many tournaments as we can and see where that takes us,” said Tia.
She continued: “We have now had two successes in the UK with the win at Grade One Stratford in May and now the London Rise, so we are going from strength to strength as a pairing and we want to see where that takes us.
“We are hopefully playing a WPT Challenger in Spain in a place called Calanda. We will enter and hopefully they accept us in to it as although we got ranking points from winning the London Open they were FIP ranking points and this is different as it is WPT.”
Norton, who became the very first recipient of the Padel Award at the LTA Tennis Awards in May, admits that Sunday’s break out victory has given her and partner Fernandez a huge boost of belief as they plot their next campaign.
Yet the new London Rise Champions will be pursuing a one match at a time approach no matter who is across the net: “We have definitely gained a lot of confidence from the London Open and have beaten some very good players along the way. We did go into the NTC with strong belief but we have definitely gained more confidence from coming through especially that semi and then in the final against the top seeds.
“That said going forward it is about taking things one match at a time and focussing on it and not getting ahead of yourselves and that will be the same for each tournament.
“You see who is across the net and then take it from there.”
As revealed in the Padel Paper yesterday the European Qualification for the XVI World Padel Championship has been awarded to the LTA and will be hosted at the newly opened state-of-the-art We Are Padel in Derby.
Between September 29th and October 2nd the qualification tournament for the World Cup in Qatar, which will be the biggest competition for National Teams ever hosted in the UK will feature seventeen male teams and thirteen female teams.
The prize a place at the Khalifa International Tennis & Squash Complex in Doha a few weeks later where the final stages of the XVI World Championships will take place.
Europe has three guaranteed spots in the Men’s category and two in the Women’s as the nations come together to do battle in what is the largest padel venue in the UK boasting 11 panoramic courts, and a spectacular Central Court with grandstands.
Looking forward Norton, who will spearhead the UK Ladies team challenge, admits the opportunity to qualify on home soil is to good to pass up.
The GB No.1 said: “As soon as the courts went up in Derby I thought it would be perfect for major events as obviously it is such a big venue and with 11-courts it is perfect for hosting the world qualifiers.
“I think the awarding of this event to the LTA just underlines how much padel is growing here and also how much potential the sport has in the UK. So I am excited for everyone to come and really looking forward to competing.
“I played the world champs last year in Qatar and although it wasn’t the most successful tournament I learned a lot from it. There were some missed opportunities and our placement was perhaps not what we had hoped for.
“It will be an eight player (team) who are still to be listed and it will be interesting to see who makes the cut but the main thing is that we are hosting them and the LTA must be congratulated on achieving that.”
