Galán and Chingotto seize their Madrid chance

Alejandro Galán and Federico Chingotto were serving for the Madrid title when the final became rather more complicated. Ahead by a set and five games to four, they had the chance to finish a profitable week at the Movistar Arena. Instead, Coki Nieto and Mike Yanguas won the next three games, taking the second set and leaving the favourites to begin again.

Galán and Chingotto eventually won the deciding set six games to four, matching the margin with which they had taken the first. Their seventh title of the season brought them within one of Arturo Coello and Agustín Tapia. With the leading pair already eliminated, it was an opportunity they needed to take, even if their opponents made the last part considerably harder than it had briefly promised to be.

The result changes the picture left by London before the summer break. Coello and Tapia had beaten Galán and Chingotto there in three sets, collecting their eighth trophy while their closest challengers remained on six. Madrid has reduced that difference. Counting titles alone cannot settle the ranking race, but it does show how regularly the two partnerships are converting deep runs into wins, and how little room either has to dismiss a lost week.

Nieto and Yanguas were responsible for making this one particularly costly for Coello and Tapia. Their quarter final victory came in straight sets, the second settled by a tiebreak, and removed the top seeds before the weekend. It was an important result in its own right. It also changed the job facing Galán and Chingotto, who could reach the trophy without another meeting with the pair that had beaten them in London.

The eventual finalists had already given their reunion a promising start by reaching the title match at the FIP Gold event in Belgrade. Madrid extended that progress at a higher level. Nieto and Yanguas beat Gonza Alfonso and Tino Libaak in the semi final, going beyond a stage that had repeatedly stopped them in 2025, when they lost all twelve of their semi finals together. Reaching Sunday at the first Premier Padel attempt since reuniting gave this partnership a different beginning.

There were changes elsewhere in the field too. Last year’s men’s champions returned on opposite sides of the draw, with Leo Augsburger alongside Juan Lebrón and Martín Di Nenno playing with Paquito Navarro. Franco Stupaczuk and Jon Sanz were making their Premier Padel debut as a pair. For established partnerships, that means preparing for opponents whose combined strengths are still being tested in competition. Madrid offered an early indication of how quickly one reunited team could become a serious obstacle.

At four games each in the decider, Galán and Chingotto finally found the break they needed before holding serve for the title. They had created nine break points during that set, according to the tour’s account. The reward came late, after enough missed openings to make patience valuable. Their ability to keep making chances mattered as much as the disappointment of failing to finish the match a set earlier.

The women’s champions also had to recover. Gemma Triay and Delfina Brea lost the opening set to Paula Josemaría and Bea González in a tiebreak, then trailed by three games to two in the second. Four consecutive games brought them level in sets. They won the decider six games to three, collecting a sixth title and drawing level with their opponents for tournament wins this season.

For Triay and Brea, Madrid was a useful response to their own London disappointment. They had lost that final in straight sets to Claudia Fernández and Martina Calvo, a week after beating the same pair in Pretoria. Those changing results offer some perspective on the latest trophy. The strongest teams are capable of answering a defeat quickly, and the next meeting need not resemble the last.

Josemaría and González had demonstrated that capacity before reaching Sunday. In their semi final against Fernández and Calvo, they recovered from five games down in the deciding set and saved three match points before winning seven games in a row. Having survived so much to make the final, they will have reason to regret losing an advantage there. Their run also left little doubt about the difficulty of putting them away.

Triay’s win carried a personal distinction too, bringing her level with Alejandra Salazar on 58 titles across the major professional circuits. Salazar had played her last match at this tournament earlier in the week, losing alongside Aranzazu Osoro to Triay and Brea in the quarter finals. Her career continues through the rest of the season, but this was the farewell to her home tournament, an occasion that gave the week significance beyond its winners.

Paris provides the next examination, with Coello and Tapia returning to Roland Garros after winning the previous three editions. The draw also leaves open a quarter final meeting between Galán and Chingotto and the pair they have just beaten in Madrid. Nieto and Yanguas would have to earn their way there, as would the champions, but another meeting would arrive only days after a final neither pair could resolve comfortably.

For Galán and Chingotto, that prospect gives the victory a practical use. They can prepare knowing how difficult Nieto and Yanguas were to break, and how quickly an apparently comfortable position disappeared. The runners up have their own reasons to welcome another chance. If the draw brings them together again, the Madrid trophy will offer the champions a happy memory, alongside a clear reminder of the work required to win it.