Agustin Tapia and Arturo Coello were the first winners of the London P1 this weekend, beating Alejandro Galan and Federico Chingotto 6-3, 5-7, 7-5 in Sunday's final at Olympia. The title was their eighth of the year, one week after they were knocked out in the Pretoria semifinals, which counts as a crisis by their remarkably high standards. That defeat ended a run of 27 consecutive finals.

The two pairs have now met 39 times. Galan and Chingotto have won six titles of their own this season, which in most eras would make them the story. Against these two, it makes them the runners-up. The last official Race table, published after Pretoria, had the gap between the pairs at 890 points, and London stretched it again. Tapia did the stretching while managing a shoulder problem that has reportedly troubled him since the spring, a detail worth filing away for the autumn.

The women's final was probably the better story though. Claudia Fernandez and Martina Calvo beat the world No. 1s, Gemma Triay and Delfina Brea, 7-5, 6-3. Calvo is 18 years, one month and four days old, which makes her the youngest winner in Premier Padel history, 20 days younger than Andrea Ustero was when she set the record last year. It was only the pair's second tournament together, one week after the same opponents beat them in the Pretoria final. 

There is a neat line running through Calvo's year. She began it partnering Alejandra Salazar, the four-time world No. 1 who has announced that 2026 will be her last season at 39. The veteran spent the spring passing on three decades of knowledge, and the teenager has spent the summer using it on the best players alive. Miguel Lamperti, still competing at 48, also retires at the end of the year.

More than 20,000 people came through Olympia across the week, and TNT Sports showed the closing rounds, the first time the tour has appeared on mainstream UK television. The tour now stops for three weeks, presumably so the professionals can squeeze in some recreational padel on holiday like the rest of us, and returns with the Madrid P1 on 31 August, then the Paris Major at Roland-Garros.

Madrid will double as a debut day for the newly re-partnered. Miguel Yanguas and Franco Stupaczuk confirmed their split during London, Stupaczuk is reported to be joining Jon Sanz, and more moves tend to follow. The tour's pairing market makes football's January window look sentimental.

From there, the calendar works its way to the Gulf, and it arrives carrying a little more weight than originally planned. Kuwait hosts from 26 to 31 October, as the Dubai P1 follows at Hamdan Sports Complex from 8 to 15 November as the last P1 of the year, and the top 16 players in the season Race then head to the Barcelona Finals in December.

Like many of us after Summer holidays, Kuwait's event now carries a little more weight. It was upgraded from P1 to Major status in May, after the postponement of the Qatar Major forced a calendar reshuffle, and the FIP says the promotion applies for this season. Making it a 2,000-point tournament, the same tier as Doha, Rome and Paris, in the middle of the Race run-in. BNK Holding, the Kuwaiti company behind the event, has built the country's padel profile really quickly, and tournament director Mishal Al-Ansari called the upgrade "a historic achievement for padel in Kuwait and the wider region".

Kuwait also has form for hurting the world No. 1s. Last November's FIP World Cup Pairs final there ended with Galan and Chingotto coming from a set down to beat Tapia and Coello 2-6, 7-5, 6-2, in front of a sold-out centre court of 4,700. The chasers return to a country that holds happy memories for them, with a bigger prize now on offer.

Dubai, meanwhile, throws everyone in at the deep end (sorry). Hamdan Sports Complex drains its Olympic pool, all 6.25 million litres, and builds a 7,000-seat arena in the hole, the biggest indoor padel venue in the Middle East. Last year's edition drew a record 7,562 spectators, organisers Gallop Global expect around 240 players this time, and tickets start from Dh36, which is less than an hour of court hire costs in most of the city. Sheikh Saeed bin Maktoum bin Juma Al Maktoum, President of the UAE Padel Association, called it "a landmark event for padel in the UAE".

The 2025 edition also showed how quickly these two pairs answer each other. A week after losing in Kuwait, Tapia and Coello beat Galan and Chingotto 6-3, 6-4 in the Dubai final. The women's trophy went to Fernandez, who won it alongside Bea Gonzalez. She returns in November with a teenager instead, and quite possibly as the favourite.

Gulf crowds will also get a proper look at the tour's new scoring rule. The Star Point, introduced this season, allows two rounds of advantage at deuce and then settles the game with a single sudden-death point. FIP president Luigi Carraro says one 18-minute game from last season would have taken about four under the new system. Anyone who has queued for a peak-hour court will see the appeal.

The Gulf's fingerprints were on this tour long before the autumn. Qatar Sports Investments founded it, Qatar Airways sponsors it, the season opened in Riyadh and Doha holds one of the permanent Majors. Even the London event was organised by Sela, the Saudi company on the front of Newcastle United's shirts.

The player to watch when it all gets here is obvious. Calvo beat the best pair in the world at 18, in her second tournament with a new partner, schooled earlier this year by a legend on her way out. London saw her first. Kuwait and Dubai are next.