2023-07-06 15:14:40
New name, new date, appearance of a female table… The French “Grand Slam” of padel at Roland-Garros, renamed Greenweez Paris Major, has a new look. “Last year, everything had to be put together in less than three months so as not to miss the good wagon of the Premier Padel Tour (the circuit initiated in early 2022 by Nasser Al-Khelaïfi, the president of PSG), recalls Arnaud Di Pasquale, tournament director and in charge of discipline at the FFT. It was still daring to open the doors of Roland-Garros like that and there were some concerns, but we had to set the tone. Now we are starting to settle in properly. »
See you in the fall
In 2022, for its debut, the tournament took place from July 11 to 17. Ideal for parking safely in front of the stadium gates, but not necessarily to attract the curious to the west of Paris. About 25,000 spectators came over the week, including nearly 5,000 on Sunday to attend the coronation of the Galan-Lebron pair.
This year, the event will take place at the start of the new school year, from September 3 to 10. “I think it’s been a pretty good week,” Di Pasquale said. Already, it should be sunny without being too hot. People will be home, they will have an event at their fingertips. The ticket office (whose prices range from 10 to 35 euros depending on the day) is already full for the weekend.
The maximum capacity set at 8,000 seats on the Philippe-Chatrier court has already been reached for Saturday and Sunday. The organizers are therefore hoping for a cascading effect on the rest of the week, where match times have been rearranged to take working hours into account.
The first matches will start at 1 p.m. but there will be a match scheduled for 6 p.m. and another at 8 p.m. each day. Like last year, the FFT promises entertainment, surprises and will focus on initiation.
Women appear
Last year, the girls were conspicuous by their absence. To the great displeasure of the organization, it had not been possible to offer a female line-up. To put it simply, two circuits competed with each other (the historic World Padel Tour and the incoming Premier Padel) and, unlike the boys, the girls had not yet taken the plunge into novelty for fear of legal concerns.
Since then, the two enemies have become so close that there will be only one circuit in 2024. 48 players (against 56 players) will thus participate in the French stage of the Tour with a prize money equivalent to that boys (525,000 euros in total for each painting).
“We are super happy because it expands our offer, it allows us to have a lot more matches over the weekend and it is above all important to give visibility to women’s padel, summarizes Di Pasquale. It may also help attract another audience. »
A showcase for the federation
“Padel is not yet fully recognized and we are still talking about seeking notoriety, notes Gilles Moretton, president of the FFT. Yet it is a major area of development for us. We started late but we are catching up slowly. »
The federation, which hopes to reach 2,000 tracks in France by 2024, praises the ease of access to practice, the almost immediate pleasure of the game and the conviviality of the post-match, a little lost in tennis . And insists on the complementarity between the two disciplines.
“The fear of many was to see the padel cannibalize tennis and take its members, breathes Di Pasquale. So, yes, at the beginning, it was rather tennis players who turned to this new sport, but today 60% of practitioners do not come from tennis. “The number of players in France is estimated at around 500,000 (including 36,000 holders of a license solely dedicated to padel).
“The course to pass is that it really explodes in Paris, observes Benjamin Tison, French No. 1 and expatriate in Spain for four years. There are a few private structures on the outskirts, but given land prices, the supply is not suited to the demand which is very strong today. »
Large regional disparities remain. “We have areas that are a little deficient,” explains Di Pasquale. It is not easy to answer these problems but they are perfectly identified. »
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