The Rioja Padel Open starts with the best couples in the world

Argentina once again enjoys the best players in the world live World tour of padel, who will play the second round of his 2023 season in our country and the first of four scheduled this year in South America. This Tuesday the Open Riojawhich will have its headquarters on superdome from that city of Cuyo, where many of the best pairs of the world circuit will face each other, with the Argentines Sanjo gutierrez AND Fernando Bellasteguin and the Spanish Alessandra Salazar AND Gemma Trial as big favourites.

The tournament -which will also have the three fields of the Castro Barros cultural tour, in the center of the Rioja capital, will mark a milestone for Argentine padel. It is that it will be the first played in our country – and in the region – in which the men’s and women’s teams will play at the same time.

“It is the most important tournament that has taken place in the country, not only to bring the best players in the world, but also because on this occasion we will have the women’s paddle,” he said a few days ago Lysander Borgesexecutive director of the World Padel Tour in South America, in a note with the site Virtual rioja.

“There should always be the equality that we have today between men and women and it was important that paddle tennis also had girls, even if for a matter of old contracts it was complicated for us. Now the contracts have changed and it is very nice to have a tournament with both tables for the sport, for the press and for the spectators,” he added.

The event will also try to break the circuit’s attendance record, which is now held by the World Tour Finals, which were played in Barcelona in December, which attracted 12,141 spectators on a single day. The Superdome has a capacity of 14,000 and organizers are betting it will fill up on some of the six race days.

There will be a strong Albiceleste presence in La Rioja, as all the national teams in the top 20 of the world rankings will play in the event, as well as many other high-level players from our country.

Among the girls, the most outstanding will be the presence of the chaco Maria Virginia Riera, number seven in the world, who will compete with the Spanish Tamara Icardo; the entreriana Aranzazu Osoro (14th), who will form a couple with Lucía Sainz, also Spanish; the door Dolphina Brea (18th), in duo with the Portuguese Sofia Araujo; AND Claudia Jensen (19th), born in Madrid but plays under the Argentine flag (father’s homeland) and will play with the Spanish Jessica Castelló.

In the men’s draw, in addition to Gutiérrez and Belasteguín, big favorites in the absence of the Spaniards Juan Lebrón and Alejandro Galán, leader of the standings; they will say gifts Augustine Tapia (3rd, together with Arturo Coello, champions of the first race of the year in Abu Dhabi), Martin DiNenno (7th) e Franco Stupaczuk (9°), who will form a couple, Juan Tello (11th, with package Navarrese), Federico Chingotto (12th, with Javier Garrido Gómez), Luciano Capra (15th, with another Argentinian, Augustine Gutiérrez) AND Maximilian Sanchez (16th, with the Brazilian Lucas De Oliveira).

The big absentees at the event are the number one couple in the world, Juan Lebrón and Alejandro Galán, “for medical reasons”, and the one classified as number seven in the tournament draw, Pablo Lima and Coki Nieto. As reported, the duo of the Brazilian and the Spanish fell due to an inflammation in the knee of the Porto Alegre player.

Today, Tuesday, the action will kick off in the first round of the men’s tournament, with two hundred per cent Spanish duels to be played on center court, starting at 5.30pm. In the first round, Jaime Muñoz and Ignacio Vilariño will face Eduardo Alonso Chillarón and Juanlu Esbri; and then Jon Sanz and Francisco Leal Pérez will go before José Rico and Salvador Oria.

The men’s initial round will conclude on Wednesday and all the duels of that female instance will be played. The round of 16 will be played on Thursday; on Friday the rooms; There will be the semifinals on Saturday; and Sunday, the finals (from 18:00, women, then men).

The tournament will be one of four to be played this season in South America, along with Chilean Open (next week), the Paraguay open (from 21 to 26 March) and the Padel masters from Buenos Aires (from 13 to 19 November).

Tickets can be purchased at ticketek. Prices range from 4,000 to 12,000 pesos and season tickets can be purchased from 22,000. Matches will be broadcast from the open and online signals of DirecTV.