It was unexpected that a four-day match between four titans would go place on Friday morning. In Brussels, Jon Sanz, Coki Nieto, Paquito Navarro, and Juan Lebron performed a real paddle tennis recital. In the Belgian Coliseum, a quarterfinal bout has turned into a gladiatorial duel. After two hours and twenty-one minutes of excellent padel, the players from Madrid and Pamplona emerged victorious, while the couple that had been in every pool and had a significant impact on the event was eliminated.
A very strong Coki and Jon broke their opponents’ serve in the opening game of the match, setting up an explosive start to the encounter. In response, Ovide’s soldiers swiftly restored that break. From that point on, Navarro and the guy from Madrid gave it everything they had to take the lead once more on the scoreboard, establish themselves, and win the opening set 6-3 in 37 minutes.
Lebron wanted to play a more aggressive game in an attempt to change the dynamic, which led to a heated discussion between the couple sitting on the bench. His coach, Rodri Ovide, advised him to eat the game patiently and calmly until he had a chance to break. In an attempt to alter the match’s dynamic, they broke the opening game of the second set to begin the second set differently. Every time the Sevillian urged the ‘wolf’ to finish off, the ‘dale candela’ could be heard on the Gare Maritime center court in Brussels.
In the sixth game of the second set, the Andalusians once again gained the lead on the scoreboard by breaking their opponents’ serve, but Nieto and Sanz bounced back and returned the break of serve. At that point, they secured the break and went on to win the second set, which once again knotted the match, following an examination of a very questionable play in a Coki shot.
The match’s humorous moment occurred when chair umpire Josep Azuaga made a mistake and called Paco Galán. True to his persona, the Andalusian player showed him the name on his shirt and did the traditional guitar motion to the amusement of the center court crowd. Following this tale, Pacquito and Lebron were able to wrap out the set 6-4.
At the start of the third set, Paquito and “el lobo” started having issues. Juan made a mistake with a shot that stuck in the net, which allowed his opponents to break his serve in the second game. Here’s where the jitters kicked in; after angrily slamming the paddle on his shoe, Paquito was warned by the chair umpire. Once they had extinguished that internal fire, they came back to break to bring an extreme situation back to life. After that, there was equality until an unexpected death, at which point Jon and Coki ended the match (7–5).
