Arturo Coello walked onto the Plaza Mayor court in Valladolid on Sunday as the local kid. He left as a legend with a hat trick.
Coello and Agustín Tapia beat Ale Galán and Fede Chingotto 6-4, 6-3 to win the Valladolid P2 for the third straight year. The headline stat is absurd: this was their 25th consecutive final. Every tournament they enter, they make the final. Not most. All of them. They didn't drop a single service game in the entire tournament — for the second year running.
Galán and Chingotto pushed the first set to 5-4, but Tapia's spectacular smash on set point sealed it. The second set was clinical — Coello/Tapia broke late and closed it out in front of a crowd that came to crown their king. Coello was named men's MVP.
The women's final told a different story. Paula Josemaría and Bea González beat Ari Sánchez and Andrea Ustero 6-4, 6-2, with Josemaría claiming her second Valladolid title and the women's MVP. The margin surprised: Sánchez and Ustero had just beaten world #1s Gemma Triay and Delfi Brea in the semis for the third straight tournament.
That Sánchez/Ustero streak deserves its own paragraph. Three consecutive tournaments beating the top-ranked pair, only to fall short of the title each time. They've become the most dangerous pair in the draw — but dangerous and champion are different things.
Twenty-five consecutive finals. Three Valladolid titles. The question isn't who's the best pair in padel — it's whether anyone can make this season interesting.
Source: ABC, ValladolidDeporte