Abraham P. Romero Madrid
Madrid
Updated Friday, February 2, 2024-00:35
Rafa Nadal
,
Robert Lewandowski
,
Andy Murray
and
Eva Longoria
'fighting' for
a million euros
on a paddle tennis court. It is not 100% literal, but it is close to what will happen this weekend at the
Hexagon Cup
, a new team paddle tournament that brings together for a few days in
Madrid
the best players in the world of this sport under the command of several Famous.
The event was born from the initiative of a Spanish work group landed from
Formula E
and formed by
Enrique Buenaventura, Alejandro Agag and Alberto Longo
, responsible for the electric car competition. There is no distinction of nationalities nor are the pairs of the world padel circuit maintained, but rather the owners of the
six
participating teams have chosen their players through a
draft
and they will compete in the tournament, which is held at the
Madrid Arena.
In this way,
Agustín Tapia and Arturo Coello
, numbers 1 of the extinct World Padel Tour (now Premier Padel), momentarily separate and play for Lewandowski's club and for Team Bella of Puerto Rico, owned by Puerto Rican businessmen María Esteve and Carlos López-Lay, owners of the Bella automobile group.
Next to Tapia is
Jon Sanz
and within the Polish soccer player's team there are also a couple
Ariana Sánchez Fallada
(no. 1 in the world) and Claudia Jensen (13th).
Coki Nieto
(15th) competes with Coello
and the female couple is
Bea González
(4th) and
Claudia Fernández
(24th).
To know more
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On behalf of the
Rafa Nadal Academy team,
Álex Ruiz
(12th) and
Franco Stupaczuk
(5th) participate
as a male couple and
Marta Ortega
(6th) and
Gemma Triay
(3rd) as a female couple. In the case of
Eva Longoria
's Eleven Eleven
we have
Fede Chingotto
(8th), Lucho Capra (17th),
Paula Josemaría
(1st) and Alejandra Alonso (32nd). In Andy Murray's ADvantage:
Martin Di Nenno
(4th),
Juan Tello
(10th), Delfi Brea (5th) and Sofia Araujo (8th). Finally,
Paquito Navarro
7th), the legendary Juan Martín Díaz, Alejandra Salazar (7th) and Tamara Icardo (10th) play for the Hexagon Team, the competition team.
"Celebrities have a lot of interest in paddle tennis"
«The idea of the tournament arose a year and a half ago. We worked in
Formula E
and when we saw that padel was starting to hit hard we said that a powerful team tournament was needed," explains Enrique Buenaventura to this newspaper, insisting on the need to mix the couples. «Right now we can enjoy the Premier Padel circuit, the World Cup... But it is
always Argentina-Spain
. An event with private teams was needed », he admits. And that's where the famous people come in.
«We went around and saw that there was a huge interest from
famous people in paddle tennis
, so we had to set it up. "
We needed
a more media tournament
," he comments, focusing on the interest of other countries in the sport: "In
England and the USA
they play a lot, but they don't watch it on television because there are no British or American players. "If you put famous people in there, like Eva Longoria, Lewandowski, Murray and Nadal, people get interested."
Those four, Buenaventura summarizes, have not been the only ones interested in becoming presidents, but they have been the ones elected. They have a
percentage of the tournament shares
and have signed a multi-year agreement, so they will repeat in twelve months. The event's plan is to grow in
2025
, but "at most" it will add 12 teams. "It's about making it
exclusive
." From there, the buying and selling of equipment could begin: «Now it is fashionable for celebrities to buy equipment for some sports or exclusive events. Women's soccer in the US, the E1 boat series in which
Tom Brady and Rafa Nadal
have a team ... And now here.
In Madrid, one million euros in prizes will be distributed, but the plan is to improve the purse next year: "The idea is to have one powerful event a year, like
Federer's Laver Cup
in tennis, which pits Europe against the rest of the world. And let the padel season begin with this. A padel that has left the World Padel Tour behind and is now organized under the Premier Padel, promoted by
Nasser Al-Khelaifi
.