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Riyadh's Opening Act: Tapia-Coello Extend Their Dominance While Ustero-Sánchez Announce a New Era

Arturo Coello and Agustín Tapia defended their Riyadh title with surgical precision, notching their 32nd championship together. But the women's final told a different story — Andrea Ustero and Ari Sánchez stunned the world No. 1s in a three-set comeback that signals the 2026 season will be far less predictable than 2025.

Padel FYI Team By Padel FYI Team
• • 4 min read
Riyadh's Opening Act: Tapia-Coello Extend Their Dominance While Ustero-Sánchez Announce a New Era

The Premier Padel Riyadh Season P1 finals delivered exactly what the opening tournament of 2026 needed: confirmation that Tapia-Coello remain untouchable, and evidence that the women’s game just got more dangerous.

Coello and Tapia dismantled Fede Chingotto and Ale Galán 6-4, 6-2 in a final that lasted just 65 minutes — their 21st win in 30 meetings against a duo that has pushed them harder than anyone over the past two seasons. PadelFIP reports the match followed a familiar script: one competitive set, one ruthless one. Chingotto struggled to find rhythm on his volleys, while Galán couldn’t calibrate the lobs that normally buy him time to dictate rallies. “We worked extremely hard during the preseason to win here today,” Coello said afterward, celebrating his defense of last year’s Saudi title.

The path to that final required navigating Juan Lebrón and Leo Augsburger in a semifinal that turned into the week’s most brutal test. Tapia-Coello saved three set points in a first-set tiebreak before Mundo Deportivo describes how Augsburger and Lebrón — “showing an improper mastery of the ball for the context” — clawed back to force a third set. A single break in the decider, off a missed smash by Augsburger, settled it 6-4. The stat line disguised the drama: this was Tapia-Coello at their grittiest, not their smoothest.

A Debut That Changes the Calculus

The women’s final flipped the script. Andrea Ustero and Ari Sánchez, playing their first tournament as a pair, came back from a 3-6 first-set loss to beat Gemma Triay and Delfi Brea 6-1, 6-4. The comeback wasn’t just mental — it was tactical. BeIN Sports notes the duo “adjusted tactically, improved their serve efficiency, and began dictating a more aggressive tempo” after dropping the opener. The result: 67 winners compared to 44 for the world No. 1s, and 18 break-point opportunities conceded by Triay-Brea.

Ustero, the 2007-born Spaniard with two Premier titles already, looked every bit the future superstar. “We didn’t expect to beat the world No. 1s, but we worked incredibly hard with our team,” she told PadelFIP. Sánchez, now on her third partnership in as many seasons, was blunter: “It was hard to imagine such a strong start to the year. In the second and third sets, we were almost perfect.”

The timing matters. Sánchez’s split from Paula Josemaría was supposed to make Triay-Brea even more dominant — instead, it created a new threat. Ustero-Sánchez won’t replicate this performance every week, but they’ve proven the formula works: pair Sánchez’s defensive range with Ustero’s precocious aggression, and the women’s draw has a problem.

What Riyadh Tells Us About 2026

Chingotto and Galán will have chances to reverse their 9-21 deficit against Tapia-Coello — the next stop is Gijón in two weeks — but Mundo Deportivo observed their body language in the final “wasn’t the best,” a rare crack in the mental armor of two players who thrive in pressure moments. If Galán’s lob calibration remains off and Chingotto can’t find his net game, the gap widens.

On the women’s side, Triay-Brea still hold the No. 1 ranking, but Riyadh exposed their vulnerability to high-tempo attackers. Ustero-Sánchez now have the blueprint — and the confidence — to test it again. The 2026 race just got interesting.

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