Galán and Chingotto tighten race for world number one with epic final win

Alejandro Galán and Federico Chingotto survived an agonizing Madrid final to win their seventh title of the season and bring the race for padel’s world number one closer. The Spanish-Argentine pair defeated Mike Yanguas and Coki Nieto 6-4, 5-7, 6-4 after two hours and 40 minutes.

The result gained extra weight because Agustín Tapia and Arturo Coello, the world’s top-ranked pair, had fallen in the quarterfinals. Their defeat reduced the gap by almost a third for the rest of the season. The two leading pairs have won every title except one between them.

Nieto and Yanguas, playing their first final as the fourth-ranked pair since reuniting in August, resisted throughout. They had lost all six of their meetings with Chingotto and Galán in 2025, each in a semifinal, but started without hesitation at Madrid’s Movistar Arena.

Galán and Chingotto took control of the first set after Nieto lost his serve at 3-3. Yanguas and Nieto fought back in the second. They recovered from a 0-40 deficit early in the set, then overturned a late break and forced the score to 5-5 before leveling the match.

The decisive set followed a similar pattern. Yanguas again lost serve, leaving the score at 5-4, and Galán and Chingotto finished with a love game on Galán’s serve. It was Galán’s second Madrid victory, after he won the inaugural 2022 edition with Juan Lebrón while they were ranked number one. In the women’s final, top-ranked Gemma Triay and Delfi Brea came from behind to beat Bea González and Paula Josemaría 6-7, 6-3, 6-3 for their sixth title of the season.