By Estea Rademeyer, Sports Journalist.
Martina Calvo has become the youngest player in Premier Padel history to win a tournament, sealing the inaugural London P1 title alongside partner Claudia Fernández with a 7-6, 6-3 win over Gemma Triay and Delfi Brea at Olympia London. At 18 years, one month and four days old, Calvo also becomes part of the youngest pairing to win a Premier Padel event.
It completed a rapid turnaround from the previous Sunday, when Triay and Brea had edged the same two players in Pretoria, 6-2, 6-7, 7-6, in a deciding-set tie-break. This time Fernández and Calvo had the last word.
Photo Credit: Premier Padel
The pair reached the final having beaten world number two Bea González and Paula Josemaría in the semi-final for the second week running, winning 6-2, 6-4 in one hour and 58 minutes. Triay and Brea, the top seeds, needed almost three hours to get past Ariana Sánchez and Andrea Ustero, coming through 7-6, 5-7, 6-3 in a match that swung repeatedly, including a comeback from 1-5 down to win the opening set.
The final itself turned on a passage of play in the second set. Fernández and Calvo had raced into a 5-0 lead and were serving for the match when Triay and Brea won three straight games and earned a break point that would have brought them within a game of forcing a decider. Fernández and Calvo held their nerve, saved the break point, and closed out the set and the title.
Fernández put the recovery down to a message from her partner in the middle of that spell. “Keep doing the things that we were doing right,” she said Calvo told her, adding that simply returning the ball would not be enough and that they needed to keep pushing as they had done earlier in the set.
Calvo reflected on how she managed the swing in momentum. “The thing that helped me the most is to keep focus on fighting, keep moving, keep pushing, that I maybe didn’t do, but now I learn that matches can go either way, they can be tight, they can be 5-0 and the oponent team can come back, so I just learn to stay focused on every point and try to just focus on the moment and to keep doing what I know is right.”
Photo Credit: Premier Padel
For Triay and Brea, the result ended a bid for a third consecutive title after wins in Malaga and Pretoria, and denied them a sixth title of 2026 in what has been an extraordinarily consistent season, their 13th final in 15 tournaments.
Martina described the win simply. “It was amazing, and we are going to try and keep this level,” she said. Asked about facing a partnership with far greater experience and silverware, she pointed to motivation as the deciding factor. “They (Delfina/Gemma) have an amazing hunger to win, but for them it is just another title; for us it is our first title, so we are hungrier to win.”