Rotterdam P2: Upsets shake the draw, but the champions stand firm

Three of the men's top four seeds fell before the Semi-finals, but Rotterdam P2 2026 still finished with the favourites lifting the trophy. A 6-3 6-2 victory over Franco Stupaczuk and Jon Sanz secured the title for Agustin Tapia and Arturo Coello at Ahoy Rotterdam, their tenth of the season.

The trophy stayed with familiar winners, but the week offered considerably more than a procession. Stupaczuk and Sanz reached their first Premier Padel final together. Around that breakthrough, established contenders fell and less-fancied partnerships found openings. Rotterdam rewarded the favourites who could negotiate that disruption, rather than simply arrive with the strongest credentials.

Tapia and Coello's Final began with a warning. An early break gave Stupaczuk and Sanz something to build on, but the top seeds ultimately took control. The eventual straight-set result was backed by a 55% share of the points for Tapia and Coello, against 45% for their opponents. After being pushed into deciding sets in both previous rounds, the champions finished their tournament without needing another.

For Stupaczuk and Sanz, reaching that stage had already changed the story of their partnership. They had won the FIP Gold in Belgrade and reached the FIP Platinum final in Lyon; Rotterdam brought their first title match together on the Premier Padel circuit. A 6-4 6-4 Quarter-final win over second seeds Federico Chingotto and Alejandro Galan made that breakthrough possible. It also removed one of the most obvious obstacles between the fifth seeds and the Final.

They followed it with a 6-0 6-4 Semi-final victory over Miguel Yanguas and Jorge Nieto. The opening set left no games for their opponents, and the second confirmed their progress. Yanguas and Nieto had themselves helped reshape the draw by beating third seeds Leo Augsburger and Juan Lebron 7-6 6-3 in the Quarter-final. Their first-set tie-break had finished 7-0, a particularly emphatic conclusion to an otherwise closely scored set.

The other section supplied its own reversal. Momo Gonzalez and Lucas Campagnolo survived two match points to overturn fourth seeds Martin Di Nenno and Francisco Navarro 2-6 7-6 7-5 in the Quarter-final. The eighth seeds had turned a lost opening set into a place in the last four. With Chingotto and Galan and Augsburger and Lebron also eliminated, three of the men's top four seeded pairs were out before the Semi-finals.

Tapia and Coello survived, although their own route was hardly free of complications. Tino Libaak and Gonzalo Alfonso took the first set of their Quarter-final before the top seeds recovered to win 4-6 6-3 6-3. Libaak and Alfonso were the only unseeded men's pair to reach that round. Their partnership had already collected CUPRA FIP Tour titles in Porto Sant'Elpidio and Budapest and reached the Madrid P1 Semi-final; Rotterdam added another test against the leading seeds.

Gonzalez and Campagnolo then carried the men's champions into another third set in the Semi-final. Tapia and Coello won the opener, lost the second, and answered with a 6-1 3-6 6-1 victory. The pair who eventually took the title had twice needed to reset before the Final. Against Stupaczuk and Sanz, their response came earlier, after the early break, and the match was settled in two sets.

In the women's draw, Ariana Sanchez Fallada and Andrea Ustero Prieto beat Paula Josemaria Martin and Beatriz Gonzalez Fernandez 6-4 6-4 in the Final. The third seeds had also defeated top seeds Gemma Triay Pons and Delfina Brea Senesi 6-2 6-3 in the Semi-final. Sanchez marked her 100th career final with a title, while the pair followed their Paris Major success with a second consecutive tournament victory, their fourth of 2026.

Rotterdam therefore finished with the same winning pairs as Paris, despite a men's draw that had lost three of its top four seeds before the Semi-finals. Tapia and Coello survived consecutive three-set tests, then completed the job in two. Stupaczuk and Sanz left with a first Premier Padel final together; the champions left with another title. The challengers changed, but the winners did not.

Header image source: International Padel Federation (FIP).