Dubai: The UAE Padel Tennis Association (UAEPA) will stage the inaugural edition of Dubai Padel Masters – a stop on the World Padel Tour - from October 26-31.
Shaikh Saeed Bin Juma Al Maktoum, President, UAEPA signed an agreement with Javier Porras, Director General, WPT alongside Hernan Auguste, International Development Director, WPT and other top officials at the Nad Al Sheba (NAS) Sports Complex late on Saturday.
“Hosting a top-level sporting event of this nature is nothing new to Dubai. We want to make a huge success of this tournament and send out the right signal to the world of padel tennis,” Shaikh Saeed told Gulf News.
“Since the presentation of padel tennis in the UAE, the numbers have grown significantly. But we need to do more and this tournament will be just the spark we need,” he added.
“Dubai figures prominently in our plan to spread padel tennis through the world. We have 23 associations affiliated to the WPT at the moment and our goal is to double this figure within the next five years,” Porras told Gulf News.
The Masters circuit consists of the best 104 players in the world of Padel Tennis – 28 pairs in the men’s competition and 24 in the women’s event. The WPT calendar consists of 19 tournaments this year, along with five Masters Open and four Challengers. As per the heirarchy of events, the Masters are the most important tournaments in the professional world of Padel Tennis.
The five stops on the Masters Tour for this season will be in Dubai, Barcelona, Monaco, Malaga and Valencia.
The Dubai Padel Masters will consist of two qualifiers, one in Spain and the other in Dubai. At the end of these two qualifiers, the best four pairs at each venue will advance to the main draw of the Dubai Padel Masters at the NAS Sports Complex in October.
The Masters tournaments also have the highest WPT Ranking Points with the men’s winner of each competition getting 1,500 points and the women’s winners bagging 1,000 points.
Competitors accumulate points at each of the Masters tournaments with the aim of qualifying to the season-ending Masters Final to be held in Madrid in December.
