{"id":14450,"date":"2026-08-22T12:22:30","date_gmt":"2026-08-22T10:22:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/padelinformacion.com\/padel-in-taranto-2026-the-battle-for-gold-begins\/"},"modified":"2026-08-22T12:22:30","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T10:22:30","slug":"padel-in-taranto-2026-the-battle-for-gold-begins","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/padelinformacion.com\/en\/padel-in-taranto-2026-the-battle-for-gold-begins\/","title":{"rendered":"Padel in Taranto 2026: the battle for gold begins"},"content":{"rendered":"

Under the skies of Taranto, on the evening of 21 August, the flag was raised to mark the start of the<\/span> 20th edition of the Mediterranean Games<\/b><\/span>,<\/a> with padel making its debut as a medal sport. Over the course of seven days, 19 countries \u2014 including Spain and Portugal \u2014 will compete at the Salinella Mediterranean Park in pursuit of glory.<\/span><\/p>\n

The padel tournament kicked off today, 22 August, at 10.00<\/b>. The competition features a men\u2019s draw comprising 24 pairs, eight of whom are seeded; a women\u2019s draw comprising 19 pairs and three round of 32 matches to determine who progresses to the round of 16; and a mixed draw comprising 12 pairs, four of whom are seeded.<\/span><\/p>\n

Following the draw, and thanks to their positions in the FIP rankings \u2013 which guarantee them top-seed status and direct qualification for the round of 16 in all categories<\/span> \u2013 the national teams of Portugal and Spain will not make their debut until 23 August.<\/b><\/p>\n

Who will the Spanish national team be playing against?<\/b><\/h2>\n

Guillermo Collado<\/a><\/b><\/span> and<\/span> Pol Hern\u00e1ndez<\/a><\/b><\/span>, the number one pair<\/strong> with extensive experience playing together, will make their debut against the winner of the match on 22 August (8.00 pm) between the Egyptians Youssef Hossam and Georges Wakim and Tiziano Lucarelli and Fabrizio Peloni, representing Vatican City (guest nation).<\/p>\n

At the opposite end of the draw are<\/span> Jos\u00e9 Antonio Diestro<\/a><\/b><\/span> and<\/span> David Gala,<\/a><\/span><\/b> the second seeds<\/b>, who will make their debut against the Tunisians, Mehdi Elloumi and Mohamed Aziz, who this morning won their match against the Greeks Pavlos-Louis Balafas and Vasileios Sioulis by a score of 6-3, 6-3.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the women\u2019s draw,<\/span> Patricia LLaguno<\/a> <\/b><\/span>and<\/span> Luc\u00eda Sainz<\/a><\/span><\/b>, the tournament\u2019s number two pair<\/b>, will kick off their campaign against the Montenegrins Jelena Matijevi\u0107 and Ivanka Simonovi\u0107.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile<\/span>, Nuria Rodriguez<\/a> <\/b><\/span>and <\/span>Jimena Velasco<\/a><\/span>, the third seeds,<\/b> are preparing to face the winners of today\u2019s match at 5.00 pm between the Croatians Karolina Balog and Lea Jurkovi\u0107 and the Serbs Ana Mirkovi\u0107 and Teodora Nikoli\u0107.<\/span> <\/p>\n

Who will the Portuguese national team be up against?<\/b><\/h2>\n

As for the<\/span> Portuguese team<\/b>, in the men\u2019s draw,<\/strong><\/span> Miguel Deus<\/b><\/span> <\/a>and Nuno Deus<\/a><\/b><\/span>, <\/span>the fourth seeds<\/b>, will make their debut against the Kosovars Lavdrim Krasniqi and Leotrim Krasniqi, who this morning beat the Turks Alihan Ozbayrak and Unsal Ataol Toker 7-6(4), 6-3.<\/span><\/p>\n

Meanwhile<\/span>, Peu Ara\u00fajo<\/a><\/b><\/span> and<\/span> Pedro Gra\u00e7a<\/a><\/span>, the tournament\u2019s seventh-seeded pair<\/b>, will face the Slovenians Simon Javor\u0161ek and Bo\u0161tjan Repan\u0161ek in the round of 16, after the latter defeated the Serbs Uros Acimov and Petar Certic 6-1, 6-2.<\/span> <\/p>\n

In the women\u2019s draw<\/strong>, Sofia Ara\u00fajo<\/a><\/b><\/span> and<\/span> Ana Catarina Nogueira<\/a><\/span><\/b>, the only Portuguese representatives, will start as<\/span> the top seeds<\/b> and face the Turkish pair Zeynep Kocak and Didenaz Polat.<\/span><\/p>\n

In the mixed doubles, siblings<\/span> Sofia Ara\u00fajo<\/b> and <\/span>Peu Ara\u00fajo<\/b> will join forces on court to take on the winners of the tie between the Cypriots Sergis Kyratzis and Maria Siopacha and the Turks Zeynep Kocak and Unsal Ataol Toker.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Fixtures and opening matches for Spain and Portugal at the 20th Mediterranean Games <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":14449,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[158],"tags":[],"clasificacion":[],"pais":[],"tipo-de-torneo":[],"tipo-de-competicion":[173],"class_list":["post-14450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brief-news","tipo-de-competicion-mediterranean-games"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/padelinformacion.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14450","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/padelinformacion.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/padelinformacion.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/padelinformacion.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/padelinformacion.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/padelinformacion.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/padelinformacion.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/padelinformacion.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/padelinformacion.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/padelinformacion.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14450"},{"taxonomy":"clasificacion","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/padelinformacion.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/clasificacion?post=14450"},{"taxonomy":"pais","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/padelinformacion.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pais?post=14450"},{"taxonomy":"tipo-de-torneo","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/padelinformacion.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tipo-de-torneo?post=14450"},{"taxonomy":"tipo-de-competicion","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/padelinformacion.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tipo-de-competicion?post=14450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}