Alejandro Galán and Federico Chingotto are champions again. The Spanish-Argentine duo beat Javier Leal and Francisco Guerrero 6-2, 5-7, 7-6 in a final that stretched beyond two hours to win the Premier Padel P1 title in Pretoria on Sunday, ending a run of five runner-up finishes that had stretched back to the spring.
It was the pair's first trophy since Buenos Aires in May, after finals lost in Rome, Valladolid, Bordeaux, Valencia and Malaga had left them chasing a title for almost three months, according to Argentine outlet La Nación.
The final followed the pattern of their recent near-misses before finally breaking the other way. Galán and Chingotto raced through the first set 6-2, only for Leal and Guerrero — appearing in their first Premier Padel final together — to seize control at altitude and level with a 7-5 second set.
The decider went to the wire. Serving for the title at 5-4 in the third, Galán and Chingotto were broken back, handing their opponents a break point of their own before order was restored and the set went to a tiebreak, which the second seeds closed out 7-5.
"Today the Chingalán mode came out," Chingotto said afterwards, referencing the nickname fans have given the partnership, according to padelspain.net. "When they broke us at 5-4, I asked for it."
The route to the final had already tested them against the very best. Galán and Chingotto eliminated third seeds Lebrón and Augsburger in the quarterfinals, then beat top seeds Agustín Tapia and Arturo Coello — the world No. 1 pair — in the semifinals, arguably the statement result of their week.
The win was worth 1,000 ranking points, the pair's 18th title together and their sixth of the 2026 season. It cut the gap to Tapia and Coello atop the Premier Padel Race from roughly 1,530 points to 890 — 9,440 to 8,550 — with several events still to play this year.
Pretoria was the first Premier Padel event staged in South Africa, part of the tour's push to widen its footprint beyond Europe and Latin America. At roughly 1,339 metres above sea level, the thinner air produced a faster, lower-bouncing ball that early on suited the more attacking Leal and Guerrero before Galán and Chingotto adjusted.
For a partnership that has dominated men's padel since linking up, the manner of the win — recovering from a break down in the decider against opponents playing their maiden final — mattered almost as much as the trophy itself.
