Breaking Down the Action - Skylab: EPA's Post-Match Analysis of the FIP Rise Tournament 2024 Finals
The first International Padel Federation (FIP) Rise tournament of 2024 took place in Great Britain over Easter at Rocks Lane, Chiswick, London.
FIP Rise events are part of the international CUPRA FIP Tour, and with only three FIP Rise tournaments taking place in Great Britain this year, key ranking points and prize money were on the line for competitive Men’s and Women’s fields.
Skylab: EPA, with its expertise in performance analysis and game intelligence, has reviewed both finals to gain a deeper understanding of the matches on behalf of tournament hosts, Rocks Lane.
Men's Final
Unseeded Italian duo dominate in London
The Men’s final was contested between unseeded pair Flavio Abbate (ITA) and Giulio Graziotti (ITA) who had beaten the #1 seeds 6-1, 6-3 in the semi-finals vs #4 seed Simon Vasquez (SWE) and Alvaro Montiel Caruso (ESP).
Abbate and Graziotti continued their dominance into the final, winning 56 of the 89 shots contested, with 16 of the winning points coming from a Smash whereas Vasquez and Montiel Caruso were limited to just 3 smash winners, while also hitting 3 Smash errors.
Abbate was dominant in rallies when serving, winning 86% of the points. The pair often controlled the game by winning points in short rallies. For instance, Abbate and Graziotti won 20 out of 21 (95%) points in rallies consisting of 3 to 7 shots when serving, while Vasquez and Montiel Caruso only won 15 out of 26 (58%) of their points in similar rallies.
Women's Final
An intense first set proves critical as De Lera and Ramos win an all-Spanish final.
The Women’s final was contested between two Spanish pairs with #2 seed Ana Varo Ramos (ESP) and Lorena Alonso De Lera (ESP) vs #5 seed Natividad López Díaz (ESP) and Laura Luján Rodríguez (ESP).
The average rally length was consistent through the sets between 10.7 and 12.0, as was the points won % for shorter to longer rallies. As a reference, the average rallies were much higher than the corresponding Men’s final of 7.4.
The first set was taken to a tiebreak, with López Díaz and Luján Rodríguez winning 7-4. However, it was from this point that the eventual winners, Varo Ramos and Alonso De Lera, asserted their dominance by clinching the next two sets 6-2 and 6-3, respectively. Despite the set scores indicating Varo Ramos and Alonso De Lera's superiority, the total points won were only 99 to 87.
With only a 12-point difference between the two teams throughout the 2 hours and 15 minutes of match time, certain aspects of each player's game come into focus, defining the winning or losing edge for each pair.
The final shots highlighted López Díaz as the player with the highest number of errors (35), the majority of which were groundstrokes (68%). This indicates an area for potential focus, especially considering that her fellow finalists made groundstroke errors at rates of 35%, 40%, and 45%.
Alonso De Lera's powerful smashes played a crucial role in ending rallies. She won 16 rallies with final shot smashes, while her partner Varo Ramos won 8 and López Díaz and Luján Rodríguez won only 4 each.
Skylab: EPA
These are some of the key statistics produced by Skylab: EPA and the game intelligence product, which serve as a valuable extension of a Padel player’s support team.
Post-match analysis is a crucial step in the analysis process for professionals. It can be used to help players and coaches understand their strengths and weaknesses, as well as those of their opponents. The data and insights generated are used to inform decision-making around strategy and coaching, to strive for the best possible outcome.
Since 2000, Skylab: EPA has been at the forefront of collaborating with sporting organisations to make better decisions in sport. We collect data, assess its validity and reliability, then analyse and communicate this to give athletes, coaches, teams and organisations the ability to make better decisions in sport.
If you are interested in learning more about our Elite Performance Analysis division and game intelligence product to improve your game, please visit this page for more information, or contact Ciaran Skinner at ciaran.skinner@skylab.com