Watch a Premier Padel match and it’s easy to get hypnotised by the obvious: four players, four glass walls, and rallies that explode at full speed. But while the cameras chase the ball, another battle is unfolding just out of frame—on the bench, in the warm-up area, and in the quiet moments before the first serve. Elite padel may be played in doubles, but it’s powered by a whole crew.
Because behind every perfectly timed bandeja and every ice-cold tiebreak, there’s a “circle of trust”: the coach dissecting patterns from the sidelines, the physio strapping a shoulder seconds before kick-off, and the family member who drove them to their first local tournament at 12—now cheering in the biggest arenas on the planet. That’s the real engine of the world’s fastest-growing sport.
### Coaches’ corner: where matches are won Professional padel coaches are the architects of brilliance, shaping champions with equal parts tactics and timing. Look at Gustavo Pratto and Martín Canali, the brains behind the world’s top pairing: Arturo Coello and Agustín Tapia. Spanish outlet *Padel Addict* calls Pratto “the architect of the project”—the strategist who studies what’s coming next, builds match plans from subtle patterns, and leads a broader support team that can include trainers, physios and sports psychologists.
Canali’s impact is quieter but crucial. He’s Tapia’s personal coach and, as *Padel Addict* puts it, “one of the recent additions who contributes where it often goes unseen.” Their working model is modern padel in a nutshell: Pratto focuses day-to-day with Coello, Canali with Tapia, and they stay synced through constant feedback.
And here’s the twist casual viewers rarely realise: in some cases, even the best pairs in the world don’t train together all the time. They often grind with their own teams, then come together just a day or two before tournaments to fuse their coaches’ strategies into one game plan. At the top, players typically travel with teams of at least three people—but for those ranked around 40 and below, those numbers shrink fast, squeezed by the high costs and logistical headache of moving a full staff week after week.
### More than a coach: strategist, translator, psychologist A great coach doesn’t just know padel—they know people. They have to absorb everything happening around a player, then translate it into a few crystal-clear instructions that can be delivered in about 15 seconds during a changeover… and actually be executed under pressure.
For Alejandro Galán, that guiding figure has been Jorge Martínez of M3 Academy. Martínez coached Galán from childhood and gave him a career-defining scholarship at 15 years old to chase his professional dream. Galán has been open about the impact, saying Martínez “bet on me, changed me and turned me into the player I am today.”
Even as Galán has worked with other coaches from the same academy—like Mariano Amat during his famous partnership with Juan Lebrón—Martínez remains a steady force in his story. In Premier Padel, some coach-player relationships go far beyond tactics. They become the foundation that holds everything together when the lights are brightest and the points get loudest.
