Padel
How Alejandro Galán became number one in the world of padel
Along with former playing partner Juan Lebrón Chincoa, Spanish padel player Alejandro Galán reached number one in both the World Padel Tour and Premier Padel world rankings in 2023.
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Alejandro Galán has had a rocky road to the top. His entrance to the World Padel Tour came in 2016, when he joined forces with Juan Cruz Belluati. For two years, the pair battled away, earning respectable rankings.
Then, in 2018, 'Ale' joined up with Matías Diaz and reached the final in the Valladolid Open, where they defeated Maxi Sánchez and Sanyo Gutiérrez and secured Galán his first title on the World Padel Tour.
The next year, Galán paired with Juani Mieres, with whom he won the Buenos Aires Padel Masters in Argentina, before another change in partners, starting at the Valencia Open, when he began playing alongside Pablo Lima. This pairing went on to win the title in Valencia.
In 2020, the rollercoaster seemed to settle, with Galán finding a new partner in Juan Lebrón Chincoa. Together, the duo went on to massive success, including becoming the number one pair in the world, before parting ways during the 2024 season.
Now partnering with Federico Chingotto, Galán still has plenty of goals left to conquer, both within the sport and beyond.
Galán teamed with former rival Juan Lebrón to become the world's top pair
© Premier Padel
01
Starting out
"I think padel knew me before I knew padel," says Galán, recounting the tale of how, just after he was born, his parents moved to a new flat complex that just so happened to have its own padel court. "Although we thought it was a tennis court that had been badly made,” he laughs.
At the time, padel was a new sport in Spain. Galán quickly learned the ropes, playing as often as he could with neighbourhood kids and his older sister. "I started because it was the sport my sister did," he admits.
Like most Spanish kids, Galán also had a great love for football, but his mother couldn’t ferry him to football and watch him at padel at the same time, so Galán made a choice. “Padel was the sport I enjoyed the most. Nowadays it’s no longer a hobby, because I live for padel."
What he loves about the sport is the same now as it was back then. "As a sport I feel it's beautiful, very social and a very elegant sport. Tennis has always been elegant and padel has added some elements that tennis doesn’t have, and in my opinion much better, making the sport more spectacular and more fun, as it's more social.”
Galán’s route to the top of the padel world has been long in the making
© Premier Padel
I feel padel is beautiful, very social and a very elegant sport
02
The struggle
Galán got off to a strong start in the sport, soon entering tournaments and winning. But victory wasn’t a given. “When I started, I was under 10 years old. I was tall and I did well, but from then on, I stopped winning," he remembers.
With his family unable to financially support his training the same way wealthier families could, Galán felt like he was being left behind. Amazingly, he was given a grant from player-turned-coach Jorge Martínez to enable him to train, and threw himself into the sport wholeheartedly. "That's when I grew up and my level improved," he remembers. "I started winning and I became one of the best under-18s at national level."
03
Earning the trust
Like all kids falling in love with a sport, Galán had a dream. But, as he began to enter the professional circuit, he still wasn't certain that his hobby could become his life.
Galán chose padel over football and fought hard to make it
© Premier Padel
“It’s as if you played football as a kid and you’d love to be professional,” he says. "When I got the grant, I thought, 'If they trust me, I should pay back their trust'. And I started to think more about padel – I became very involved because I wanted to pay back this present. That's been my evolution, based on training: daily work, effort and to give back the trust to people that trusted me."
04
Idols
Because padel wasn't a big deal in Spain when Galán started out, he says he didn't follow the pro series, but he did know the number one players and measured himself against them. But his real idol was closer to home.
"I was always looking up to my sister," he says. "She has always been very talented at sports. I thought, 'My sister is winning all the time and I can't even win a match, what's going on?’."
Galán’s sister, Alba Galán, eventually reached number six in world doubles ranking, before announcing she would transition into coaching last year.
Outside of the family, Juan Martín Díaz was a big inspiration for the way he played and his personality. "He's been an idol for many players from my era, he's always been a reference," says Galán. "Sometimes it's been said that my game is similar to his way of playing in some respects, but without drawing comparisons as he was world number one for 13 years."
I still have room for improvement, so the daily challenge is to work towards that
Alejandro Galán in padel action
© Fabrizio Carabelli/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images
05
Family support
Galán says his sister’s success – and encouragement – has "helped me to have this small war among brother and sister. She has given me that motivation."
Naturally, the rest of his family helped, too. "Family has been key," he says. "Although maybe economically they couldn’t give me what other guys could have, they've given everything they had for me to be here. My dad worked in catering and I seldom saw him, he worked night and day to pay for my trips so that we could enter competitions. My mum lived and did everything for us."
The most valuable lessons he and Alba learned from them? “Work, sacrifice and, above all, effort.”
Jorge Martínez, who provided the grant, has been an instrumental figure. "He bet on me, he changed me and he made me the player I am today," says Galán. "Nowadays I train at M3 Academy, which he owns. My trainer is Mariano Amat, I started training with him when I was 18, but who's there and behind the scenes is Jorge Martínez. He gave me the opportunity.”
06
Motivations
Like his former partner, Juan Lebrón Chincoa, Galán says he is motivated by the desire to win. "I even like winning marbles!” he says.
But it’s something deeper, too. The drive to improve himself and surpass his own high expectations. "I still have room for improvement, so the daily challenge is to work towards improving and becoming better,” he says. “From there, the results will come.”
Unsurprisingly, a lot of this motivation comes from his sister, who has a tattoo of one of their father’s sayings: 'If you don’t take a risk, you don't win'.
Galán agrees with the sentiment: "I think that marks the way we play. We take risks and we want to win, we try to win the points, to have the ball and to set difference."
07
Growing stronger
Galán's path to number one is defined by the setbacks along the way. It hasn't been easy and that’s been the best learning tool. “Defeats made me stronger. They made me realise that I didn’t want that, that what I wanted was to win," he says.
He remembers a particular tournament in 2017, in Miami, when he was playing the world’s best for one of the first times. "I lost in the semi-finals against Fernando Belasteguín and Pablo Lima, who were unstoppable," he recalls. "We had gone beyond our goals reaching the semis, we were winning the first set against the number one couple and they turned it around. My blood was boiling, I had almost beat them. The number one couple beat me and I said: ‘Why? Why did they beat me if I was better than them? Why didn't I keep it up?'."
Galán had been trained to beat the best and his failure left a bitter taste in his mouth. But it also made him work harder than ever.
In 2019, he set himself the objective of finishing number one. He was about to make it when Juan Lebrón took the title. They were direct rivals, but then in the second half of the year they teamed up to become number one. For the first time, Galán wasn’t just playing to beat the best, or to play alongside the best. He was the best.
08
Mental motivation
The ups and downs of any sporting career require huge mental determination. "In 2018 I started working with my psychologist, Icíar Eraña. I think she's helped me a lot," says Galán. "We joke about it because a few days after I started with her, I won my first tournament."
He says that Eraña’s first job was to help him "tidy up" his training routine. "My life was a bit chaotic, there wasn’t order and having that structure outside the court was going to help me to focus on my tasks."
Now he focuses on slowing down, doing one thing at a time and being in the present, instead of looking back at mistakes. He says it's helped him communicate more and improved his relationship with his coach and partner. To disconnect, he loves to go on holiday with friends and family.
"At the end of the day it's the routine that a professional sport demands, the commitment I have with it, to rest and to take care of what you eat," he says. "I don't consider training a sacrifice."
Simply the best
© Silvia Lore/Getty Images
09
Growing the sport
Padel has given Galán so much that he now wants to help grow the sport internationally. He's president of the Padel Players Association, which aims to do just that. "It's well established in Spain, but at European and world level I think it can still grow," he says. "The country registering the biggest growth is Sweden, but now one of the main objectives in the mid-to-long term is to turn padel into an Olympic sport."
As part of his role as a leader in the sport, Galán is often asked his advice for the next generation of padel players. Alongside "If you don't take a risk, you don't win”, he tells them. "If you want, you can.
"It's no good to want something sitting on a sofa, if you want something you have to make a huge effort, to train very hard, to live for that and to make sacrifices," he says. “You never know how far you can go, I may become number one and maybe won't make it ever again because there are other players who do it better."
Galán puts a lot of effort into spreading the popularity of padel
© Jaime De Diego/Red Bull Content Pool
10
Looking to the future
While his sister has retired from competition, Galán wants to play as long as his body will allow him to remain competitive.
"I don't want to blur my achievements with bad results," he says. "The aim in the end is to create something beyond being a player and to leave the doors open for what motivates me in that moment. It might be becoming a coach, or maybe something to make the sport grow, like setting up clubs around the world."
He thinks he still has a good 15 years or so remaining. For now, it matters most that "the results start smiling on us. We've trained well, we've had a good pre-season and we are focused on results.
"People say the difficult thing is to keep things up, rather than getting there. That's a very good goal. That's sport."
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