Teenager Coquito Zamora stuns Hernández and Collado in Málaga opener

Eighteen-year-old Coquito Zamora and Pablo Sánchez Vicente turned Málaga’s opening day into a statement, beating Pol Hernández and Guille Collado 7-6 (4), 6-4 in one hour and 27 minutes.

The win carried more weight than a standard first-round upset. Zamora arrived in the draw as a wild card after helping Spain win the FIP Junior Euro Padel Cup, and he and Sánchez had to solve a pair with more senior tour mileage while keeping their nerve through a tight first-set tiebreak and a cleaner second set. That is the part that made the result feel real: not just shotmaking, but control when the match tightened.

It landed on a proper stage. Andalucía Málaga Premier Padel P1 ran from 06-14 July at Martín Carpena in Málaga, Spain, with €470,000 in prize money, and the event sat inside a 2026 Premier Padel tour that the circuit and the International Padel Federation said would span 26 tournaments across 18 countries. In other words, this was not a tucked-away early round. It was a home event with real visibility, and Zamora used it to announce himself to the main tour.

The reward is brutal and immediate. Zamora and Sánchez moved on to face Paquito Navarro and Martín Di Nenno, a second-round assignment that will tell whether the Málaga breakout was a sharp opening-night surge or the start of a longer run. Either way, Spain’s youth pipeline did not wait long to reach Premier Padel’s top shelf.