Premier Padel 2026: Schedule, Players, and How to Watch in the UK

Professional padel has arrived in Britain. In August 2026, Olympia London will host the country's first-ever Premier Padel event — a P1 tournament that brings the world's elite men's and women's players to one of London's most iconic venues. For UK fans who have followed the sport's rapid growth through club courts and the LTA's British Tour, this is the moment the sport steps fully into the mainstream.

This guide covers the complete Premier Padel 2026 calendar, how the circuit is structured, who the players to watch are, and — critically for UK fans — exactly how to watch from home or in person. For background on the sport itself, our getting started with padel guide is the best place to begin.

What is Premier Padel?

Premier Padel is the elite tier of professional padel, operated under the governance of the International Padel Federation (FIP) and featuring the world's top-ranked players. It replaced the World Padel Tour as the sport's premier circuit following a period of restructuring in 2022–2023, with the unified FIP circuit fully established from 2024.

The circuit is structured around three event tiers: Majors (the most prestigious), P1 events (second-highest), and P2 events. FIP world ranking points — earned across both Premier Padel and the lower-tier Cupra FIP Tour — determine entry, seedings, and qualification for the season-ending Finals.

Qatar Airways is the title sponsor of the 2026 tour, making the full title the Qatar Airways Premier Padel Tour. Commercially, the circuit has attracted significant investment from Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund and a range of global brands, reflecting padel's extraordinary growth from a Mediterranean club sport to a global professional product in under a decade.

The 2026 calendar: 26 tournaments, 18 countries

The 2026 season features 26 tournaments spread across 18 countries, making it the most internationally distributed Premier Padel calendar to date. Nearly 75% of events are played indoors. The season opens in Riyadh in February and closes with the Barcelona Finals in December.

The four Majors

Majors are Premier Padel's grand slams — the four events that carry the highest prestige, the largest prize pots, and the most ranking points. In 2026:

The Paris Major holds particular symbolic weight: it is played at Roland-Garros, home of the French Open, giving padel a foothold at one of tennis's most celebrated venues. For a sport that shares padel's scoring system and cultural roots with tennis — see our padel vs tennis comparison — this is a meaningful moment of institutional validation.

Selected P1 and P2 schedule

Beyond the Majors, the circuit features P1 events (second-highest tier) and P2 events across Europe, the Middle East, Africa, and the Americas. Key dates for 2026 include:

London's inclusion as a P1 — rather than a lower-tier P2 debut — signals Premier Padel's confidence in British demand. Olympia London, one of the capital's premier indoor event venues, provides a capacity and atmosphere suited to showcasing the sport at its highest level.

London P1: Britain's first Premier Padel event

The London P1 at Olympia, running from 3 to 9 August, is the centrepiece of Britain's 2026 padel calendar. The LTA announced the event as a historic moment for the sport in the UK, describing it as the first time professional padel's elite players will compete professionally in Great Britain.

As a P1, the London tournament sits one tier below a Major — but P1 events attract full fields from the world rankings and carry substantial prize money. Based on the Riyadh P1 earlier in the season, prize distribution at London is expected to be structured similarly: match winners at the Riyadh P1 received approximately €26,000 per player, with finalists earning around €14,300. The London total prize pot is expected to approach €495,000 across both men's and women's draws.

Wildcard entries for British players are anticipated, which would give Christian Medina Murphy (men's British No.1) and Aimee Gibson (women's British No.1) — both active on the Cupra FIP Tour circuit — their highest-profile competitive opportunity of the year. Both have featured in qualifying draws at Premier Padel events during the season.

For UK fans interested in attending, tickets are sold directly through the Olympia London box office and the Premier Padel website. This is a rare opportunity to watch the world's best padel players in person without a trip to Madrid, Barcelona, or Doha. If you are based in the capital, our London padel courts directory page has details on venues for warm-up sessions before and after the event.

The players to watch in 2026

Men's circuit

Arturo Coello and Agustín Tapia enter 2026 as the dominant force on the men's circuit. The Spanish-Argentine pairing combines Coello's aggressive net game and finishing with Tapia's explosive retrieving and power. Their partnership was one of the defining stories of the 2024–2025 period, and most analysts consider them the team to beat until they are beaten.

Alejandro Galán and Juan Lebrón — who were world No.1 for an extended period before Coello/Tapia's ascent — remain among the most technically accomplished pairings on the circuit. Galán's reading of the game and Lebrón's vibora are still benchmarks at the highest level.

The 2026 season features significant reshuffling among pairings outside the top tier, as the dominance of Coello and Tapia has pushed other players to seek new partners and tactical approaches. This makes the early-season results from P1 events worth watching closely.

Women's circuit

Alejandra Salazar and Gemma Triay are the most decorated pairing on the women's circuit across recent seasons. Triay's defensive tenacity and Salazar's aggression at the net make them the standard-setting partnership.

Ariana Sánchez and Delfi Brea are the primary challengers, with Sánchez widely considered the most complete women's player in the world over a sustained period. Lucía Sainz and her partner are also a consistent presence in finals and semi-finals at Major level.

Understanding padel rules and the scoring system — including the super tiebreak format used at 1 set all in professional matches — adds significant depth to watching elite-level play.

How to watch Premier Padel in the UK

There is no Sky Sports or TNT Sports deal for Premier Padel in 2026. Instead, the circuit has built its own direct-to-fan distribution model:

Red Bull TV — Free to access at redbull.com/tv. Carries every Premier Padel event from the quarter-finals through to the final, for both men's and women's draws. No subscription required. Available on web, iOS, Android, and most smart TV platforms.

Premier Padel YouTube channel — Earlier rounds (round of 32, round of 16) are streamed here free. The channel also carries highlights packages and feature content throughout the season.

Premier Padel app — Available on iOS and Android. Provides match schedules, live scores, and access to streams within the same free model as Red Bull TV.

The free-to-access model is a conscious choice by FIP and the Premier Padel commercial team — growing the audience by removing barriers. For UK fans accustomed to padel being invisible on mainstream sports channels, having Majors and P1 events available free and without a VPN is a genuine shift.

For the London P1 specifically, expect additional coverage from British sports media given the home-market significance. The LTA has been active in promoting the event across its channels, and Padel England — the LTA's sub-body governing padel specifically — is likely to coordinate fan engagement activity around the August dates.

The Star Point system and season-long narrative

Premier Padel introduced a new Star Point system for 2026, adding a layer of season-long drama to what was previously a straightforward points accumulation format. The details of Star Points affect which matches carry additional weight within events, and the system is designed to keep later rounds in every tournament meaningful even for players whose Finals qualification is already secured.

FIP world rankings are calculated from each player's best 22 results in a rolling 52-week window. This means points from the 2025 season expire across 2026, so last season's results — good or bad — fade in relevance as new results come in. The top 16 men's and women's pairs at season's end qualify for the Barcelona Finals, where the year's No.1 ranking is confirmed.

Following the rankings week-to-week across the 2026 season — from Riyadh in February through to the December Finals — provides a coherent narrative that individual tournaments alone cannot. The FIP world ranking system on padelfip.com updates after each event and is worth bookmarking alongside the calendar. Our player profiles page covers the world rankings in full, including all British players currently competing on the circuit.

British padel has grown at 35% year-on-year according to LTA participation data, with over 120,000 active players and 300 clubs across the UK as of 2024. Premier Padel's arrival in London is both a product of that growth and an accelerant for it — the kind of high-profile event that converts casual observers into committed players and fans. Browse the full 2026 tournament calendar for every Premier Padel event date, location, and draw size. The next step is watching the world's best at Olympia in August.