They gave her her first shovel so that on rainy days she could play paddle tennis instead of tennis. He started because a co-worker convinced him. Since then they have not stopped. Lucía Carreño (Gijón, 1988) and Kike Méndez (Langreo, 1983) are the captains and leaders of the Iberpadel and Grupo Covadonga teams, champions in Asturias in their categories, which this weekend are contesting the Spanish Cup of Autonomous Leagues in Valencia .
The appointment should have been held in September 2020, but was suspended due to the pandemic. Now come back. And he does it after the paddle suffered a real boom during the time (which follows) of covid. “Paddle tennis has had enormous growth in a short time. Many people federated en masse to be able to leave Asturias during the pandemic ”, explains Lucía Carreño, the leader of the Iberpadel team’s women’s team, which has 16 members. In his case, the fever for a racket runs in his family: Lucía is the older sister of Pablo Carreño, the Asturian tennis player.
“When my brother comes to Asturias we throw some ‘pachanguina’ of paddle and I put up with the guy, although physically he beats me, but he loses himself in the walls and tactically he is not very good,” jokes Lucía, who works in an architecture studio in Gijón and combines his work with paddle tennis competitions.
Last week she was champion of Asturias with her partner on the slopes, Tamara Varcárcel. Lucía began playing tennis in the Covadonga Group and although she had tried paddle tennis since she was very little, she did not get hooked until she was twenty, when she went to La Coruña to study architecture. “I started playing Leagues and I never quit. Until I went to Galicia I had not had much contact with paddle tennis, but I was hooked. The secret of this sport is that it is tremendously social and thanks to it you make friends ”.
Lucía, from Asturias, was champion of Galicia in 2013. She explains it. “I had to federate there to be able to compete.” A year later Lucía returned to Asturias and received the call from Iberpadel, a team for which she has played since and champion of the Women’s Autonomous League in 2019 and 2020. “We are going to the tournament with all the illusion”.
Something similar can tell Kike Méndez, the captain of the Covadonga Group men’s team, as Iberpadel champion in 2019 and 2020 and representing Asturias in the men’s category in the Regional Cup. Méndez has been caught by the tournament celebrating his fatherhood. That is why he will try to win and dedicate the title to his son Pelayo, who is seven months old.
The langrean, telematics engineer, responsible for the area of Marketing and Companies in Digital Transformation of Telecable, entered the world of paddle tennis 12 years ago when he worked at Telefónica. “A colleague took me to play: I had never picked up a shovel. That was another world and hardly anyone played paddle tennis. He seduced me from the beginning and that is the good thing about this sport: you start and you don’t stop ”. Méndez gives a concrete example that demonstrates the paddle boom. “To get a clue in the Group I have to go at noon, before lunchtime. If not, impossible. Growth is real and you realize it by looking at the people around you. Almost everyone plays paddle tennis and many people watch the championships on television ”.
Méndez and Carreño agree on a basic issue: Asturias is somewhat behind other regions. “It is also true that we have the handicap of time, because in other places they can play outdoors without problem. When we go out to compete we suffer, but it does not mean that there is a bad level ”, says the captain. The Asturians who will represent the Principality in Valencia today begin a demanding tournament that will last until Sunday. It will be difficult, they admit, but they hope to win.
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