{"id":44953,"date":"2026-04-06T20:31:42","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T20:31:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/?p=44953"},"modified":"2026-04-08T11:46:08","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T11:46:08","slug":"smashes-rallies-and-checkmates-padel-hits-the-candidates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/smashes-rallies-and-checkmates-padel-hits-the-candidates\/","title":{"rendered":"Smashes, rallies, and checkmates: Padel hits the Candidates"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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Padel is a fast-growing racket sport, particularly popular in Spain and increasingly gaining traction worldwide. Played in doubles on an enclosed court where the walls are part of the game, it combines elements of both tennis and squash.<\/p>

The sport emphasizes quick reflexes, agility, positioning, and team coordination. It is highly social and generally easier to pick up than tennis, making it accessible to newcomers. While padel keeps your body sharp, chess sharpens the mind, together offering a perfect balance, as one enhances reaction speed and coordination, while the other strengthens decision-making and focus.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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For the second rest day, the organizing team arranged a padel tournament, which quickly captured the interest of players, their seconds, commentators, the media team, and even friends and family. It provided a great opportunity to socialize while engaging in light physical activity.<\/p>

For many participants, it was their first time on a padel court, and judging by their enthusiasm, it would not be surprising to see them playing more often during the second half of the event.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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A total of sixteen teams (32 players) took part, including Candidates Fabiano Caruana and Andrey Esipenko, who teamed up with their seconds Cristian Chirila and David Paravyan.\u00a0<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Anna Muzychuk joined Ivan Cheparinov to form another strong \u201cchess-heavy\u201d pair. FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich also made a brief appearance in the opening round before attending to other responsibilities.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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The teams were divided into two groups in the initial stage, with the top performers advancing to the quarterfinals, semi-finals, and ultimately the final. After more than two hours of intense competition, the duo of Pavel Tregubov and Konstantin Kiselev emerged victorious, defeating Peter Svidler and Michael Rahal in the final.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Watch participants, officials and journalists navigate the popular sport of padel, sharing their experiences and reactions to the fun activity.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Written by IM Michael A. Rahal (Cyprus)<\/strong><\/p>

Photos: Yoav Nis (Eugene Nisenbaum)<\/strong><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Padel is a fast-growing racket sport, particularly popular in Spain and increasingly gaining traction worldwide. Played in doubles on an enclosed court where the walls are part of the game, it combines elements of both tennis and squash. The sport emphasizes quick reflexes, agility, positioning, and team coordination. It is highly social and generally easier to pick up than tennis, making it accessible to newcomers. While padel keeps your body sharp, chess sharpens the mind, together offering a perfect balance, as one enhances reaction speed and coordination, while the other strengthens decision-making and focus. For the second rest day, the organizing team arranged a padel tournament, which quickly captured the interest of players, their seconds, commentators, the media team, and even friends and family. It provided a great opportunity to socialize while engaging in light physical activity. For many participants, it was their first time on a padel court, and judging by their enthusiasm, it would not be surprising to see them playing more often during the second half of the event. A total of sixteen teams (32 players) took part, including Candidates Fabiano Caruana and Andrey Esipenko, who teamed up with their seconds Cristian Chirila and David Paravyan.\u00a0 Anna Muzychuk joined Ivan Cheparinov to form another strong \u201cchess-heavy\u201d pair. FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich also made a brief appearance in the opening round before attending to other responsibilities. The teams were divided into two groups in the initial stage, with the top performers advancing to the quarterfinals, semi-finals, and ultimately the final. After more than two hours of intense competition, the duo of Pavel Tregubov and Konstantin Kiselev emerged victorious, defeating Peter Svidler and Michael Rahal in the final. Watch participants, officials and journalists navigate the popular sport of padel, sharing their experiences and reactions to the fun activity. https:\/\/youtu.be\/o9ixjj96fvQ?is=tmzQov4HvBwJNbCg Written by IM Michael A. Rahal (Cyprus) Photos: Yoav Nis (Eugene Nisenbaum)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":44957,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[153,69],"regular":[361],"sticky-post":[],"class_list":["post-44953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chess-news","tag-fide-candidates","tag-fide-womens-candidates","regular-regular"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44953"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45050,"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44953\/revisions\/45050"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44953"},{"taxonomy":"regular","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/regular?post=44953"},{"taxonomy":"sticky-post","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fide.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sticky-post?post=44953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}