Di Nenno and Navarro Blow Up the Paris Major Bracket — Galán and Chingotto Are Next
GOATIFYThe Paris Major men's draw has officially lost its neat seed-line logic. Martín Di Nenno and Paquito Navarro, playing outside the top four seeds, came from a set down to eliminate fourth seeds Franco Stupaczuk and Jon Sanz 4-6, 6-1, 6-4 and book a place in the semifinals at Philippe-Chatrier.
It was not a clean upset built on one hot streak. Di Nenno and Navarro had to absorb a first-set loss, dominate the second, fall behind again in the deciding set and then recover when the match was tightening around them. The reward is a semifinal against Ale Galán and Fede Chingotto, while the opposite half brings together Arturo Coello and Agustín Tapia against Juan Lebrón and Leo Augsburger. In other words, Paris has produced exactly the kind of final-four field a Major is supposed to create: three established heavyweight pairings and one dangerous team that has just proved it can break the bracket.
Di Nenno and Navarro changed the match after losing the first set
Stupaczuk and Sanz took the opening set 6-4, putting the pressure on a pair that had already needed to navigate a difficult road into the latter stages. But the response was immediate. Di Nenno and Navarro tore through the second set 6-1, turning a match that had looked controlled by the fourth seeds into a reset with completely different energy.
The deciding set then became the real test. Stupaczuk and Sanz struck first with a break and had the chance to force Di Nenno and Navarro to chase from behind. Instead, the underdogs stabilized, recovered the break and dragged the set into the 5-4 pressure zone. That is where the match finally tipped. A volley error from Sanz opened the door, Di Nenno and Navarro took the decisive break, and a contest lasting more than two hours ended with the lower-seeded pair moving on.
The score line tells only part of the story. A 6-1 middle set can sometimes look like the anomaly between two tighter sets, but here it mattered because it showed Di Nenno and Navarro could completely change the rhythm of the match. They did not need the first set to go their way, and they did not panic when the third set started badly. That kind of reset ability becomes increasingly valuable in a Major, where every round adds pressure and there is rarely an easy path through the final weekend.
It also gives this partnership another meaningful semifinal. Paris is their fourth semifinal together after previous deep runs in London, Málaga and Bordeaux. The difference now is the stage. A Paris Major run carries more weight, and knocking out a top-four seed on the way makes this one feel less like a nice result and more like evidence that the pair can interfere with the title race.
The upset leaves Stupaczuk and Sanz searching for their first semifinal together
For Stupaczuk and Sanz, the frustration is obvious. This was only their second tournament as a partnership, so the sample is still tiny, but the fourth-seed status creates an expectation that they will reach the final stages quickly. Two events in, they still do not have a semifinal together.
That does not make the partnership a failure. New pairings often need time to establish who controls the middle, how aggressively they defend transitions and how they react when a match changes speed. What Paris does show is that seed position alone will not protect them in the current men's field. There are enough experienced players outside the top four that a quarterfinal can become a genuine title-level match.
Di Nenno and Navarro are a perfect example. Navarro brings years of experience in the biggest environments, while Di Nenno remains one of the most resilient players on tour when a match becomes physical and uncomfortable. Their ability to stay alive through the third-set deficit turned what could have been a straightforward seed-line result into the biggest men's bracket break of the quarterfinals.
The loss also matters because the rest of the semifinal field did not collapse. Galán and Chingotto handled Edu Alonso and Javi Goñi 7-6, 6-2. Coello and Tapia beat Fran Guerrero and Javi Leal 6-2, 7-5. Lebrón and Augsburger moved past Momo González and Lucas Campagnolo 6-3, 7-6. Di Nenno and Navarro are therefore the only semifinalists who arrived by taking down one of the nominal top-four teams, which makes their route stand out even more.
Paris now has two semifinal matchups with completely different pressure
Galán and Chingotto will enter their semifinal as the higher-ranked pair, but Di Nenno and Navarro have already shown why this is not a comfortable matchup. They have survived the kind of three-set match that hardens a team during a tournament, and they now arrive with nothing to protect. The pressure shifts toward the favorites, who know a Major semifinal is exactly the stage where ranking points, momentum and the season-long race become more important.
On the other side, Coello and Tapia against Lebrón and Augsburger has a different feel. Coello and Tapia continue to set the standard at the top of the men's game, but Lebrón and Augsburger bring enough power and volatility to make a short stretch of points dangerous. Their straight-set quarterfinal wins mean neither side had to spend the same energy Di Nenno and Navarro used in their comeback, so the tactical question becomes who can impose the first real disruption.
That gives Saturday at Philippe-Chatrier a strong contrast. One semifinal is about whether Di Nenno and Navarro can extend an upset run against Galán and Chingotto. The other is a direct collision between the established No. 1-level force of Coello and Tapia and a Lebrón-Augsburger pairing built to overwhelm opponents when it catches fire.
For Di Nenno and Navarro, the opportunity is bigger than simply reaching another semifinal. They have already removed the fourth seeds and changed the shape of the bracket. Beat Galán and Chingotto and they would turn Paris from a deep run into a genuine statement tournament. After the way they survived Stupaczuk and Sanz, nobody left in the draw gets to treat them like a convenient lower-seeded opponent.
Padel-inspired shirts, accessories and fan gear for players who live for the next rally.
