Libaak and Alfonso Keep Advancing — Now Galán and Chingotto Stand in Their Way
GOATIFYMilan's quarterfinal lineup has the names everyone expected — and a couple of partnerships making the tournament far less predictable. Gonza Alfonso and Tino Libaak booked a third straight Premier Padel quarterfinal by beating Mike Yanguas and Pablo Lijó 6-1, 7-6. Their reward is a meeting with defending champions Alejandro Galán and Federico Chingotto, who barely broke stride in the round of 16.
Elsewhere, Javi Garrido and Juani De Pascual removed fifth seeds Paquito Navarro and Martín Di Nenno 6-2, 6-3, setting up a confrontation with Juan Lebrón and Leo Augsburger. With Arturo Coello and Agustín Tapia still leading the men's favorites and the women's top pairs moving into Friday's last eight, the Milano P1 has reached the point where reputation must be backed up on court. Here is what the results reveal and what each quarterfinal now asks of the contenders.
Libaak and Alfonso have momentum — Galán and Chingotto have the Milan pedigree
Three consecutive Premier Padel quarterfinals are no longer a curiosity. Gonza Alfonso and Tino Libaak reached the last eight in Rotterdam, repeated the achievement in Düsseldorf and have now done it again in Milan. Their 6-1, 7-6 victory over Mike Yanguas and Pablo Lijó on Thursday was another result that demands attention, even if their next assignment is considerably harder.
The score tells two stories. A one-sided opening set suggests the Argentine pair established control early; the second-set tiebreak shows they still had to close the door when the opposition found a foothold. Yanguas was also playing with Lijó because regular partner Coki Nieto was injured, an important piece of context when judging the result. That does not diminish Alfonso and Libaak's achievement, but it prevents an over-simple reading of the seedings.
Their recent progress extends beyond these three tournaments. Earlier victories at FIP Silver events in Porto Sant'Elpidio and Budapest preceded a Madrid P1 semifinal, giving the partnership a run of results across different levels of competition. The next step is to turn consistency into a win over a title favorite. In Rotterdam and Düsseldorf, Arturo Coello and Agustín Tapia stopped them. In Milan the obstacle changes, but the standard does not.
Defending champions Alejandro Galán and Federico Chingotto were ruthless in the round of 16, dispatching Xisco Gil and Rama Valenzuela 6-1, 6-1 in 58 minutes. The speed of that result matters. They arrive at Friday's quarterfinal having spent little energy on court, while also carrying the expectation that comes with winning this tournament in 2025. Their ability to pressure opponents through patient construction, sharp changes of direction and efficient finishing makes them an especially demanding test for an emerging team.
For Alfonso and Libaak, the strategic challenge is to keep points on their own terms rather than spend the match reacting to the champions' patterns. They need reliable service games, disciplined positioning and enough initiative to prevent Galán and Chingotto from repeatedly choosing the decisive ball. Those are analytical keys, not a prediction of the result. A single upset would change how the pair is discussed on the tour far more than another respectable quarterfinal exit.
The World Championships in Doha add another layer to the story. Both Argentines are expected to represent their country, and Libaak already knows what that stage can mean after scoring the decisive point in Argentina's title-winning campaign two years ago. Milan is not a national-team event, but the ability to deliver against an established elite pair would be a persuasive statement before the international spotlight returns.
Garrido and De Pascual have already broken the expected quarterfinal draw
The clearest shock of the men's round of 16 belonged to Javi Garrido and Juani De Pascual. They eliminated fifth seeds Paquito Navarro and Martín Di Nenno 6-2, 6-3, a result that was striking not only because of the ranking gap but because of the margin. Against opponents with deep experience at the highest level, the lower-seeded partnership won in straight sets without allowing the contest to become an extended survival exercise.
Garrido and De Pascual are a relatively new pairing, which makes their timing intriguing. New partnerships often need tournaments to establish court coverage, communication and which player takes responsibility when the rally becomes uncomfortable. Their Milan performance suggests they are finding answers quickly. It would be premature to declare them a settled top-four force, but this is the sort of win that can accelerate a partnership's belief in its own structure.
The defeated pair had entered the tournament with the status of fifth seeds and opened with a 6-3, 6-3 win over David Gala and Enzo Jensen. That made their exit in the next round particularly abrupt. The surprise also redraws the conversation around their quarter of the bracket: instead of the expected meeting between Navarro and Di Nenno and the third seeds, it is Garrido and De Pascual who get a chance to make an even louder statement.
Waiting for them are Juan Lebrón and Leo Augsburger, who defeated Edu Alonso and Aimar Goñi 6-4, 6-2. Their partnership carries a different sort of threat: Lebrón's experience as a former world number one combines with Augsburger's capacity to create sudden attacking pressure. Garrido and De Pascual will need to resist being pushed into hurried decisions while still taking the opportunities that made their round-of-16 victory possible.
Lebrón also has a personal history with this event. He won the Milan title alongside Galán in 2022 and 2023, and a run to the semifinals could keep alive the prospect of a high-profile meeting between former partners. That meeting is not guaranteed: both quarterfinals still have to be played, and Alfonso and Libaak are fully capable of changing the other side of the equation. Treating the bracket as settled before Friday would ignore exactly what Garrido and De Pascual have just demonstrated.
The upset is a useful reminder that the late-season race is not exclusively about the two most celebrated pairs. A dangerous combination can emerge below the top seeds, disrupt the anticipated matchups and make every subsequent opponent solve a new problem. Milan's quarterfinals now contain at least one storyline that nobody can explain simply by reading the pre-tournament draw.
The top seeds keep moving, while the women's draw offers its own pressure points
The top half of the men's draw still looks formidable. Arturo Coello and Agustín Tapia beat José Jiménez and Álex Arroyo 6-2, 6-2 to reach another quarterfinal. Their opponents, Fran Guerrero and Javi Leal, earned their place with a 6-3, 6-4 win over José Diestro and Marc Sintes. Crucially, Guerrero and Leal have beaten the world number ones before, in Pretoria. That precedent does not erase the favorites' consistency, but it means this is more than a routine meeting on paper.
Franco Stupaczuk and Jon Sanz also advanced efficiently, beating Javi García and Álex Ruiz 6-2, 6-2. They have been finalists in both Rotterdam and Düsseldorf, so their challenge is no longer to prove they can survive a tournament week. It is to finish one. Their next opponents, Momo González and Lucas Campagnolo, had a more turbulent route, beating Lucas Bergamini and Jairo Bautista 6-3, 1-6, 6-3. The contrast in energy spent and momentum recovered could shape Friday's match.
On the women's side, the world's leading pair made a forceful entrance. Gemma Triay and Delfi Brea overwhelmed Noa Cánovas and Bea Caldera 6-0, 6-3, completing the win in just over an hour. Their quarterfinal opponents are Jimena Velasco and Raquel Eugenio, who followed an earlier upset of seeded opposition by beating Carolina Orsi and Patty Llaguno 6-3, 7-5. The difference in ranking is substantial, but Velasco and Eugenio have already shown that they can disturb a conventional bracket.
Ari Sánchez and Andrea Ustero also progressed in straight sets, beating Lucía and Araceli Martínez 6-3, 6-2. Their next opponents are Ale Salazar and Aranzazu Osoro, who ended the run of Giulia Dal Pozzo and Nuria Rodríguez 6-4, 6-2. The meeting has added resonance because Salazar is making her final appearance at this tournament. Sánchez and Ustero have their own momentum, having won the Paris Major and Rotterdam P2 before reaching the Düsseldorf final.
The other half of the women's draw contains its own warning against assuming easy progress. Paula Josemaría and Bea González needed two hours and 37 minutes to defeat Lorena Rufo and Victoria Iglesias 6-7, 6-3, 6-2. Their next challenge comes from Tamara Icardo and Claudia Jensen, who beat Verónica Virseda and Martina Fassio 7-6, 6-1. Claudia Fernández and Martina Calvo, meanwhile, face Marta Ortega and Sofía Araújo after the latter advanced through a walkover.
These matchups matter beyond one afternoon's results. Milan offers ranking points, momentum for the final stretch of the season and a chance to clarify which partnerships can perform under consecutive high-pressure rounds. The quarterfinals will test whether the dominant teams can keep their control — or whether the challengers can turn isolated surprises into a genuine title run.
Friday in Milan is about more than filling semifinal places. Alfonso and Libaak can turn an impressive streak of quarterfinals into the defining win of their partnership; Garrido and De Pascual can prove that removing the fifth seeds was the beginning of a run rather than a single exceptional afternoon. Galán and Chingotto, Coello and Tapia, and the leading women's teams have a different task: demonstrate that their status still holds when the opposition arrives with momentum and nothing to protect.
The tournament's strongest story is the tension between established order and emerging combinations. The next round will tell us which of those narratives survives contact with the scoreboard.
Shop GOATIFY padel products from the Padel-filtered collection scope.
