Another Early Exit in a Difficult Run
The 2026 Premier Padel season of Javi Garrido and Lucas Bergamini divides cleanly into two halves. The opening months were a display of consistent quarter-final padel: back-to-back last-eight appearances at Riyadh, Gijón and New Giza established them as a reliable P1 force and suggested a pair finding a level they could sustain. Since their quarter-final run at the Italy Major in spring, those results have not returned.
At London's Olympia on Wednesday, the pattern continued. In the round of 16, Garrido and Bergamini took the opening set against Juan Cruz Belluati and Ignacio Piotto convincingly, 6-3, and for a while looked as though they might build on it. Instead, Belluati and Piotto grew steadily into the contest, taking the second set 6-4 before imposing complete control in the third, winning it 6-1 to advance to the London quarter-finals. The scoreline is a familiar shape this season: a strong start, a loss of momentum, an inability to hold on when the match gets tight.
A Season in Two Halves
The contrast in Garrido-Bergamini's 2026 numbers is stark. The first quarter of the year pointed to a genuine top-eight partnership: three quarter-final appearances in a row placed them in conversations about potential semi-final threats at P1 level. A FIP Gold title in Abidjan in June confirmed that the underlying partnership still produces results at the right level of event. But on the Premier Padel main tour, that quality has not translated into late-round runs since the Italy Major.
Garrido has competed at Major semi-final level in previous seasons and is widely regarded as a pair anchor capable of matching top-ranked opponents on his best days. Bergamini, an attacking right-side player, has shown the speed and instinct to disrupt higher-seeded pairings. Together, the combination should, on paper, be reaching further than round-of-16 exits at P1 events. The failure to do so raises questions about whether the issue is tactical, whether fatigue is a factor, or whether confidence in the high-pressure moments of the third set has been eroded by the accumulation of early exits.
Belluati and Piotto Through to the Quarters
For Juan Cruz Belluati and Ignacio Piotto, the result is one of the most significant of their 2026 season. Belluati, ranked 69th in the FIP world standings, and Piotto have been building steadily across the year, and their performance in the decider — 6-1, dropping only one game — showed the kind of clinical composure that allows them to punish opponents once they gain control of a match.
They now enter the London quarter-finals with momentum and a draw that has opened considerably. With Leal-Guerrero, Yanguas-Stupaczuk and Garrido-Bergamini all eliminated before the last eight, the path for unseeded and lower-seeded pairs through the bracket is less obstructed than it would normally be at a P1 event of this standard. Belluati-Piotto's run in London is already the best of their joint season.
Madrid P1 the Next Deadline for Garrido-Bergamini
The tour moves next to Madrid — 31 August to 6 September — the most high-profile and emotionally charged P1 stop on the Spanish-market calendar. For Garrido and Bergamini, it represents the clearest deadline on the 2026 schedule to rediscover the form that made them a genuine quarter-final force: in front of a home crowd at the Caja Mágica, results at London and the stops before it will be measured against whatever they can produce in their most important domestic event of the year.