Padel: Cull hails "incredible tournament" as he looks to compete against the best consistently

Wednesday 11 September 2024

Olly Cull is hoping to close the gap on the best padel players in the country as he looks to build on reaching the final of the UK’s leading padel tournament in Jersey.

The LTA National Tour Grade 1 event was hosted by Island Padel, marking the full reconstruction of a facility that suffered devastating damage during Storm Ciaran.

Teaming up with Pau Minano, Cull reached the men's final before losing out to Julien Suerin and Rafeal Vega 6-4, 6-2.

On the way, Cull and his partner, seeded six, beat the UK's top male pairing, Louie Harris and Chris Salisbury in a thrilling quarter-final clash.

"I lost to them 6-3 6-2 in the quarter finals of this exact tournament last year so it was nice to get another opportunity to play them," said Cull.

"I went in with full belief that I could beat them and it was one of the closest matches I've played in my padel career so far."

They won 7-6 7-6 and saved five set points across both sets.

"It showed me that I can compete at that level. The next step for me is just to do this consistently like these top boys are doing. That's how you know whether this was just one of those one-off wins or whether I'm consistently up there with them."

In the semi finals their opponents withdrew after Cull and Minano won the first set.

They had started the final well and had a good chance to go 4-3 up before they lost serve after some poor errors.

Cull described it as a fairly disappointing finish, "but an incredible tournament for me".

He now plans to go down to four day working week at his day job with EY, who have been extremely flexible working with Cull to allow him to pursue his padel goals.

"This will allow me to fly back and forth to the UK once a week to train in London where there's the competition that I need to train against.

"In terms of goals, for me right now it's just continuing to try and improve and close the gap between myself and the top guys in the country. I'm still fairly new to the sport and have lots to learn but have full belief that I can keep climbing up the ranks and hopefully my tournament results over the next few months will reflect this."

He thanked the R3 team for their support.

"Everyone involved in R3 are incredible, particularly Jonathan Rowland who is the founder along with Nikhil Mohindra."

World-ranked Spanish pair, Anna Ortiz and Valeria Atencia Basilio, entered the women's draw as favourites and emerged victorious over the UK's top offering.

The Spanish professional partnership defeated Tia Norton and Aimee Gibson in the final 7-6(5) 6-4, both pairs having been largely untested on their route to the clash.

Ortiz said: "The tournament was really good, the thing I loved most was how everyone treated us."