Pretoria P1 2026 Semifinals: Giants Fall, Underdogs Roar, and Fantasy Managers Are Losing Their Minds

Pretoria delivered absolute chaos in the semifinals. The men's draw handed us the kind of upset that makes you double-check the scoreboard twice — Javier Leal and Francisco Guerrero walked off the court having beaten Arturo Coello and Agustín Tapia 7-5 7-5, sending the tournament favourites home early. Meanwhile, on the women's side, everything went roughly to script, but the fantasy numbers told a different story entirely — Martina Calvo Santamaría posted a round-high 79.7 FP and nobody who had her in their squad is complaining.

🏆 Men · Semifinals — Results

Let's start with the elephant in the room. Coello and Tapia — two of the most decorated players on the Premier Padel circuit — were bundled out in straight sets by Leal and Guerrero, finishing with a combined 5.5 fantasy points between them. That is not a typo. Coello scraped together 2.8 FP, Tapia 2.7 FP. When you lose, the system slashes your base points to 40% of the round base, and at the semifinal stage that round base is 28 — so you're working with 11.2 points before the scoring penalties from a bad scoreline kick in. For the pair everyone expected to be in the final, it's a brutal return.

On the other side of the net, Leal and Guerrero were making fantasy history. Guerrero banked 72.4 FP, Leal topped him at 76.4 FP — both extraordinary numbers for players ranked 13th and 16th respectively. The pair went through 7-5 7-5 in a match that never looked comfortable for the favourites but was controlled brilliantly by two guys who had absolutely nothing to lose. Their season averages (Leal at 46.3 FP, Guerrero at 42.6 FP) make this round look like an outlier, but that's what big-stage upsets do — they supercharge the fantasy scoring system in ways that are genuinely hard to predict.

The second men's semi was less dramatic but still delivered. Alejandro Galán and Federico Chingotto beat Juanlu Esbri and Sanyo Gutiérrez 7-5 6-4 to book their final spot. Galán and Chingotto each earned 25.5 FP — solid, not spectacular — while Esbri and Gutiérrez clocked in at 12.4 FP apiece. That 12.4 for a losing pair at the semifinal stage actually isn't terrible, because the scores were respectable and the difficulty coefficient of facing Galán-Chingotto provides some buffer. But nobody's doing cartwheels over it.

📊 Men · Top Fantasy Scorers

#	Player	FP
1	Javier Leal	76.4
2	Francisco Guerrero	72.4
3	Alejandro Galan	25.5
4	Federico Chingotto	25.5
5	Juanlu Esbri	12.4

🏆 Women · Semifinals — Results

The women's semifinals were clinical. Gemma Triay Pons and Delfina Brea Senesi dismantled Alejandra Salazar Bengoechea and Aranzazu Osoro Ulrich 6-2 6-1, and it wasn't even that close. The world number one pair are through to the final looking utterly dominant, and their fantasy scores — 31.1 for Triay and 33.1 for Brea Senesi — reflect wins that were almost too easy. When you're the best pair on the planet beating a much weaker opponent, the difficulty coefficient actually works against you. Salazar and Osoro, for the record, ended the match on -9.8 and -8.8 FP respectively — negative territory, which happens when you lose badly on a big stage.

The second women's semi is where things got genuinely exciting from a fantasy perspective. Claudia Fernández Sánchez and Martina Calvo Santamaría beat Beatriz González Fernández and Paula Josemaría Martín 6-1 6-4, and the scoreline tells its own story. González and Josemaría finish on -12.6 and -10.2 FP — the worst returns of the entire round. But Claudia and Martina? They cleaned up. Claudia posted 56.5 FP, which is already a superb return for a player ranked sixth. Then there's Martina Calvo Santamaría, ranked twelfth and costing just 115.5 credits — she went out and scored 79.7 FP. The highest individual score of the entire round. In any match. Men's or women's. That number deserves to be underlined.

📊 Women · Top Fantasy Scorers

#	Player	FP
1	Martina Calvo Santamaria	79.7
2	Claudia Fernandez Sanchez	56.5
3	Delfina Brea Senesi	33.1
4	Gemma Triay Pons	31.1

📈 Fantasy Insights

The story of this round in fantasy terms is simple: the difficulty coefficient is your best friend when underdogs win, and your worst enemy when favourites cruise. Leal and Guerrero's stunning upset of Coello-Tapia sent their scores soaring because the system rewarded them heavily for beating opponents ranked far above them. Guerrero's 1.8 difficulty coefficient and Leal's 1.9 are among the highest you'll see at this stage of a tournament — that multiplier is basically the game acknowledging just how significant that result was. Meanwhile, Triay and Brea Senesi's comfortable win over a struggling pair kept their difficulty coefficients low and their scores modest despite the clean scoreline.

The real value play of the round — and arguably the tournament — has been Martina Calvo Santamaría. At 115.5 credits with a value ratio of 0.68 FP/credit (the best of any player still in the draw), she has been the kind of pick that separates smart managers from lucky ones. Her season average of 78.5 FP already hinted she was underpriced, and this semifinal performance at 79.7 FP is right in line with what she's capable of. If you had her and Guerrero or Leal in the same squad, you had a genuinely fantastic round.

🧮 How the Fantasy Scores Were Built

Let's break down how Javier Leal ended up with 76.4 FP, because this is a masterclass in how the system works. Every player starts with a round base that reflects the stage of the tournament — at the semifinal, that's 28 points. Win the match and you add +4, so Leal's base becomes 32. Then the game score bonus kicks in: his 7-5 7-5 scoreline wasn't a bagel, but it was clean enough to add 5.2 points. Add a stats bonus of 3 (solid serving and return numbers) and the subtotal is 40.2. Leal's ranking multiplier is 1.0 — he's not a top-seed who gets penalised for winning, but he's not a massive underdog either, so that doesn't move the needle. But here's where it explodes: the difficulty coefficient is 1.9. The system looks at who he beat — Coello and Tapia, two of the biggest names in the sport — and essentially says, 'hang on, this was extraordinary.' Multiply 40.2 by 1.9 and you get 76.4 FP. That's the upset premium, right there in the numbers.

Now compare that to Martina Calvo Santamaría's 79.7 FP, which arrived via a completely different route. Same round base of 28, same +4 for the win, so 32. But her game score bonus was a huge 13 — that 6-1 6-4 scoreline is dominant, and the system rewarded her for the margin of victory. Add a stats bonus of 7 and the subtotal jumps to 52. Her ranking multiplier is 0.97, fractionally below 1 because she's ranked twelfth — barely any penalty at all. Then the difficulty coefficient is 1.58. Not as dramatic as Leal's 1.9, because her opponents weren't Coello and Tapia — but she's still a mid-ranked player beating a team that included a former top-ten player in Josemaría. Multiply 52 by 0.97 to get 50.4, then by 1.58, and you land at 79.7 FP. The takeaway? You can build a monster score either by pulling off a massive upset OR by winning comprehensively against decent opponents. Both paths work — but you need one of those two things. A comfortable win against a weak pair is the one that kills your score.

🎯 Who to Pick Next Round

💥 Key Storylines

🏆 Tournament Leaderboard

#	Team	Score
1	Padelcilu	657.4
2	LOS TRINATERRAS	602.1
3	Dragonflow	600.3
4	S0rgans	598.1
5	THE CHIQUITAS TEAM	571.2

📝 Fantasy Strategy