The Premier Padel season has a rhythm to it. P1s and P2s fill the calendar across 26 tournaments – solid, competitive, ranking-point-gathering events. Then the Majors arrive. And everything shifts up a gear.

The first Major of 2026 is the Qatar Airways Ooredoo Major in Doha, running from 6 to 11 April at the Khalifa International Tennis and Squash Complex. If you’ve been watching clips on YouTube and wondering when to pay proper attention, this is the week.

What makes a Major different

The Premier Padel circuit divides its calendar into three tiers: P2 events, P1 events, and Majors.

P2s are serious tournaments with global fields. P1s sit above them – bigger draws, bigger prize money, more ranking points. The Majors are the top tier. There are only four of them this season: Doha in April, Rome in June, Paris at Roland-Garros in September, and Mexico in November.

Winning a Major earns 2,000 world ranking points. Winning a P1 earns 1,000. One Major title, in pure ranking terms, equals two P1 wins. That’s the gap – and it’s why the world’s top pairs treat these weeks differently. You’ll see more urgency in the early rounds, more focused preparation, more players visibly wanting it.

The Doha Major is also the first Major of the season. Rankings are still being shaped after the February opener in Riyadh. This is where the picture starts to clarify.

The state of the tour heading into Doha

If you’ve been following Premier Padel at all, you already know the headline: Arturo Coello and Agustín Tapia are dominant in a way that’s rare in any sport.

The Argentine-Spanish pair finished 2025 with 13 tournament wins. They hold 19,800 ranking points – a lead that, going into 2026, feels almost structural rather than competitive. In Riyadh in February, they opened their 2026 season by defeating Alejandro Galán and Fede Chingotto 6-4, 6-2 in 65 minutes. No nerves, no dropping of form from the off-season. Just more of the same.

They are the defending Doha champions. In 2025, Coello and Tapia won the Qatar Major in a run that included eight consecutive finals wins against Galán and Chingotto. That rivalry, for all its one-sidedness, is the central storyline of the tour.

Galán has a new partner in 2026 – Fede Chingotto, who joined him after the split from Juan Lebrón. That pairing has shown promise but hasn’t found the answer against Coello and Tapia. Doha is another chance.

Lebrón, meanwhile, is rebuilding alongside young Argentine Leandro Augsburger. He won three Majors in a row with Galán; how he performs with a partner who’s still finding his feet at the top level is one of the interesting questions of 2026.

Women’s draw: no dominant pair

On the women’s side, the picture is more open – and more interesting for it.

Ariana Sánchez and Paula Josemaría enter 2026 as the leading partnership, but Gemma Triay and Delfina Brea won the Doha Major in 2025 and will be defending in Doha. Andrea Ustero Prieto and Ariana Sánchez (yes, Sánchez with a different partner) won the Riyadh P1 opener, which tells you something about how fluid the women’s tour is right now.

There’s no Coello-and-Tapia-sized gap at the top of the women’s game. Every Major draw is properly contested.

The British connection

There’s no British player in the Premier Padel main draw. The circuit is overwhelmingly Spanish and Argentine, with a handful of Brazilians and other nationalities – but no British representation at that level yet.

That said, there is a connection worth knowing about. Aimee Gibson, GB Women’s No. 1 and the first British player ever to break the FIP world top 100, won the FIP Bronze tournament in Doha in early 2026 alongside Spain’s Alba Perez Momha. It’s a different circuit and a different event – but it puts a British player on a court in Doha in the same week as the Major scene is warming up there.

Gibson signed with CMG Sports in March 2026 and is building a professional career at a level no British player has reached before. She’s not in the Premier Padel draw. But keep an eye on the name. The full story of what she’s done – and why it matters – is in the Aimee Gibson profile.

If you want British representation at Major-level padel, you won’t have long to wait. Premier Padel is coming to London in August 2026 – a P1 event, which is one step below Major level but still brings the world’s top 48 pairs to a UK venue. That’s a different kind of reason to follow what happens in Doha.

One thing that’s different in 2026

Premier Padel introduced a new scoring format this season called the Star Point.

The idea is a hybrid between the traditional advantage system and the golden point (where the receiving pair chooses the direction of play on deuce). The Star Point aims to balance spectacle with fairness – keeping matches moving while reducing the fatigue that multi-deuce games can create over a long week.

It debuted at the Riyadh opener without much fuss. If you’ve watched recent Premier Padel on YouTube, you may have noticed the deciding-point element in deuce situations. It’s a small change but worth knowing about if you’re watching for the first time.

How to watch from the UK

Premier Padel doesn’t have a dedicated UK broadcast deal. For the Doha Major, your options are:

Premier Padel YouTube channel – early-round matches, often with full-game coverage and highlights. Free, and better than you might expect in terms of production quality.

Red Bull TV – from the quarter-finals onwards, Red Bull TV carries live coverage for both the men’s and women’s draw. Free to access in the UK via the app or website.

If you haven’t watched a Major before, the quarter-finals are the right entry point. The tension is higher, the pairs are better, and the longer format of the match – best of three sets – gives you time to understand what each pair is trying to do tactically.

For more on what to look for when watching, the how to watch padel guide covers the scoring system and the tactical patterns that make the pro game worth following.

Why Doha matters

For casual UK fans, it’s the best early-season opportunity to watch the tour at its highest level – before the European summer swing begins, before Roland-Garros arrives, and well before the London P1 brings the world’s best players to a court you could drive to.

Doha. 6–11 April 2026. Worth your attention.