Padel Pro Tours Explained: The 2026 Landscape

For years the World Padel Tour (WPT) was the dominant professional circuit. In 2022, Qatar Sports Investments launched a rival tour, Premier Padel, backed by the International Padel Federation. After a period of competing tours and a tug-of-war over the top players, the two consolidated: QSI acquired the World Padel Tour, which ceased to exist after eleven editions.

The upshot for 2026 is simple - Premier Padel is now the main international professional circuit, and the best men's and women's pairs in the world play on it. The LTA and other national bodies have realigned around it too. There is no longer a separate WPT to follow.

The professional structure has two layers. At the top sits Premier Padel itself, split into three event tiers - Major, P1 and P2. Below it runs the Cupra FIP Tour (graded Platinum, Gold, Silver and Bronze), the feeder circuit where lower-ranked and rising players earn points and chase promotion into Premier Padel main draws.

The 2026 Premier Padel season is the biggest yet: 26 events across 18 countries, with landmark debuts including London and Pretoria. The split is four Majors, ten P1 tournaments and eleven P2 tournaments, running through the year into a season-ending Finals.

The tiers rank by prestige, prize money and ranking points:

• Majors - the four biggest events of the year, with the deepest fields, largest prize pools (up to around €525,000) and the most ranking points: 2,000 to the winners.
• P1 - the next tier down, still drawing the established world-tour pairs, hosted where padel is already strong. Winners earn 1,000 points, runners-up around 600.
• P2 - the most accessible tier, often staged in growth markets for the sport. Winners take roughly 500-600 points, finalists 300-360.

Because the points feed a rolling ranking, consistency across the tiers matters as much as winning a single big title - exactly as our rankings guide explains.

The season climaxes with the Premier Padel Finals in Barcelona. The top 16 men's pairs and top 16 women's pairs in the FIP Race Ranking (the single-season points list, as opposed to the rolling 52-week ranking) qualify, and the winners bank a further 1,500 ranking points. It is padel's equivalent of the season-ending championships in tennis - the best of the best, settled in one event.

You will also see references to A1 Padel, a separate international circuit that runs its own calendar and rankings. It is smaller than Premier Padel and features a different roster of players, but it is a genuine professional tour in its own right and adds events to the global calendar. For most UK fans, Premier Padel is the headline act, with A1 Padel as a secondary circuit worth knowing exists.

Premier Padel events are broadcast and streamed internationally, and 2026's London debut means a marquee event on UK soil - covered in our Premier Padel London guide. For the full picture of broadcasters, streams and how to follow the tour from the UK, see our how to watch padel guide, and plan your own playing season around the UK tournament calendar.