Catherine Rose on the FIP Euro Padel Cup Final 8, breaking the top 100 & her career progress
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Great Britain's women head to Cadiz for the upcoming FIP Euro Padel Cup Final 8 fuelled with self-belief, resilience and team spirit, according to Catherine Rose.
British No.2 Rose and partner Lisa Phillips secured Britain's passage to the climatic stage of the FIP Euro Padel Cup with the clinching victory over Sweden in Madrid in July which sealed top spot in their qualifying group.
The women's team now head into the Final 8 at La Linea de la Concepcion bullring on 21-25 October as fifth seeds, with plenty of evidence to suggest that they could do some damage to Europe's more established padel nations.
Spain, Italy, France and Portugal enter automatically, alongside GB's fellow qualifiers Netherlands, Germany and Belgium. There will be two groups of four, with the top two in each group advancing to semi-finals and the bottom two heading home.
"We're going into the Final 8 knowing people see us differently to how they might have done in the past," says 26-year-old Rose. "Previously, if teams drew Great Britain, they might have regarded it as an easy one, but we're not a guaranteed win any more.
"We've got players who can compete really well and other countries know they're in for a tough match."
Rose's self-confidence ahead of the tournament comes from multiple sources.
Firstly, since giving up her teaching job in a London prep school to turn pro last July, she has shot up the FIP world rankings, blasting through the top 100 barrier in mid-September — becoming only the second Brit ever to do so.
It was such a milestone. We'd all been working so hard, so to see a result like that come off was testament to everything we'd been putting in. To see the improvements was really satisfying.
Back-to-back FIP tournament victories in Australia alongside British No.1 Aimee Gibson were the perfect springboard into 2025, and Rose has since reached one final and six semi-finals in a whirlwind 10 months of almost non-stop global travel and competitions.
That match-winning victory alongside Phillips against Sweden's Hanna Borjeson and Lisa Andersson in a raucous atmosphere in the Euro qualifiers in Madrid was another mental leap forward for the Londoner - especially after she'd suffered such agony against the Swedes and the Netherlands in the previous year's European campaign in Sardinia.
"At the Euros before we'd had some really tough losses, so that Sweden match was also a personal achievement for me. It showed that I could overcome those demons," said Rose.
"We were all on such a high! It was such a milestone. We'd all been working so hard, so to see a result like that come off was testament to everything we'd been putting in. To see the improvements was really satisfying.
"The vibe between me and Lisa works really well and we compete really well together. We're a solid partnership."
Further evidence to underpin Rose's growing sense of self-belief heading to Cadiz will be the presence of Agustin Salingo once again alongside Libby Fletcher on the GB women's bench.
Argentinian legend Salingo is a former world champion and coach of the great Juan Lebron. Rose says his aura, reputation and experience were priceless in Madrid. He's set to empower the team again in La Línea de la Concepción bullring.
"I'd trained with him before at Diagonal Academy in Madrid so knew how invaluable he would be for us," said the GB no.2. "Not only was he a great player himself, he's now on the bench at Premier Padel events with the top, top players.
"It gives us massive confidence knowing we have someone that experienced on the bench. You go into each match a bit more secure. He's so well known that other teams see him with us and we suddenly become a little bit more of an intimidating prospect. They take us a little more seriously."
After the upcoming FIP Silver R3 Bullpadel Cup at Stratford Padel Club, Rose and her GB team-mates will train at the National Tennis Centre then head to south-western Spain for a few days' acclimiatisation before the Final 8 begins.
It will be a special moment amidst a crazy flurry of flights, hotels and padel clubs over the last 18 months, but the world no.95 does take the occasional moment to take stock of her radical lifestyle change, having been up in front of a class of prep school pupils on a daily basis only two years ago.
We've got players who can compete really well and other countries know they're in for a tough match.
"I often have those moments, if I'm on a plane or I'm somewhere really cool having amazing experiences, where I think, 'I'm so lucky to be doing this,'" she reflected.
"Having been balancing my teaching job with training and playing competitions at weekend, which was seriously hard, it makes me appreciate being able to do it full-time even more.
"It's very easy when you're tired from travelling, training and competing to forget, but I remember to be grateful for the opportunity, to be sure. As a teacher, you have to be switched on every second of the day. At the end of every day, you are properly knackered.
"Since I've gone full time, I'm really happy with my progress. There's a huge difference in my level and that's down to the time I've been able to put into competitions and training.
"One of my goals was to be in the top 100 by the end of the year, but I try to focus on the process more. If you're achieving process goals on- and off-court then the results and ranking look after themselves."
GB women's squad for the FIP Euro Padel Cup Final 8, selected by coaches Libby Fletcher and Agustin Salingo, is: Aimee Gibson, Catherine Rose, Tia Norton, Lisa Phillips, Abigail Tordoff, Hanna Maddock, Laura Jackson and Rosie Quirk.
