Catherine Rose breaks into the world top 100
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British No.2 women’s padel player Catherine Rose has become the second British player to break into the FIP world top 100.
With this achievement, the 26-year-old from London becomes only the second British player, and woman, to break into the world’s top 100 in the FIP rankings, following Aimee Gibson, who made history as the first in January.
“I’m really really happy to break into the top 100, it was one of my goals for this year. I hadn’t been paying much attention to the rankings recently, I was focusing on tournaments and trying to get really good results every week. It was a nice surprise this morning.
“Overall it’s definitely a credit to myself for the hard work and determination. It’s taken a lot, but a massive thank you to everyone along the way that helped that journey. It’s much appreciated.”
Catherine began 2025 with a bang, claiming two FIP Silver titles in Australia alongside British number one Aimee Gibson, and since then she has continued to feature regularly highest events across the world. Since the turn of the year, Rose has progressed to the quarterfinals or further in 14 tournaments on the Cupra FIP Tour, with three semifinals and a final in Qatar to go with her two titles down under.
“I reached a semi-final last week in Luxembourg, and I didn’t know if that was going to be enough to push me inside the top 100, but it is great that it has, it was one of my goals. Now I can push on, move forward and focus on the next goal and keep improving from here,” said Rose. “I have been playing with Tia Norton [GB No.3] recently and had some good results with Aimee Gibson [GB.No.1] that have contributed to the ranking rise.”
Rose is supported by the LTA’s Padel Performance Pathway, which provides funding and support for players to compete on the FIP tour events, as well as helping to develop players to become the best they can be. Rose is part of the Pro Padel Scholarship Programme (PPSP) which supports male and female players who have the potential to progress into the top 50 world rankings within four years of joining the programme.
Players are also further supported through their sponsors, venues and coaches working behind-the-scenes and Rose attributes her rapid development over the last year to all of these factors in combination.
“I want to thank the LTA for all the support, my main sponsors such as R3, I couldn’t be doing this without the support of them. They’ve been a key driver in facilitating the time I have to play, compete and train. As well as my other sponsors like The Padel Hub, Vitamin Well, Light Therapy London, they’ve all played a massive part as have all the coaches, including Libby Fletcher [LTA National Performance Pathway Manager] and Sandy Farquharson, [LTA National Performance Coach]. So many people have made so much time to help me improve.”
Rose’s achievement will hopefully provide an added spark to inspire more players to continue their pursuit of reaching the top of the game. Last September, the LTA announced its latest Padel Strategy which outlined goals of having at least two players in the FIP top 100 and ten in the top 200 before 2029.
This ranking rise comes a month before team Great Britain travel to La Línea de la Concepción in Cádiz, Spain to compete against the top European nations in the Final 8 of the FIP Euro Padel Cup. In July, both the men’s and women’s teams qualified for the Final 8 after finishing top of their respective groups in Phase 2 of the competition in Madrid.
Both competitions will start with a group stage, with teams split into two groups of four. These ties will be played in a round robin format from 21-23 October. Each tie will consist of three matches – to be played as best of three tie-break sets. The top two teams in each group will progress to the semi-finals on the 24 October. The final will then be played on 25 October, as well as a third/fourth place play-off.
