A new stop that goes beyond the withdrawal
The message posted by Emilio Forcher Henninger aptly recapped the feeling of the moment: a poor run of results or a drop in the ranking is secondary when a player has to leave the track. For Pablo Cardona, that’s where the difficulty lies. After a long period of absence, the Spaniard finds himself once again hampered by injury, with no date set for his return.
The case is made all the more sensitive by the fact that Cardona is no ordinary profile. Tall, explosive, left-handed, able to finish with a smash but also to accelerate very quickly to the net, he is the perfect embodiment of this new generation of powerful, mobile padel players. His official FIP profile places him on the right, alongside Javi Leal, with a height of 1.88 m and an already solid statistical base on Premier Padel: 120 matches played and 69 victories at the time of checking.
His 2025 season had already been damaged by knee pain, to the point where it stopped before the end of the year, with conservative treatment preferred to surgery. The Spaniard then tried to revive the machine in 2026, notably with Leal, but the tempo never really took hold. On a tour where every tournament demands intensity, rapid movement, return footwork and repeated efforts on the glass, physical fragility quickly becomes a global problem.
The South American calendar and the pairs market in turmoil
This latest shutdown comes at the worst possible time. The official FIP calendar features theAsunción P2 from May 4 to 10, 2026, followed by the Buenos Aires P1 from May 11 to 17. Two important tournaments, close together, which should enable several pairs to confirm or revive their momentum after Brussels. For Cardona, the challenge was obvious: to regain volume, confidence and automatisms with Leal.
But the impact goes beyond his case alone. The men’s market is already on the move, with projects crossing, closing or reopening in the space of a few days. Actu Padel reported on the Leal / Guerrero reshuffle after Buenos Aires, in the wake of moves involving Paquito Navarro, Martín Di Nenno, Momo González and Lucas Campagnolo. Cardona’s injury made the situation even more delicate: when a player no longer has a return date, his partner has to move on, even if the initial project made sense.
From a sporting point of view, the question is not just when Cardona will play again. It’s a question of knowing in what physical condition, with what confidence in his footwork, and above all with what pair. A player of his style needs total commitment: taking the net, remate, diagonal coverage, low defense then forward projection. Coming back too soon could cost more than another withdrawal.
For Cardona, the priority now seems clear: rebuild the body before rebuilding a project. In modern padel, where power is no longer enough without physical continuity, this downtime will tell us a lot about the rest of his career.
To remember:
- Pablo Cardona is out of action again, with no return date announced.
- The knee remains the point of vigilance after an already troubled 2025 season.
- His absence weighs heavily on the Asunción P2 / Buenos Aires P1 sequence.
- The transfer window for pairs could close without him, at least in the short term.
