Mike Yanguas: Official Profile of the Padel Player

Mike Yanguas is a professional padel player who currently holds the twelfth position in the Premier Padel ranking after breaking barriers on the 20×10 court in recent years.

He is one of the most prominent representatives of the new generation of Spanish padel, and he is poised to compete for the number one spot in the coming seasons. This season, he is showing his best form at the drive position with Javi Garrido as his partner and with the support of a legend like Juani Mieres from the sidelines.

Mike Yanguas’ Data

Miguel Yanguas, better known as ‘Mike’, is a player who, despite competing in the drive position, plays a bold game on the Premier Padel courts. He masters shots like the viper or the three-meter smash, and is known for basing his play on quick transitions from defense to attack.

Last season he competed alongside Fernando Belasteguín, whom he tearfully bid farewell to after their last tournament together. Alongside ‘the Boss’, he learned a master’s degree in padel at the elite level that he is applying this season, in which he is performing at a very high level with the aim of competing head-to-head against the best pairs in the world.

At Zona de Pádel we review the career of Mike Yanguas, one of the players with the highest projection in professional padel who is changing the way the role of the drive is understood on the 20×10.

Biography of Mike Yanguas

The young Spanish player was born in Málaga but grew up with his family in the small town of Motril in Granada. It was there that he began his journey in the world of padel at just seven years old, as his father and grandfather ran a club where he trained daily.

Gradually, he began to stand out in the lower categories, initially playing in the backhand position due to his stature. His father, with whom he has confessed to having a difficult relationship because being a coach he demanded a lot from him from a young age, advised him to also play in the drive to better understand the sport of the 20×10.

Over the years, Mike began to break barriers by defeating older players in Andalusia and in tournaments held throughout the national territory. He became a fixture in the Spanish National Junior Team, to which he was called up while still a youth player.

With the Spanish team he reached the pinnacle by winning two Junior World Championships, held in Málaga (2014) and Mexico (2015), which established him as one of the promises of Spanish padel.

It was then that he began to make the leap from junior competition to the preliminaries of the World Padel Tour, a process he himself has described as “very tough” in several interviews. Alongside Iván Ramírez ‘Ivanxo’, they had to adapt to a much faster game and compete against players who were more physically and mentally developed in order to start making a name for themselves in the final rounds of the prestigious circuit.

His good performance earned him a call from a legendary player like Miguel Lamperti in July 2021. Together they competed in a total of eleven tournaments, achieving a semifinal, three quarterfinals, six round of 16, and one round of 32. That same season, the player from Málaga won his first World Padel Tour title, the Albacete Challenger, after joining forces exclusively for the occasion with Javi Garrido.

This performance allowed him to close the season in the nineteenth position, establishing himself as a regular in the final rounds of the circuit.

In 2022 he teamed up with another of Spanish padel’s greatest talents: Coki Nieto. Together, they played a game in which the Madrid native controlled the pace and the drive added spice to the shots to continue climbing the rankings. Their journey together was fruitful, as they won the Bajo Aragón Challenger of the World Padel Tour. However, the separation of Paquito Navarro and Martín Di Nenno marked an end to their journey.

The shuffle of pairs that the breakup of the number one duo caused led Mike Yanguas to experience what it means to play with Paquito Navarro. Their partnership was temporary, as the Sevillian had already decided to switch to the drive to play with Juan Tello until the end of the season.

Yanguas finished the season forming a version 2.0 with Lamperti and began 2023 alongside Álex Arroyo in what was envisioned as a long-term project. However, the player from Málaga ended up sharing the court with six different partners throughout 2023: Arroyo himself, Momo González, Fernando Belasteguín, Leo Augsburger, Víctor Ruiz, and Pablo García.

After a good start with Arroyo, he received a call from Momo González, although their promising partnership only lasted two tournaments as the breakup between Sanyo and Bela disrupted their plans. Yanguas went on to play alongside the ‘Boss’, forming a tough duo that stood up to the world’s best pairs, even eliminating Juan Lebrón and Ale Galán at the Italy Major of Premier Padel.

However, Bela’s injuries, which forced him to alternate partners while the Argentine recovered, and the thought that he needed a change for 2024, led the Andalusian to choose a new path for this season.

This year he has teamed up with Javi Garrido, with whom he is achieving spectacular results at the start of the season along with Juani Mieres on the sidelines. Both reached the final of the Qatar Major and were part of the catalyst that led to the split of Lebrón and Galán, the pair that had dominated world padel in recent times until the arrival of Agustín Tapia and Arturo Coello.

For the remainder of the season, the player from Málaga will seek to continue dazzling the audience from the drive and achieve new goals in the form of titles to continue establishing himself as a reality in the elite of padel.

Best points of Mike Yanguas

Mike Yanguas demonstrates great solidity in defense and uses his technical ability to find gaps on the opposing court with the aim of quickly moving up to the net to finish the point.

He manages to play at a very high speed using powerful shots, especially with his viper. He is a player who takes up a lot of space on the court due to his height and does not shy away from the responsibility of making winning shots when the ball comes high.

Lok, new sponsor of Mike Yanguas

Siux and later Varlion bet on the Andalusian player when he was just 15 years old, as he began to stand out in the junior categories of Spanish padel. Mike signed his first professional contract with the second brand in 2017, until the end of 2023 when both parties decided to go their separate ways.

This season, the talented drive is the visible face of the new Lok padel rackets. This brand, which represents a branch of Adidas Padel, aims to become a benchmark in the sector by betting on the talent of generations of players yet to come.

The most prominent racket from Lok this season is designed to enhance attack, especially with viper shots and smashes that characterize Mike Yanguas’ play. It features a diamond shape with a balance and sweet spot located at the top of the surface that respond perfectly to overhead hits.

Its semi-hard touch with Custom EVA rubber provides extra cushioning to better direct the ball, and it comes with an anti-vibration system that adds extra comfort and prevents overloads in the wrist, elbow, and shoulders. Additionally, the 3D roughness allows adding an extra point of effect to the ball to keep opponents defending at the back of the court.

Mike Yanguas’ Achievements

The player born in Málaga and raised in the town of Motril already knows what it is like to lift World Padel Tour titles and tournaments organized by the International Padel Federation. However, he still has the thorn of making his debut in Premier Padel, the new circuit that governs professional padel worldwide.

This season, he will try to break that barrier along with his partner Javi Garrido and compete with guarantees with the Spanish National Team at the Padel World Championship to be held from October 28 to November 2.

Date	Tournament	Partner
2023	FIP Platinum Sardegna	Fede Chingotto
2023	WPT Reus Costa Daurada Open	Momo González
2022	WPT Bajo Aragón Challenger	Coki Nieto
2021	WPT Albacete Challenger	Javi Garrido