Audemars Piguet sponsors Premier Padel and signs Agustín Tapia

Audemars Piguet is now the official timekeeper of Premier Padel and has signed a global partnership with world number 1 Agustín Tapia. This is the first time a Swiss luxury watch house of this calibre has made a direct, structural commitment to padel as a sport.

AP sits alongside Rolex in tennis, LVMH brands in golf, and now enters padel at the top tier. The brand makes watches starting around 20,000 euros and going well past 100,000 for limited Royal Oak pieces. Choosing Tapia is a sharp move: he is 23, Argentine, dominant on tour, and genuinely telegenic on court.

For Premier Padel, landing a maison of this prestige matters beyond the sponsorship fee. It signals to other luxury and premium brands that the tour is a credible platform, not a niche sport looking for exposure. Formula 1 went through a similar repositioning roughly a decade ago, and the brand list that followed changed the sport's entire identity.

For players and fans, the day-to-day impact is close to zero. Tapia will wear an AP on the podium, not while serving at 120 km/h. No Whoop or Garmin is getting replaced. But the visibility at tour events, on broadcast graphics, and in global ad campaigns will push padel into rooms where it has never been seen.

Solid move for the sport. Worth watching which luxury category follows next.