Ariana Sánchez Fallada (born 19 July 1997), known as Ari Sánchez, is a Spanish professional padel player. With Paula Josemaría she was ranked world No. 1 in 2023 and 2024, and the pair won 44 titles in five seasons together, becoming the most successful partnership in women's professional padel. With Spain she won the World Padel Championship in 2021, 2022 and 2024. Since 2026 she has played with Andrea Ustero.
She started her professional career on the World Padel Tour in 2016 and won her first title at the 2017 Santander Open with Marta Ortega. With Alejandra Salazar she won the 2019 Master Final and the 2020 Spanish championship.
Early life Sánchez was born on 19 July 1997 in Reus, in the province of Tarragona. She first played football and basketball and took up padel through her father, joining him and her brother on court after his Sunday matches; when she moved to Barcelona to pursue the sport she gave up her studies, because she did not have time for everything. She began her professional career in 2016, playing her first season on the drive (right-side) with Tamara Icardo. She later settled on the revés (backhand) side, her usual position since.
Career Partnership with Marta Ortega 2016
Ariana began the year competing in five tournaments alongside Tamara Icardo, with her best result being a quarterfinal appearance. However, starting with the La Nucia Open, she teamed up with Marta Ortega, reuniting with the partner she had played with before turning professional.
In the six remaining tournaments, they would all reach the quarterfinals but still fail to make their first semifinal, also missing out on qualifying for the Master Final.
2017
2017 got off to the best possible start, with Ariana and Marta elimintaign the world number ones, Alejandra Salazar & Marta Marrero, in the semifinals, and the former world number ones, Elisabeth Amatriain & Patricia Llaguno, in the final, securing their first trophy in World Padel Tour.
Three more semifinals would follow before they won the Murcia Challenger. In the last seven tournaments of the regular season, they reached another four semifinals but failed to advance to any finals. However, the good results were enough to qualify them for the Master Final for the first time. In the season ending tournament, they reached the final but were defeated by the world number ones, Mapi & Majo Sánchez.
2018
In the first five tournaments of 2018, they reached only two semifinals, but their first success came with winning the Melilla Challenger, followed by reaching the final of the Valencia Master, where they lost to Mapi & Majo once again.
In the next five tournaments, they would reach only two semifinals before making it to the Granada Open final, where they lost to Gemma Triay & Lucía Sainz. They would play two semifinals before competing in their final tournament together at the Master Final, where they were eliminated in the semifinals by their future partners, Alejandra Salazar & Marta Marrero.
Partnership with Alejandra Salazar 2019
Following the end of the previous season, Alejandra Salazar & Marta Marrero, the pair ranked world number one in 2016, decided to part ways. Marrero teamed up with Marta Ortega, while Salazar invited Ariana to be her partner for 2019.
Together they had a strong start to the season, reaching four out of five possible finals. They faced their former partners in the finals in Marbella, Logroño, and Jaén, winning only the last of these. The other final, which they won, was the Alicante Open. After the women's division did not compete in Buenos Aires, they traded victories with their Marrero & Ortega, winning in Valladolid and losing in Valencia, while also winning the Mijas Open, against Ana Catarina Nogueira & Paula Josemaría.
In the next three tournaments, they reached the finals of the Portugal Master, losing to the "Marta's", and the Menorca Open, where they lost to the twins Mapi & Majo. Failing to reach the finals of the regular season's last two tournaments ended any mathematical chance of finishing the year as world number ones. However, they went on to win the Master Final, in front of more than 9,000 spectators, against Marta Marrero & Marta Ortega who had entered the tournament already crowned as the world number ones.
2020
In the first tournament of the second season with Ariana and Salazar playing together, they managed to reach the final, where they were unable to defeat Marta Marrero & Paula Josemaria. In the first tournament following the COVID break, Salazar and Sánchez defeated Gemma Triay & Lucía Sainz in the Estrella Damm Open final, claiming their first tournament victory of the season.
After two eliminations prior to the final, they went on to win the Valencia Open, avenging their Marbella defeat in the final. However, the momentum began to shift at the subsequent tournament in Sardinia Open (which they did not win). Despite being at the top of the ranking and defeating Gemma & Lucia, who had won in Sardinia, in the Menorca Open final, their failure to reach the finals of the regular season's remaining three tournaments, combined with Saínz & Triay winning all three, allowed their rivals to surpass them and to take the top spot. This left the race for the world number one ranking wide open, and to be decided at the season's final tournament.
In November they won the Spanish championship, beating Eli Amatriain & Patty Llaguno 6–4, 6–4 in the final; it was Sánchez's first national title.
Back in World Padel Tour, at the Master Final, the season's last tournament, they faced Gemma & Lucia in the final in a showdown to determine the world number one ranking. However, they were defeated, finishing the season as the world's second-ranked pair.
Partnership with Paula Josemaría 2021
With Gemma Triay parting ways with her partner and inviting Alejandra Salazar to form a pair, Ariana teamed up with Paula Josemaría, with whom she would play for five seasons.
They got off to a great start by winning the Madrid Open after defeating Bea González & Lucía Sainz in the finals. However, in the remaining eight tournaments of the first half of the season, they reached four finals, winning the Marbella Master and the Las Rozas Open, but losing in Alicante and Valladolid to Gemma & Salazar, who had already won three tournaments and played in five finals by that point.
They returned strong after the summer break, with Ari and Paula winning the Portugal Master by defeating Marta Marrero & Marta Ortega in the finals. However, in the five next tournaments, they reached only the finals in Sardinia and Córdoba, losing both to Salazar & Triay; who, by winning all five events, secured the world number one ranking for the season. With the top ranking no longer at stake and only two tournaments remaining, Ari and Paula closed the season by winning the Swedish Open and the Master Final.
2022
The start of 2022 was not ideal. Despite reaching four consecutive finals, all against Alejandra & Gemma, they only managed to defeat them in Vigo, losing in Miami, Reus, and Alicante. After two tournaments without reaching the finals, Ari and Paula won the season's first Master in Marbella. They would face the world number ones again in Austria, France, Valladolid, and Málaga. Ari and Paula would win the first and last of the encounters but lost the other two.
Upon returning from the summer break, Ariana and Paula won the Portugal Open, the Swedish Open, and the Madrid Master in succession, and also reached the final of the Amsterdam Open; this run, combined with the inconsistent results of their direct rivals, allowed them to rise to the top of the rankings. However, consecutive losses to Triay & Salazar in Santander, Menorca, Malmö, and Mexico tightened the ranking race, and for the second time in Sánchez's career, everything would come down to the Master Final.
At the season-ending tournament, Ariana & Paula and Gemma & Salazar faced each other in a final for the thirteenth time in 2022. Despite winning the first set, it was Triay & Salazar who triumphed and secured the top spot in the rankings, leaving Ariana in third place (individually) for the third consecutive year.
2023
Just like the previous two years, the start of the 2023 season was difficult. In the season's first four tournaments, Ariana and Paula reached the finals in Abu Dhabi and Paraguay, winning the first but losing the second, while Gemma & Salazar won the other two. However, things changed starting at the fifth tournament, as Ari and Paula avenged those four losses by defeating their rivals in Reus (Challenger), Granada, Brussels, and Vigo. With their victory in Granada, Ariana and Paula reclaimed the world number one spot, rising to the top once again.
Their streak of finals appearances would be interrupted in Denmark, but in the six remaining tournaments before the summer break, they reached another five finals, winning them all by defeating Bea González & Delfina Brea in Austria and France, Tamara Icardo & Virginia Riera in Marbella, and Gemma Triay, and her new partner, Marta Ortega in Valencia and Málaga. Reaching the summer break with ten titles from eleven finals played across fourteen World Padel Tour tournaments.
Between the Valencia and Málaga tournaments, the world number ones competed in the first two women's Premier Padel events, reaching the finals of the Italy Major and the Madrid P1 but losing both.
In the first tournament following the summer break, they were eliminated in the Round of 16, but they quickly bounced back by winning the Paris Major (in Premier Padel), the Madrid Master, and the Germany and Amsterdam Opens. However, in the season's final five tournaments, they reached only the Menorca Open final, where they lost to Gemma Triay & Marta Ortega, though this did not prevent them from finishing the year as world number ones, securing it in October. They ended the season with 14 titles from 18 finals across 26 tournaments played on the WPT and Premier Padel circuits, defining a record in women's padel.
2024
With the unification of the World Padel Tour and Premier Padel into a single circuit, Ariana and Paula began 2024 as the world number one pair, just as they had finished the previous year, a scenario that did not happen on the men's side. Unlike in previous years, they got off to a strong start of the season, securing victories in the finals of the Riyadh P1, over Bea González & Delfina Brea, and over Claudia Fernández & Gemma Triay in the Qatar Major.
In the next five tournaments, they reached only one final, in Seville, but lost to Bea & Delfina, who went on to win four of those five events. However, they returned to winning ways in Mar del Plata, where they avenged their Seville defeat in the final, ending their rivals' title streak. After failing to win the tournaments in Santiago and Bordeaux, Ari and Paula claimed their second Major of the season in Italy.
In the three tournaments leading up to the summer break, they reached every final, starting with a loss in Genoa, but winning in Málaga and Finland, securing their 33rd title as a team and becoming the most successful women's pair in the history of padel.
Their return after the summer break began with a defeat against Claudia & Gemma in the Madrid P1 semifinals. They would face the same pair in the Rotterdam and Valladolid finals, winning the first and losing the second, before wrapping up September with a win in the Paris Major. After skipping the Egypt tournament and suffering elimination at the Dubai P1, Ariana and Paula made history in Kuwait by winning the event. This victory mathematically secured their status as the world's number one pair for the year and tied them with Belasteguín & Lima for the second-highest number of titles of all time (a record they have since dropped to third place behind, having been surpassed by Coello & Tapia).