The first two matches of the new Judo Pro League season produced solid home victories, enabling Auxerre Judo and Judo Nice Métropole, finalists and semi-finalists respectively at the last Final Four, to get off to the perfect start.

 

Auxerre Judo / Dojo Nantais: 8-1

 

 

 

The first point of the match went to Nantes thanks to a yuko scored by Moroccan Abderrahmane Hoummani (-66kg), African junior champion in 2016, who had finished third to Hugo Ribac the previous weekend at the Label A senior tournament in Lamballe. In the -57kg category, the duel between the French junior champions, Alya De Carvalho (winner in 2023 and 2024) and Lisa Marchèse (winner in 2015), ended with the former reaping the rewards of a waza-ari and a yuko. Three impacts that would earn her the title of best judoka at the end of the evening. Following on from this, double African bronze medallist Mohamed Jafy (-73kg) came up trumps with a kata-guruma that left French second division 2025 champion Titouan Le Mentec with no chance, before Maillys Zihri (-63kg), third at the 2023 French junior championships, tore Lina Fachate apart from the front. Yann Lecorre stopped the haemorrhage for a while by winning hikiwake against Ahmed El Meziati, four-time continental finalist, but the absence of two fighters in the Nantes ranks quickly added to the score, as did the supersonic seoi-nage of Zsevolod Klymov (-90kg), awarded the trophy for the most beautiful ippon. Although the outcome of the confrontation was no longer in doubt, Abdelkader Belarchi (+90kg), on the podium at the last French junior championships, and Moroccan Soumiya Iraoui (-52kg), three-time reigning African champion, also won by ippon, for an authoritative 8-1 score. Stade Bordelais Judo, the next opponent to appear in Yonne on October 21, has been warned.

 

Judo Nice Métropole / JC Pontault-Combault: 5-3

 

 

540 kilometers further south, it was Judo Nice Métropole, the only team to have contested the first three Final Four events in the competition's history (victory in 2023/2024, second place in 2022/2023 and defeat in the semi-finals last season), who brought their experience to bear against novices JC Pontault-Combault, who qualified following their third-place finish at the French mixed team first division amateur championships last May. As in Auxerre, it was the visiting team who got off to the best possible start, with Belgian Mouhammad Gazaloev (-81kg), third at the 2023 World Junior Championships, surprising reigning French champion Luca Otmane with a yuko. Sweden's Ida Eriksson (-70kg) then brought the two teams back level by scoring two waza-ari against Laura Haberstock, the second on uchi-mata, but Dutchman Mark Van Dijk (-90kg), fifth at the last Grand Slam in Tbilisi, gave the Franciliens the lead again by dominating Tizie Gnamien by one waza-ari. Valentine Marchand's forfeit in the +70kg class then provided a welcome second point for the Rouge et Noir, who suddenly hit the gas pedal. While Tanou Keita (+90kg), double French junior champion and now a member of the Nice-based structure's teaching team, waited until the end of his bout with Bilal Benalla to score with his ippon/ko-uchi-gari, Léa Métrot (-52kg) was quick to take on Meghan Vo, her rival from the final of the 2018 French cadet championships, with her sacrifice technique in the style of Georgian -90kgers Lasha Bekauri and Luka Maisuradze. A twenty-second projection was rewarded with the prize for the most beautiful ippon, while that awarded to the best judoka of the evening went to her new clubmate Ophélie Vellozzi, the reigning world military champion, who passed the entire table to Julie Beurskens of the Netherlands, world junior medalist in 2023, to seal the fate of this first day. The final point obtained by Pontellois Guillaume Dierstein did not change anything, as Nice resumed its good habits in the qualifiers, where Thierry Dibert and Renaud Carrière's protégés have only suffered one defeat in four seasons.