The Côte d'Azur quickly took the lead thanks to a perfect start to the match, and then went on to establish their place in the pecking order to claim their fourth consecutive Final Four. The four unbeaten qualifying teams will now meet on May 16. 

 

With the compositions and the draw evenly distributed throughout the ten duels, it seemed obvious that the club that got off to the best start in this last quarter-final would have a chance of winning at the end of the evening. And it was Monaco's Rania Drid (-63kg) who was the first to force the decision, with an o-soto-gari from distance less than thirty seconds from the gong, at the expense of Émilie Dando. Patience was also called for in the next round between Luca Otmane and Bulgaria's Georgi Gramatikov, ranked 35th in the world in the -81kg class, whom the 2025 French vice-champion impacted in the final minute with a fearsome tai-otoshi/uki-waza combination. Sweden's Ida Eriksson (-70kg) - a standing-to-ground connection starting from a sode-tsuri-komi-goshi and ending in ude-garami - was also worth a look for a clear, clean and precise third point from Nice. 

 

Tapia and Haymé to stop the bleeding 

 

The Stade Bordelais then relied on their elegant Dominican Robert Florentino (-90kg), who had just missed out on the podium at the Austrian Grand Prix two days earlier, to turn things around against Georgian Soso Ebilashvili. Two waza-ari, on kata-guruma then tai-otoshi, and the Gironde counter was finally unlocked, before Grace-Esther Mienandi Lahou and Coralie Haymé, respectively Cadet World Champion 2022 and Junior World Champion 2022, entered the ring in +70kg. Despite their lack of size, it was Haymé who found the breakthrough, with a seoi-nage on her knees on the exit of her opponent's uchi-mata, perfectly chained in immobilization. 

 

Three falls for Bordeaux's Bulgarians 

 

Two victories which put the Bordeaux team back in the saddle before the break (3-2)... Except that their momentum was to be lost from the very first sequence of the +90kg bout between Georgian Shalva Gureshidze, modne junior champion 2023, and Bulgarian Boris Georgiev, already in action for the Grenats during the silver campaign of the first French mixed team championships last May. A sode-tsuri-komi-goshi from the Georgian colossus brought on board the usual middleweight, winner of the Sofia European Open at the end of January. Gabriela Dimitrova (-52kg) then took to the mat to face Léa Métrot, none other than the woman against whom the Bulgarian had beaten in the final to also win on home soil earlier this year. This time, the rematch took place on the home ground of the Frenchwoman from Nice, who had the last word with a short yuko on a sutemi after almost two minutes of golden score. 

Vellozzi sends Nice to the Paris Dojo 

 

At 5-2, the home side were just one point behind in the last three bouts. And if the first match point was missed by Driss Masson Jbilou (-66kg), trapped by a yuko on Kylian Noël's yoko-tomoe-nage, Ophélie Vellozzi (-57kg), bronze medallist at the Paris 2025 Grand Slam, didn't let her chance go by against Lola Berthet. Winner of the Label Excellence in Saint-Gratien at the end of February, Berthet was powerless to prevent a prolonged tomoe-nage attempt with an unstoppable juji-gatame. The victory of the third Georgian in the Côte d'Azur stable, Giorgi Chikhelidze, with a powerful ura-nage inflicted on the very young bronze medallist of the last French senior championships, Désir Zoba Casi, gave the score a little more scope, for a final 7-3 that was beyond dispute. 

 

Three up-and-comers for a Final Four regular 

 

As has been the case since the creation of the Judo Pro League in 2022, Les Niçois will be heading for the Paris Dojo in a bid to add their name to the top of the honours list for the second time. To do so, they will have to manoeuvre skilfully right from the semi-finals, where Thierry Dibert and Fanny-Estelle Posvite's fighters, coach of the women's team on Tuesday, will meet RSC Montreuil, leaders of the preliminary round. The other ticket to the final will then be decided between Arts Martiaux de Saint-Gratien and AC Boulogne-Billancourt.