Padel

[englishpremier]

Fastest growing sport in the world, and have over taken tennis as the second largest sport in Spain (4m plus active players). Seems to have high growth in Sweden, France, Belgium too.

The Lawn Tennis Association are trying to promote it in the UK. I'm curious if there are any padel players in here. Quite a few towns in around the UK have courts already.

Will be interesting to see how it develops in the UK given sport is poorly funded and a padel court whilst more efficient use of space than a tennis court, is going to cost £30-50k

 

[englishpremier]

I'm not sure why it should. Most courts are outdoors. It's cold, wet or windy a large portion of the time, and there's been very little done to promote it.

Tennis is the 5th most popular sport, and squash is also a popular racket sport. IMO as someone who has played well over 100 padel matches across 3 different countries. While it can be fun. It's inferior to tennis in a sporting sense.

What padel needs is more of a push, but in the UK it's run by the LTA who are obviously going to prioritise tennis. In Spain I use Playtomic, so can just look and see what courts are around, create a match and wait for others to join. There isn't that system in the UK, so you need know people to play against, or have a club run a WhatsApp list or similar.

I'll add to this, the tennis club I play at when back in the UK is considering ripping up its grass courts and replacing them with padel. No-one plays on the grass, and they are a pain to maintain. That being said Leylah Fernandez did train there in the run up to Wimbledon and the various grass tournaments in the UK.

 

[englishpremier]

Nice. Playtomic does exist in the UK and other countries, it's just that many clubs haven't really sign up for it and so the players aren't using it either.

It's similar in Italy, which is one of larger padel countries. Most people are just playing by contacting the club and saying they are looking for matches.