Sport
The new racket sport I’m recommending At first glance, it’s not surprising to see tennis star Andy Murray and his brother Jamie with rackets in hand, but look again, and you’ll see these are not tennis rackets. In fact, they aren’t really rackets at all, but bats. Padel bats, and that’s because Britain’s most successful tennis playing siblings have put money into the new sport sweeping the country, with courts recently opened in Crystal Palace.
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adel is the world’s fastest growing sport and is best described as a cross between tennis and squash, played on court one third the size of a tennis court with enclosed walls. It’s fast paced, highly sociable (played in doubles pairs) and those that have adopted it, say it’s extremely addictive.
Murray explained: “I decided to invest in padel because I think it’s a really easy entry point into racket sports. Many people are put off the idea of joining a tennis club because it’s not somewhere they feel they’ll fit in or the expense of it stops them, but padel is much more accessible. “It’s a much easier sport to pick up and learn, and so people who would battle to have a decent
game of tennis, can actually have pretty good rallies in padel after one or two sessions”. Game4Padel, the UK market leader, is the company they have backed. With 15 venues open around the country already they are planning on opening around another 20 venues in 2024 in destinations as varied as sports clubs, business parks, hotels, schools, and universities and even shopping centres. Murray continued: “I first played padel in Spain when I was training there as a teenager. The sport is massive there – it’s the second biggest participation sport after football and there are over 20,000 courts. Part of the reason it’s grown so quickly is that it doesn’t require as much space as a tennis court, so padel does well in towns and cities where space is limited”.
The sport originated in Mexico in the late 1960s when a Spanish squash player modified his squash court to incorporate elements of tennis. It took till 2011 for padel to come to the UK but since then it’s seen something of an explosion and is rapidly gaining pace as a sport for everyone, whetherthey’ve ever picked up a racket before or not. “Game4padel set up a padel court in Westfield shopping centre last year, and it was a huge hit”, said Murray. “People were really fascinated by what this new sport was, and they didn’t find it intimidating at all”. Westfield are currently awaiting a planning application for three courts at their Shepherd’s Bush site, as they can see the potential to attract a new audience to the centre and build a community –
a quality that padel also adds. The social side of the game is easy to see as people chat whilst playing because they are so close to each other at the net and have a drink or a coffee afterwards. The new courts in Crystal Palace are already doing well, attracting a mix of fitness fanatics and trend setters, as well as families, older people, work colleagues and teenagers. Whether the sport will take over from tennis, Murray isn’t so sure: “I think there’s a place for both. There are still plenty of people that play tennis and love tennis. The tennis Tour and the Grand Slams are such huge events that attract massive audiences, that I can’t see that changing. But can padel sit alongside that? I think so. There’s definitely room for both”.
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