Making a racquet!

Up the creek without a padel!

At Equilibrium, padel tennis has been the biggest craze of the last 12 months with colleagues of all ages and sporting abilities taking part. Venues have been popping up at a rate of knots in the local area including courts at Total Fitness Wilmslow, Alderley Park, Mottram Hall, and Hale Country Club.

David Beckham is known to be a big fan, as is Hugh Grant. So, what exactly is it?

In 1969, Señor Enrique Corcuera from Acapulco had become bored with tennis and squash so set about combining the best elements of both these racquet sports. He wanted to create a sport that could be more fun, more social, and easier to learn than any other racquet sport, and padel was born. Drawing from tennis, you’ll find yourself smacking a furry ball over a net and following the same scoring system. And from squash, the back wall is fair game as long as the ball bounces on the ground only once.

It is typically played as doubles, increasing the social aspect and there is a lot of teamwork, strategy, and emphasis on positioning, meaning you can still enjoy it without moving too much.

Caught in a pickle?

In the US, the same conversations are taking place about an existential threat to tennis. But the tennis- adjacent disruptor sport over there isn’t padel, it’s pickleball.

According to recent data, there are now 36.5 million pickleball players in the United States(1), with many A-listers wanting in on the action too, from Bill Gates to Kim Kardashian.

Pickleball and padel share some similarities, not least in their origin stories. Pickleball was born in 1965 in Seattle. It was the invention of three dads including the future US congressman Joel Pritchard, who came home after a game of golf and found their families sitting at home with nothing to do. Pritchard had a badminton court, but no kit, so they started hitting a perforated plastic ball over the net with ping- pong bats. The following weekend, they lowered the net to roughly the height of a tennis net. The Pritchard family had a dog named Pickle who loved chasing the ball, and thus, pickleball allegedly got its name.(2)

Why the explosive growth?

The exponential growth in both sports in recent years can be linked to the lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic. Both sports are typically played outside and involve no physical contact so weren’t as restricted as team sports.

When it comes to future growth, pickleball has a crucial advantage; padel courts need to be purpose- built, and with the playing surface, glass and lighting, can cost up to £25,000(3). Pickleball courts, meanwhile, can simply fit on existing badminton courts in leisure centres and village halls or by repurposing existing tennis courts.

Such has been the growth of both sports there has been somewhat of a backlash from the tennis aficionados including Martina Navratilova who tweeted on X (previously known as Twitter): “I say if pickleball is that popular let them build their own courts.”

Growth in padel is no doubt still on the rise in the UK, but it might be worth taking a cautionary note from Sweden which went from having 300 padel courts to 3,500. Padel centres in the Nordic country are now being converted into warehouses and budget grocery stores after the sport’s pandemic boom turned into a bust.(4)

The benefits

Both are low-impact sports which can be enjoyed by all ages, genders, and skill levels, which makes them perfect for group activities.

The social benefits of each are plentiful and playing with a group can help to reduce stress, boost your mood, and increase your social circle. It’s a great way to stay connected with friends and family, as well as meet new people.

Find out more

If you would like to try either sport, we recommend visiting playtomic.io for padel or pickleballengland.org for pickleball, where you can search for local clubs and book to play with friends or players of a similar ability.

Sources

(1) Data released by the Association of Pickleball Professionals (APP) January 2023

(2) Wikipedia – Pickleball

(3) Padelathletes.com

(4) Bloomberg.com – Sweden holds warning for potential crash of the $4billion padel craze