Padel: the future of tennis?

May 6, 2006   

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While traveling in Argentina and Spain, I came across an amazingly fun racquet sport called padel. Not to be confused with the American paddle or platform tennis, this fast paced game is a mixture of tennis and racquetball and mostly played in doubles. It’s a lot easier to pick-up than tennis, requires a smaller area and costs only $25,000 to install a court. Most importantly, while in a tennis match only a few points are truly intense and fun in an entire set, with well balanced teams every point is heavily disputed in padel!

You can see a few points of padel played in the video below:

Padel is now my favorite sport above tennis and skiing. I hope someone installs a few court in New York soon!

  • as a lifelong tennis player (currently playing in college), i must say that looks like a ton of fun. however, i have always had a hard time making the transition to a different racquet sport– i have found that it destroys your strokes. anyways, you wouldnt happen to know how hard it is to get public court time in nyc?

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  • This sport does not mess up my tennis game (as opposed to say squash). I also play racquetball which does not affect my strokes. In NY I recommend you play at the Manhattan Racquet Club on 43rd and 10th. As for public courts I play on riverside park on 96th and riverside. I play in Port Washington as well. If you are a 4.5 – 5.5 player, I am happy to hit!

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  • I’m going to have to head down the QE2 and go to Calgary to try this out this summer! It’s the only place in Canada that has a court right now, but they nabbed the 2008 championships. I love tennis but this sounds like something worth trying out; thanks for introducing me to it.

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  • Great Game isn’t it?!?
    I hope we’ll soon play some in south of France, and someday, let’s hope out in NY!! Padeltennis could be the next great racket sport in the US the way it is in Latin America and Spain! Hope to play soon..

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  • just did my research. here i thought i had played padel, platform, and paddle tennis but come to find out i have only played platform. racket sport faux paux, my bad.

    if anyone is reading this and wants to have a pickup game (i played squash in college) in nyc to pa area , visit me a site and drop me a line!!

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  • Fabrice

    Great to hear your enthusiasm for the the sport!!
    Padel is slowly beginning to spread to other countries too, such as the UK. There are only a couple of padel courts here at present but that is likely to change as more and more people find out how easy it is to pick up and how much fun it can be.

    Due to the history of the game a lot of the stuff written about padel is naturally in Spanish – but for more info about the sport in English you might be interested to checkout my padel blog: http://www.padten.wordpress.com

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  • I’m sure you can find tons of Padel players smong the spanish community in NY. I know at least three players living there now.

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  • Hello from Spain, where the paddle tennis is a very popular sport. I play daily since a year ago. I will be in NY from 2007 January 1st to january 8th. I will take my paddle racquet. I am looking for some people to play those days.

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  • Hey guys, Just letting you know i am a Padel Coach/ Professional here in Calgary, and yes we did host the 2008 World Senior Padel Championships in August.. If any of you are in Canada at anytime dont hesitate, email me.. If you would like to try Padel, if you haven’t played it in a Latin Country.. Then come to Calgary or Montreal!

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