Anyone for padel? No, I hadn’t heard of it either

That was always the deal with this column: I was to go and watch a sport alone once a month, without learning anything about it beforehand. In practice, it felt like a gimmick when I decided to write about, say, cricket or basketball. Even cycling was pretty straightforward. Padel, though? I genuinely had no idea what to expect.

Still, I’d been looking forward to it. There’s no glory in suddenly becoming obsessed with football or rugby as an adult. This felt like an opportunity to get in on the ground floor. As I learned from some retrospective Googling, padel only became popular globally during and after the pandemic. Could I start a new life as a sports hipster?

I arrived at the R3 Bullpadel Cup, and the man at the entrance thought I was one of the players in the competition. Sadly, his assumption had nothing to do with what I am choosing to call my Olympian physique. Instead, I walked in to find there were more competitors than spectators in the room. A mainstream activity, this is not.

As a result, you may be reading this and wondering what padel actually entails. This is something I can now help with. Can you picture tennis doubles? Great. Please do that, then increase the intensity by around 15%. Somehow, everyone who plays padel seems incandescent, perhaps because the pitch is noticeably smaller, and feels more claustrophobic.

Instead of the racquets you may be used to seeing on lawn or clay, picture those zappy things you can use to obliterate mosquitoes, and which make a satisfying “bzzzt” sound when you manage to fry one. Now make them both bigger and thicker. Sadly, they are not electrified.

Finally, and this is the part that is hardest to convey using words, imagine a world in which all that separates you from these players is a glass wall. Often, a ball will end up getting thwomped inches away from your face. It’s pretty exhilarating, and hard to get used to.

All in all, padel is a pretty entertaining watch, though I kept wondering why people would get into it instead of tennis; why get frozen yoghurt when ice-cream is right there? I asked the father of a young player and he was happy to explain. His kid, like many padel players, started out in tennis.

He showed some promise but, after some complicated life events, found the constant pressure and loneliness of the sport too stifling. Padel, on the other hand, offered more “camaraderie and conviviality”. It’s a smaller community and games are only ever doubles, making it a (small) team sport. The skillset is quite similar, but you can have a nicer, more uncomplicated time. What’s not to love?

As a spectator, I have to confess, somewhat guiltily, that I do prefer the glitz and glamour of full-fat tennis. That doesn’t mean my afternoon was a bust, however. There was something charming about sitting on a wooden bench inside a glorified tent, surrounded by random people having a lovely time.

Oh, and Wimbledon may have Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal and the Williams sisters, but does it have Flossy, an overly friendly in-house labrador with a “staff member” neckerchief? No, it does not. Point to the Stratford Padel Club.

Photograph by Luke Walker for Laureas/Getty Images