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One thing you notice about padel is the sound. When you hit the ball with your racquet, it makes a thunk that’s a bit bassier than the pop of a good tennis stroke. On a sunny, humid day earlier this month, Padel Social Club is filled with this sound. Located down a side street in Earl’s Court, west London, the club has five padel courts, which serve the rocketing demand for what many are calling Britain’s hottest new sport.
Padel isn’t new, though: it was invented in Mexico in 1969, and has been around for decades in Spain, where it’s the second most popular sport after football. It’s always played in doubles, and on a court about half the size of a tennis one. It requires less power and, as with squash, an awareness of the surrounding walls, some of which can be used to play points off.
In the last few years, padel has become a runaway success. The likes of Andy Murray, Rafael Nadal, Lionel Messi, the Prince and Princess of Wales, Shakira and David Beckham are hooked. So are many others. Tom Murray ran an independent UK padel body before it was folded into the Lawn Tennis Association in 2019, at which point there were about 50 courts and 6,000 active players in the country. By the end of last year, there were 350 courts and “just shy of 100,000” players, he says. Halfway through 2024, it’s 500 courts and 150,000 players.
I’m one of them. I’ve come to a beginners’ social session at Padel Social Club to try out the sport, along with about a dozen other newbies. The coach, Antonio, gently tries to purge me of my tennis habits – padel requires a slightly different grip, a rigid wrist and shorter strokes – and after a couple hours I’ve got a very rough hang of things.
Being straightforward for beginners to pick up is a big part of padel’s appeal, says Kristian Hunter, CEO and co-founder of Padel Social Club: “It’s easy to get into, but it’s very hard to master.” My fellow players agree. “I like it,” says Fuad, who used to play basketball socially but had to find something different after a hand injury. “It’s outdoors; you move; it’s not too aggressive.” For Ava, who lives nearby, it’s a gentler way of keeping active than a running club.
The Earl’s Court location is Padel Social Club’s first dedicated space, and since opening in February it has “done better than we could have ever anticipated”, says Hunter. The extras that surround the courts – a bar, coffee shop, sauna and ice bath – speak to his desire to “build a lifestyle brand as well as a padel brand”. “What we’re trying to achieve here is a little bit [like] what you see in padel clubs in Spain,” he says. “Every Thursday evening, they’ll have their group that they’ll play with, and then they’ll have a beer.”
That sociability is padel’s other big draw. It’s partly baked into the sport itself: the need for four players per game encourages groups to form, and the relative smallness of the court makes in-game banter easier. But as Hunter says, it’s also part of the sport’s wider culture. Padel Social Club hosts corporate events – “they love it, because it’s great networking” – and singles’ nights. It has a lot of “open matches”, where players book slots on courts rather than the entire thing and play with whoever else turns up.
Padel Social Club’s first courts were at Soho House’s Babington House. When the company hosted padel socials, says Hunter, people who had “been members for 20 years [and] never hung out” suddenly started having lunches and holidays together. “It is a massive connector.” People play with friends, or make friends with the people they play with. Many of those in my beginners’ session came alone, and some are newish arrivals in London. Afterwards, they stand chatting with each other, sipping iced coffees and exchanging Instagram handles. Most plan to play again.
That’s how it worked for my dad, Sean, who’s played padel religiously twice a week since being introduced to it by a neighbour in autumn 2022. Whereas tennis is “pretty frustrating” to play in mixed-ability groups, he says, and squash has “gone out of fashion a bit”, padel has the best of both sports “without any of the problems”. His games are organised via a WhatsApp group of about 20 men, who are all middle-aged or older and who steadily joined via word of mouth.
Beers or coffees usually follow the sessions, and last December, they had their first group Christmas dinner. Many of his fellow players are “tapering off at work or retired”, Sean says, “and they’ve lost a social circle that came with their employment”. Padel fills the gap. (It also leads to “type-a men who’ve been successful in their careers trying too hard and injuring themselves” – several of their number have broken bones or twisted ankles from getting a little too into things.)
Playing a game in the late summer sun is all very lovely, but Britain isn’t Spain – one challenge for padel is how to adapt to the UK’s cold, wet climate. Murray says the seasonal issue is a reason padel “hasn’t developed as fast as we’d like” in the UK – he estimates that half of the courts in Britain are covered or indoors. That proportion is likely to increase in the coming years, as planning permission is far easier to get for indoor courts than outdoor ones. And Hunter, who believes that padel’s longevity depends on indoor venues, says that Padel Social Club plans to open a big branch in Wandsworth, south London next summer with six indoor courts. But ultimately, the issue is less about the cold than the rain, which can be quite simple to deal with: Rock’s Lane in Chiswick, west London, where my dad plays, already has some open-air courts which are covered to keep them dry.
For all padel’s brisk growth in Britain, it’s still nowhere near as popular as it is in other European countries. “We’ve got 500 courts,” says Murray; “France, Belgium, Holland, they’ve got 2000. We’re playing catchup.” The gender balance is relatively healthy – Hunter says 40% of his customers are female; Murray says roughly 30% of padel players nationwide are, “and there’s no reason it shouldn’t be 50%”. The limiting factor is infrastructure. Tennis clubs, golf clubs, leisure centres and more are all building padel courts, says Murray, to “retain [an] existing member base or attract a new audience to their venue” – but supply is still nowhere near demand. “A lot of people don’t continue to play because it’s so hard to get courts,” says Hunter.
But too much demand isn’t the worst problem to have, especially given padel has only been played properly in the UK for about a decade. Murray is now having make sure youth players get into the sport, as padel could potentially become an Olympic event in the 2030s. Hunter says Padel Social Club is on track for his goal of having “one major club in each part of London, and then one club in every major city around the UK”, for about 20 in total. He’s confident that the sport is here to stay – that it won’t be like squash, which boomed in the ‘80s and ’90s then fell off steeply afterwards. Ultimately, he says, it’s about “trying to make it a way of life for people”.
