In the decades-long, ongoing quest to find ways to move my body that are enjoyable rather than depressing, I’ve discovered, late to everything as usual, the sport of padel. It happened in Spain on a short winter sun holiday. Some friends, who are part of a sort of an alternative men’s shed which convenes every Sunday morning to play padel in Killiney, Dublin, had organised a padel holiday to Las Palmas, the capital of Gran Canaria.
At home these men play Sunday padel the way some people go to Mass. They commune both on and off the court, playing games and going for coffee afterwards, sometimes spending more time chatting over americanos than they do playing padel.
If the après-padel scene is big in Killiney, padel is huge in Spain. With six million players, it’s the second most popular sport there after football. I’d never heard of padel but the sport, having first emerged in Mexico in the late 1960s, is now one of the fastest-growing in the world. It’s a mix of tennis and squash, only with far less running around. The points system is the same as tennis but crucially the court is a third smaller and is enclosed with mesh and glass back walls, which are in play after the ball bounces on the court once. The racquets are solid plastic, while the balls are similar to the ones used in tennis.
In Las Palmas, the courts we booked were on the roof of a huge shopping centre. The stunning view took in blue skies over the busy port of Las Palmas, crowded with cruise ships and Japanese fishing trawlers and, high above on a nearby mountain, a naval base.
I’ve discovered padel, and it has been a wonderful revelation
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My first day playing padel was a revelation. It’s designed for doubles, so you’re not on your own, which makes it much less intimidating than other games. And it’s social: four of you on the small court, having the chats while bashing balls over the net. Those balls don’t go flying everywhere either, on account of the walls. I was hooked immediately.
“It’s a sport I can grow old with,” said one of my fellow fiftysomething players, a former tennis ace who sensibly wants to steer clear of injuries as he ages.
I wanted to be instantly brilliant at padel but I was better at it in my head than in real life. For once, this didn’t frustrate me. In a show of what we don’t hear enough of these days – let’s call it positive masculinity – the lads were encouraging and made me feel like I was brimming with padel potential.
The game is also accessible, so there was no fear that a newbie like me would ruin the fun for the men who had been playing regularly for a year. Padel suits all abilities and ages and the only thing you really need to bring, apart from a racquet, is enthusiasm.
Apart from swing ball, a bit of table tennis and a lot of competitive scrabble, it’s the first one I’ve played since I gave up on basketball and hockey in school
Over our few days in Spain, my skills gradually improved. It turned out I had a pretty decent lob, a shot that, if you position the ball correctly in the far corner of the court, is difficult to return. On my third day playing, my partner and I even managed to win a set. He’s a seasoned player, but we were both far shorter and cuddlier than our opponents: two strapping, extremely fit, not to mention tall, padlers.
During that victorious set I also managed my first bit of back-wall play, a real milestone. “You never forget your first time,” my partner said as we bumped racquet in celebration. For balance, I should mention that at one point I also accidentally whacked myself on the forehead with a racquet – a rite of passage in padel, I am told.
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I appear to have taken up a new sport. Apart from swing ball, a bit of table tennis and a lot of competitive scrabble, it’s the first one I’ve played since I gave up on basketball and hockey in school. Even more crucially, it’s the only sport I’ve engaged with seriously since breaking my ankle and busting up my other leg, in a series of unfortunate events that occurred just over a year ago.
Once you hear about padel, you realise it’s everywhere and has been for a while. There’s a podcast called Joy of Padel. There’s a House of Padel in Dublin and elsewhere in the capital there are public courts in Bushy Park, Terenure, where you can even hire an instructor from Spain. There are people playing padel all over the country.
Courts are booked for a fee, but as it’s a doubles game the cost is split between four players. In Las Palmas, courts only cost €10 an hour. In Dublin to nobody’s surprise, you can pay up to four times more.
As a sport, padel also has something of a self-help element. The internet is full of quotes about the lessons in life we can learn from the rapidly growing sport. For example, the game shows us that every wall “is an opportunity, not a barrier”. But this one is my favourite: “Padel teaches that sometimes the best move is to simply keep the ball in play.” All any of us can do is keep the ball in play for as long as possible.
Anyone for padel?
