London’s padel moment: roof-raising rallies, margins and sportsmanship
As the inaugural Premier Padel London P1 at Kensington Olympia – beneath its magnificent 30-metre-high roof – draws to a close, Minter Dial reflects on the extraordinary entertainment it has served up and how professional padel travels beyond its traditional homelands of Spain, Argentina and Mexico.
by Minter Dial
Padel is social in its DNA. That comes from its Hispanic roots, its inherent four-player format, the physical proximity of everyone on court, and the fundamentally amateur way in which the game developed through decades as an exotic sport. As I like to say, rule #1 (of 5) is to have fun. This was echoed in an interview I conducted with former world number 1 and captain of the Spanish women’s national team, Carolina Navarro, where she stated, as the first and most important tip: enjoy yourself! And rule #5 is to have a beer with all players after the game. It’s a game that I continue to love having started more than 50 years ago. And I feel like I’m still learning and meeting wonderful new friends.
There are specific elements that contribute to the sociability of padel. On court, everyone is within earshot. Partners converse, and opponents often exchange words and friendly banter. It’s not uncommon for players to tap hands across the net with smiles all around. Moreover, spectators can often hear what’s being said and can feel unusually close to the action. It is competitive, of course, but rarely acrimonious.
Padel has also come of age through digital tools: apps that make it easy to book courts and find partners, along with the proliferation of WhatsApp groups that inevitably have ‘padel’ in their title. The technology lubricates the social side of the sport; it does not replace it.
The best players set the tone
One of the refreshing things at the professional level is seeing the world’s best players continue to model sportsmanship while competing at the absolute limit.
Behind the scenes, most of the players know one another well. They train together, travel together and, no doubt, eat together. On court, the ritual begins with a group photograph and a somewhat ritualised shared warm-up — even while each player is quietly assessing the opposition.
During the match there are constant moments of interaction. With only three balls in play, someone is always returning one to the server. Players frequently call out their opponents’ names or signal what they see happening. At the net, there is often a fierce four-way battle for territory: who will own it, and who will be dispossessed?
Then come the ingredients that make elite padel so captivating: thundering smashes that skim perilously close to an opponent; let cords; bizarre bounces off the mesh; ludicrous exchanges and seemingly impossible retrievals. The crowd’s collective oohs and aahs are visceral. They are the natural response to watching players do things that appear beyond reason. Of course, there will be those in the crowd believing that they could play some of those shots. And they’d be right. However, reality on the court is far different. An amateur may well be able to hit a few shots in the same way as the pros, but the other 7+ shots in the average rally are the problem!
Passion, pressure, awkward margins
Naturally, there are flashpoints. Some players are more demonstrative than others, and on balance, a little visible passion is good for the sport. It reminds us what is at stake.
At times, though, emotions spill over. The difficult moments do not always lend themselves to a clean resolution — even with VAR. Padel is full of microscopic margins:
– A ball landing on the seam between the carpet and the wall: which surface did it touch first?
– A ball hit down the line, hugging the side wall: did it graze it?
– A serve struck at, or perhaps fractionally above the height of the belly-button —hidden behind a shirt.
– The faintest touch on a ball that has been hammered into your side before going back across the net.
– A foot brushing the bottom of the net in a desperate dash to chase down a smash.
Then there are the noise complaints that are often called out in the media, with potentially harmful effects on future growth. Hewlett pointed to other countries where noise complaints have led to restrictions on club opening hours, or even forced them to close.
These are the sorts of incidents that can linger, especially when the pressure is rising and the players return to the lounge afterwards, since they’re all bound to be back in the ring in a future tournament.
Gracious on court
In a Round 32 match, fifth seeds Marta Ortega* and Sofía Araújo faced unseeded pair of Nuria Rodríguez and Italy’s Giulia Dal Pozzo*. Ortega and Araújo ultimately won 6–3, 6–2 in an hour and a half — a breezy 45 minutes per set, despite only nine games and star points.
It was a delightful contest, save for one moment on a break point in the second set. Dal Pozzo played a deft shot that was called out by the referee, apparently after Araújo raised a finger. Had the ball been in, it was an outright winner and the break point would have been saved. As it was called out, Araújo and Ortega would complete the break and move to 4–1.
VAR was called. The replay showed the ball was clearly in.
Under the rules, the point was to be replayed. Rodríguez took issue with the sense that the official had been influenced by Araújo’s gesture, and there followed some finger-wagging and animated words with the referee. Eventually, the players returned to the court to replay the point.
But then came the best part. In a graceful act of sportsmanship, Araújo acknowledged that the ball had been an outright winner and conceded the point. Back to deuce. As a small epilogue, Ortega and Araújo went on to break serve anyway.
That is the sort of moment that does more for the image of padel than any marketing campaign.
My next article will focus on the lessons amateur players can take back to their own courts — inspired not just by the brilliance on display, but by the patterns, choices and habits visible when padel is played at its very highest level.
• Listen to Marta Ortega on Minter Dial’s the Joy of Padel podcast.
Giulia Dal Pozzo will be Minter’s guest on the forthcoming episode that drops on Wednesday!
Go to www.joyofpadel.com/podcast to catch all the episodes.
