UK Padel meets demand for age group comps
There’s no doubt that padel is on the rise in 2024 – the Hexagon Cup live on TV in the UK, Premier Padel re-invented, the LTA mandating counties to run padel events alongside county tennis tournaments and court numbers inching past 350 with some 15,000 players a month.
In November UK Padel added its inaugural County Championships at Rocket Padel, Bristol, into this mix. It proved to be the largest padel tournament yet held in the UK with more than 170 competitors representing 21 counties across men’s, women’s, and mixed events.
Now UK Padel is preparing for its next events – County Championships for players aged 50 and over in Bristol in March, a 40s and over tournament in June, 60s and over event in September and a repeat of the full County Championships in November.
Camaraderie
Anyone who has ever been to a sports festival will remember the people they went with and the experiences they had, and UK Padel thinks that a big part of the success of the Counties format is that padel players are keen to meet new players and share their love of the game with other people whilst going toe-to-toe with them.
UK Padel saw that some county teams (for example the Channel Islands and Oxfordshire to name just two) loved this coming together of like-minded people to create a genuine cross county team desperate for more options to make up a four or strike a partnership with an unknown club to create fixtures and talk about what is next for padel in their county or region.
This was the trigger for UK Padel to announce four festivals of sport for the different age groups (over 40s, 50s, 60s and Open).
Team focus
Nick Baker, CEO of UK Padel, was delighted with the interest and uptake from the inaugural UK PADEL County Championships: “The groundswell of enthusiasm mixed with competitive spirit was amazing to see,” he said. “There is something about the nature of a team competition that brings an extra edge to a tournament; more vocal support combined with players perhaps not wanting to let their team-mates down.”
In November East Scotland carried off the men’s County trophy, with Surrey winning the women’s competition and Sussex pulling off the win in the mixed category.
Something interesting to see coming from the event was clear demand for age group competitions, with a rapidly growing number of older players in the UK falling in love with the game and wanting to pursue their newly found sporting passion.
It’s therefore exciting to see the four tournament UK Padel County Championships series for 2024 with dedicated events for different age groups.🎾
