BY ANDREW STEAM
ROM (`) – Record prize money of nearly $1 million at this week’s tournament in Rome.
Recent investment by the company that owns the New York Yankees.
A successful debut at the European Games, with matches played to enthusiastic spectators on Kraków’s Main Square last month.
Padel, the fastest growing racquet sport in the world among amateurs, is also making great strides at the professional level.
“In Italy – and around the world – this sport knows no borders,” said Angelo Binaghi, who directs the sport as president of the Italian Tennis and Padel Federation in a country where it is growing the fastest.
The nine medals awarded at the European Games in Poland marked the first time this sport had been staged at an Olympic Games event. Teams from Spain – the world leader in padel – won gold in men’s and mixed doubles, while Italy won in women’s doubles.
“It was a big step for our sport,” said Luigi Carraro, President of the International Padel Federation. “We have shown that we have all the necessary qualities to become an Olympic sport.”
As the son of Franco Carraro, a former member of the International Olympic Committee and still an honorary member, Luigi Carraro has a lot of insight into how the IOC works.
“I think the IOC is analyzing us very closely. They follow all of our big events,” Carraro said in an interview with The Associated Press.
With already 71 national federations building their international reputation, the IPF could seek inclusion in the Olympic Games as an additional sport proposed by the local organizing committee of future games. The Brisbane 2032 Olympics is the earliest possibility. But padel could struggle in a key area that the IOC has been valuing lately: its youth appeal.
Current ancillary sports such as braking, skateboarding, surfing and sport climbing appear to better meet the needs of youth than padel, which has proven successful in converting tennis players and in an adult social setting.
The similarity to tennis could also be a disadvantage.
Padel is played in doubles in a cage smaller than a tennis court. Padel is a hybrid of tennis and squash, with players allowed to hit the ball off the glass and metal mesh walls that surround the court.
Last year the President of the International Tennis Federation, David Haggerty, was rejected when he tried to take over the ITF the International Padel Federation.
Another problem for padel is that so far only two countries shine at the highest level of the sport: the top 10 players in the World Padel Tour rankings for men and women are all either Spanish or Argentinian.
“Padel is very strong in countries like Spain, Argentina and Italy. But not everywhere,” said leader Arturo Coello. “So it still needs to be developed in other countries and that’s why we need the Olympics.”
But the growth rate of padel is impressive.
There are currently 25 million people playing padel in 110 countries, compared to 16 million two years ago. The entire padel industry is worth €2 billion (more than $2 billion) and is expected to surpass €4 billion by 2026, according to a recent report by Deloitte.
“The numbers exceed what we could have imagined a few years ago,” said Carraro. “Once you try padel you fall in love with it and you never stop playing.”
Also, the sport is only now reaching the US and India – the two big markets that the IPF is targeting for its next phase of development.
In the US, padel will compete with Pickleball, another fast-growing tennis spinoff.
“One discipline does not exclude the other,” said Carraro. “Pickleball can grow, squash and badminton can grow and padel can definitely grow.”
The Italian Tennis Federation added padel to its name last year. And it’s easy to see why.
There are currently 1.2 million padel players and 3.1 million tennis players in Italy. But the number of padel players has increased by 30% over the past year, compared to 3% for tennis. If growth continues at this rate, by the end of the decade padel will overtake tennis as the country’s most-played racquet sport.
The padel boom in Italy was fueled by the coronavirus pandemic, with many sports clubs converting their futsal (the sport known as “calcetto” in Italy) fields into padel courts when major team sports were shut down.
“For the development of padel, it makes no difference whether it comes to the Olympics or not,” said Binaghi. “The Olympics are overrated and Padel shows that.” Look at what a phenomenon it’s become without competing in the Olympics. That’s why I told Carraro to focus on other issues, not the Olympics. We hardly noticed when tennis wasn’t in the Olympics. It’s irrelevant.”
A question that Carraro has been spending a lot of time on lately is how to solve two competing tours for professional padel players: the more established World Padel Tour and Premier Padel, which the international federation together with the President of football club Paris Saint-Germain, Nasser launched al-Khelaifi and Qatar Sports Investments last year – backed by Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, Qatar’s ruling Emir and a big fan of the sport.
Top players compete against each other on both racetracks.
There’s also the smaller A1 padel track, which recently received an investment from Yankee Global Enterprises, the company that operates the baseball team.
“For us it is important that there is only one tour,” said Carraro. “Whatever tour it is, it’s important that the players can decide for themselves when and where they play.”
Among other stations, Premier Padel offers four ‘majors’ in Qatar, Rome, Paris and Mexico – where the sport was founded in 1969.
The Rome tournament takes place at the same venue at the Foro Italico that hosts the Italian Open tennis tournament and the Paris tournament takes place at Roland Garros.
The total prize money in Rome is 875,000 euros (960,000 US dollars). That’s €525,000 ($575,000) for men and €350,000 ($385,000) for women – making their Premier Padel debut.
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Andrew Dampf is at https://twitter.com/AndrewDampf
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