It has taken a while, but the padel and pickleball waves have arrived to these shores. Both racket sports are creating a presence across the island of Ireland and becoming more and more popular. Courts are being installed everywhere.
Up to this point, I have resisted the temptation to play padel. My sibling has been a fervent follower and supporter of padel for the last six months. He seems to enjoy it hugely and he doesn’t miss his games for the world. Until recently, I have not had the opportunity or the time to actually play. This is my first experience of playing padel.
I very vaguely know the rules and the differences between tennis and padel. The rules, at least, are quite familiar in terms of scoring, but obviously the technique and tactics differ. The game is played in a box with walls like squash.
So anyway, I took myself to a new facility in my city called Let’s Go Padel, a franchise with several padel centres across the province. The facility has ten courts, featuring doubles courts and two singles courts. The venue is in an industrial estate in a disused warehouse. It’s got the original graffiti on the walls and the courts have been planted in there.
Let’s Go Padel is not a sports club like, for example, David Lloyd or a traditional club; those facilities are long-established with toilets, changing facilities, saunas, steam rooms, and gyms. This is very basic.
The facility
Upon arrival at the facility, the signage is big and well-lit, and there’s also plenty of parking.
When you arrive, there is a reception-type area with lockers and somewhere to pick up rackets and balls. We booked court 9; a doubles court from 7-8pm, renting three rackets; we had the balls already. All in all, I was out nearly forty pounds for the evening. If renting a racket is too much for you perhaps Nox Sport padel rackets might be worth a look. They have a good range of rackets to suit all budgets.
To summarise.
£32 for the court
£2.50 per racket
£39.50 in total.
Pretty expensive if you ask me.
Once you sign in and collect your rackets, you are left to your own devices to find your court. There’s no assistance as such, but it’s obvious where the courts are—you just follow the noise and the lights.
Let’s Go Padel gives off gym vibes with pumping music and bright lights; you can see why this is such an instagrammable sport of the moment. There are lots of courts which you can see from one end of the facility to the other. Aesthetically, it looks very appealing.
Eventually, we found our court, left our gear outside, and it was time to hit some balls.
Lets go Hit
The courts are astro turf—bright blue and sand-based. Such surfaces are commonly used for tennis. They can be played on in all conditions, but because it’s indoors, it’s a fairly slow surface. The ball bounces true most times, however, on occasion, you do get the odd bad bounce.
The £2.50 padel rackets provided felt pretty good, but that’s coming from someone with a padel racket in their hand for the first time. If you were to rent a tennis court and racket, you would ordinarily get a cheap aluminum model. I assume that the racket I was playing with was a similar entry-level spec.
I don’t actually know the difference between a low-spec and a high-spec padel racket, but guessing from my knowledge of tennis, the cheaper ones use basic materials while higher-end rackets use stiffer carbon materials to provide more penetration.
Unlike tennis, there are no strings, just a hard surface area. It also has a leash like you would find on a surfboard. This is attached around your wrist; if you let go of a racket and hit somebody, you’re going to injure them pretty badly. During play, I did find it got quite tight and would wind around my wrist, which was annoying.
First game
After a little bit of a knock-up, it was all slice or flat shots. The wall was foreign to me and it was something I had difficulty with first and foremost. The others I was playing with were a mixture of novices and experienced players, so we paired up fairly and off we went. The most experienced players were pretty good; they knew the nuances and which shots work most effectively.
We started a full-on game. Similarities to tennis are high at this point, which was useful. My serve on the tennis court is something of a weapon, but it was anything but that on the padel court. It’s not really a power game; it’s about the skill.
I found the serving action fine to execute, but what I found most difficult was holding the service game. Every time I was unable to hold a service point, which was frustrating. Obviously, for my first time, that is to be expected, but it was still a little frustrating—though it didn’t affect my enjoyment.
I still loved it, but I felt I was letting down my partner. Every service game felt like a loss. Finally, towards the end of our hour, I managed to win a service game, much to my relief. Placement is way more important for the serve than power. I quickly learned that the others could put the ball in places I couldn’t return. Return of serve must nearly always be sliced.
If somebody slices to you, you have to slice back. If you try to hit a return with topspin, it just does not work. I had some lovely shots, but I also had some shocking ones as well, which was really frustrating.
I had to apologize to my partner many times because I wanted to win, but I was constantly putting us on the back foot. We lost my serve, and that was enough to lose the set 6-3.
In the second set, we actually broke serve, but of course, I lost mine twice. It went to a tie-break and we lost it by a few points.
We finally got to the third set and managed a break. Rallies were fun throughout with plenty of volleying and attacking tennis. My heart rate was high for the most part. For my first time, I got to play, enjoy the game, and I learned a lot.
I really, really struggled with balls off the wall. This is something I’m not used to from tennis, and I was constantly messing up the timing.
Hype is real
I loved my experience at Let’s Go Padel. It was seven o’clock during Christmas week and all the courts were in use. It’s great to see the facility being used. For me, it comes down to pricing. I know people who have played elsewhere and are paying much more than the Let’s Go Padel rates, but I just wonder if the city can sustain it.
Tennis players have the basic skills to transition to padel effectively. Badminton and squash players will also have the movement, tracking, and shot patterns. You’re going to have great fun with it.
What can they do better?
Let’s Go Padel is a great addition to the city’s sporting scene. Importantly, it’s enclosed under a roof and easy to play. As a tennis player, I must compare it to tennis club offerings. My local club charges just shy of £200 per year for unlimited play. At £80-£100 a month for padel, it could potentially cost £1,000 a year. Annual memberships are needed.
Clearly, Let’s Go Padel is building a great play experience. Building a community is really important too—bringing together rival groups of players under one roof is key to making this more than just a flash in the pan. A drop in session would be attractive to those looking to play but without a partner. A padel doubles ladder would be great craic and allow for mixing of padellers.
Seating was being erected on one court, however, benches outside each court for players would help build that community. Toilets and changing facilities would be a great addition, too. Perhaps they have these on-site, but I did not notice them.
I was sold in the first two minutes of playing this game. Will it take me away from tennis or enhance my game? This venture won’t live or die by how many racket enthusiasts it attracts, but rather how many regular players without that experience it can draw in. If it can achieve that, the facility will go from strength to strength.