The popularity of vulgar padel is turning us into a nation of slobs

Telegraph

18-05-2025

As the sun shone and the English season beckoned this week, word reached me that gaggles of the young and fashionable booked time off work, got suited and dolled up. And went not to the races, the regatta, the polo or the sailing but to the padel. The Alfred Dunhill Padel Classic at The Hurlingham, no less.
At that most exclusive south-west London country club, in a luxurious tent, sat the Floras, Ellas and Bens and Hugos, dressed in various shades of white, cream and navy. They were served a self-styled 'endless lunch' of shellfish and charcuterie alongside a glorious eternity of fashionable Mirabeau rosé. Then, seated on an adjoining stand, they stared down into the rectangular fish tanks in which the game is played and gawped at padel. –
Padel, as it works to go mainstream, is hustling to get among our traditional sports, determined to supplant and destroy its older sibling of tennis.
While it was apparently invented in Mexico in 1969 by one Enrique Corcuera, only recently has it seen a surge in interest. Suddenly, it is one of the world's fastest growing sports with some 30 million players worldwide and with active players in the UK growing from 15,000 in 2019 to 400,000 now.
It takes up less space – you can fit three padel courts into one tennis court – serves are under-arm, it's less technically demanding and it's easier to play. Which is why it's such an horrendous sport, stealing the clothes of the beautiful, elegant game of tennis and delivering that lowest common denominator spirit of the age: accessibility.
Those who advocate for padel argue that you can pick it up easily. Which is precisely the reason why tennis is such a wonderful sport. Against the zeitgeist for instant gratification, tennis must be learned and practised and you will never stop learning. It is a pursuit of constant improvement and of deep focus.
Consider the awe and wonder of watching a Federer or Świątek demonstrating elegance and power gained over years of intense training, coupled with natural talent.
There is a soulful joy in attempting to master something. Tennis is deep, where padel is shallow. Sure a chubby 50-year old can waddle onto a padel court in the afternoon and own it by teatime. But we become a nation of slobs when we dismiss determination and application to sate our diminishing ability to concentrate.
My eldest son, currently studying in the States and graded 12th in the country's Intercollegiate Tennis Association rankings for doubles, started playing when he was four.
My heart would not swell so much with pride if he jumped into a padel court and started thwacking the ball with those plastic rackets. And that noise. That gun-shot din compared with the soft plop of tennis racket on ball that is, like birdsong or a mower cutting grass, the graceful sound of an English summer.
Peter Chilvers, whose home neighbours the Winchester Racquets and Fitness Club, complained to The Telegraph this week that the noise of padel playing 'was like being on the Somme'. His wife Jenni added: 'It's unbearable, it's dreadful. In the house, with the windows closed and the curtains drawn, you can still hear it.'
Mr Chilvers also chastised the padelistas. 'Tennis players are normally well behaved,' he said, 'but there's a lot of shouting and swearing from padel players.'
It's brash, noisy and vulgar; shame on the tennis club owners who spy the quicker bucks that can be made from turning a tennis court into a padel circus.
Pros and amateurs must fight to preserve the noble and English art of lawn tennis. As Novak Djokovic has said, 'tennis is in danger from padel'.
Which makes it all the more treacherous that among the guests at The Hurlingham this week were former British No 1 Greg Rusedski and the nation's most famous tennis mother, Judy Murray.
Padel, in all its naff and noisy vulgarity, just isn't tennis. And, frankly, that's just not cricket.