It's a trendy new sport that combines the best of tennis, squash and badminton. Padel, the fastest-growing racquet sport in the world, is now all the rage in South Africa.
Pronounced “pah-dell”, it is being punted as a fun, family-friendly game with a social side.
DJ and sports presenter Sasha Martinengo is brand ambassador for Africa Padel — the biggest padel business in South Africa, with 15 clubs. It aims to have 40 by the end of next year. Martinengo, who is also a padel coach, says one of his teams recently left for Senegal to play in an international tournament.
“The sport is massive and it’s taking off hugely. People like everything about it — the fun elements, the social side and the fact that literally anybody can play,” he said.
Padel is played by four people on a court about one-third the size of a tennis court, surrounded by glass walls and a mesh fence. The ball stays in play for longer periods than tennis, but the scoring is the same with sets and games.
Padel racquets are made of foam rubber perforated with holes, allowing players to generate spin and control.
Mandy Gold of Benoni, one of the first local builders of Padel courts, jointly owns a padel club and designs and sells her own range of racquets.
Padel was invented by Mexican businessman Enrique Corcuera, who set up the first court at his holiday home in 1969. Since then, Gold says, the sport has taken off in Spain, “spread through Europe and across the world and now it’s here”.
Gold first encountered the sport on holiday with five friends in the Maldives in October 2021. “Padel was free as part of the facilities so we tried it and ended up playing every day. All of us became fanatics and so when I got home I went looking for a place to play,” she said. She could only find a court in Little Falls, more than 50km away.
She then investigated importing a court but that was too expensive, and so decided to manufacture her own.
“I was really interested in owning a court, so I decided to go into the padel business. I did my research and ... figured it all out. I realised that I then needed to source racquets and balls and all of that — but none of the famous brands had got into it yet,” she said.
Gold and business partner Morgana Robbertze developed their own range of padel racquets, which range between R1,000 and R4,000. The balls — which resemble small tennis balls — cost up to R200 for a pack of three.
It's not just the equipment that will make a hole in your pocket. If you want your own court, be prepared to fork out about R1m.
It’s expensive because you need a proper surface that drains and special astroturf, with sand on to limit the damage. Then large parts of the perimeter are made of massive sheets of 12mm tempered shatterproof glass
— Morgana Robbertze
“It’s expensive because you need a proper surface that drains and special AstroTurf, with sand on to limit the damage. Then large parts of the perimeter are made of massive sheets of 12mm tempered, shatterproof glass mounted on powder-coated steel beams,” says Robbertze.
Andronic Nuvungu, a Padel club manager, says she loves the sport. She enjoys teaching beginners, “especially kids”, as well as running the social side of the business, which includes drinks for players who gather for pre- and post-game socialising.
Nuvungu says many sports clubs are expanding to include padel and some tennis clubs have converted some courts to padel.
Social player Rachel Young discovered padel a year ago at a friend’s birthday party, which was held at a Johannesburg venue with facilities. “A bunch of us rented racquets and immediately fell in love with the game,” she said.
Young is now part of a group that plays every Tuesday night, and not even a cancer diagnosis has stopped her. Recently she had a third of her right lung removed and after several weeks of recuperation she is playing again.
“Playing has helped me build and strengthen those muscles. And if I don’t play for a while, I start getting sore again.”
Shane Pirie, sports manager for the Wanderers Club in Johannesburg, said the club’s six padel courts were “chock-a-block in peak hours, and constantly full in school holidays and evenings, even in winter”.
“We have ladies’ mornings and corporate leagues starting, and we have a shop,” he said.
Sports scientist Shona Hendricks, the former head of sports science at the University of Pretoria where she worked with elite athletes, gives padel the thumbs up as “easily accessible, it gets people moving and is loads of fun”.
She first encountered the sport 10 years ago in Spain. “A sedentary lifestyle’s a killer. As they say, sitting is the new smoking. Padel gets you moving, so I am all for it,” she said.
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