Introduction by Niklas

Unfortunately, the wonderful UK winter with constant moist (yes, I wrote it…) and 10-degree days, meant no padel until spring 2022. That’s when I found myself trying a court in Chiswick on a glorious sunny day.

Serendipitously, I spotted a poster for what appeared to be a social competition a couple of weeks later, signed up, and did fairly well in the competition, which didn’t require a partner to register. Since then, I’ve been playing padel and have effectively fallen in love with the sport.

While my experience pales compared to those who have been playing padel continuously for 10, 15, or 20 years (very jealous of these people), I can offer more recent insights. I will share some key aspects of the sport that resonate with me, explain why they work for me, how they contribute to enjoying the sport while developing the needed skills and how I think about them as different pieces of the jigsaw puzzle that makes up the full experience of padel.

People’s experiences and goals vary, so while these might not align perfectly with everyone’s, I believe many commonalities can be found. If you haven’t tried some of these aspects, you might be encouraged to do so with a clearer purpose (or not) and help share your passion for this ever-growing sport.

As I promised a blog series and having probably repelled some people already by using the most hated word in the UK above (it starts with “m” and ends with “ist”), I’ll try a more crowd-pleasing approach and give you readers a look into what this blog series will cover. It will be split into four parts:

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• Training

• Competing

• Watching

• Connecting

If you’ve made it this far, I hope you’ll enjoy the next post, which will kick off this four-part series.

Until then, enjoy your padel wherever you might be—what a sport it is.

Vamos!