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The fast-growing racket sport of padel could overtake tennis in Britain just as it already has in Spain, according to the nation’s greatest doubles player Jamie Murray.

The total number of padel courts in this country is now close to 1,600, according to some sources, which continues an exponential pattern of growth from fewer than 100 at the start of the Covid pandemic.

And Murray told Telegraph Sport that the accessibility of padel – a sport in which absolute beginners can enjoy a match within minutes of picking up a bat – makes it a more attractive proposition than tennis for many people.

“It’s a fun sport, a very sociable sport,” said Murray. “It’s a lot easier to get started in the game than tennis. Every tennis club should have padel as an offering to current members and for getting new members into the clubs, because tennis clubs are largely pretty dead in our country.

“That comes with complications because people say it’s noisy and our tennis clubs are built around mainly residential areas, but you run the risk of padel taking over tennis. It’s probably a better business model, and more likely to get bigger numbers playing the sport over time.”

In researching this article, Telegraph Sport built a graphic of court locations from iPadel, a directory website where clubs can register to be listed. It conveys the remarkable growth we have seen over the first half of this decade, as well as the room for further expansion.

There are still significant areas, especially in Wales and eastern counties such as Lincolnshire and Northumberland, without access to courts. Provision could also be improved, for different reasons, in central London, where property prices and concerns over noise pollution mean that you have to travel to fringe areas like Earl’s Court, Wandsworth or Canary Wharf to get a game.

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According to Sam Kemp, who runs padel events for R3, demand continues to outstrip supply. “Our research suggests that nearly a third of would-be padel players cannot find a court near where they live. With the number of players predicted to reach 600,000 by the end of 2026, there is a massive need for more courts.”

There are still those who insist that padel is a fad, and that in cities like Bristol, which already has seven different providers, the sport will run into the same kind of recession that affected Sweden during the pandemic. According to Bloomberg, almost 90 Swedish padel-related companies filed for bankruptcy in 2023.

But Britain’s population is roughly seven times the size of Sweden’s, and there is no sign of any slowdown in construction. In the words of Alan Douglas, whose Playtomic company handles the bookings for the majority of British courts: “Nothing in the data from our more mature markets, where padel has grown over the past 15-plus years, would suggest that a downturn is coming.

“According to recent figures, padel has overtaken tennis in Spain,” Douglas added. “It took many years, but the International Federation of Padel (FIP) reports more than 17,000 courts now, with more going up all the time.”

For the moment, at least, tennis remains well ahead in the UK. The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) has identified almost six million casual players, of whom almost a million play twice a month or more.

🤯 THIS 🤯 IS 🤯 PADEL 🤯#GreenweezParisMajor🎾#PadelFIP🌍 pic.twitter.com/BUCR7hlEXg

— FIP – International Padel Federation (@padelfip) September 30, 2024

The question is whether some of those players might migrate across to the younger form of the game. Padel involves covering less court, but creates longer rallies, thus – in Murray’s words – offering “more bang for your buck”.

According to Nick Baker, who runs three clubs in Buckinghamshire and one in Cornwall under his UK Padel brand: “My take is that we are unlikely to see the number of padel courts in the UK overtake the number of tennis courts in the medium term. The long term is harder to predict as tennis participation will significantly decline as padel becomes more established.”

The LTA finds itself in an interesting position here, as it is also the governing body of padel. This curious alliance began in 2019, when tennis participation was in decline, and padel looked like a possible magic bullet to arrest the trend. As things turned out, tennis picked up again during the pandemic, and the LTA now finds itself dealing with two sports that could potentially be in competition.

In the most optimistic models, padel and tennis complement each other in a virtuous circle. Playtomic’s Douglas cites the example of East Dorset Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club in Poole. After putting up padel courts last year, the club’s chairman found that few of the club’s tennis members were switching across. Instead, “We’re seeing a whole new generation of people we’ve never met before.”

Scott Lloyd, LTA chief executive, said: “As the national governing body for both tennis and padel, we believe the growth of these two sports can support and strengthen one another. Padel is still smaller in scale, but growing fast, and we’re committed to developing it in a sustainable way alongside tennis.

“Since 2019, adult padel participation has increased from around 15,000 to 400,000, while tennis has grown from 3.7 million to 5.8 million adults, over 50 per cent increase. Our goal at the LTA is to ensure padel and tennis complement one another by attracting new audiences, strengthening our clubs and venues, and contributing to the overall health of these sports across Great Britain.”

The one area where the activity has thus far failed to catch on is as a sporting spectacle: there appears to be little appetite in this country for watching professional padel or following the tour. Mind you, badminton sustains an active playing base in British leisure centres without any media coverage, so this need not be a deal-breaker.

PÁDEL. AGUSTÍN TAPIA. GENIO, GENIO, GENIOpic.twitter.com/5ZXO8x3w7P

— VeinteDiez – PADEL (@VeinteDiez) August 1, 2025

The other problem, as already mentioned, is the noise. Barely a week goes by without another case being referred to a local council over residents’ complaints. Not only do padel players tend to be more exuberant than tennis players, owing partly to their close proximity on a small court, but retrieval shots struck off the back wall create a penetrating sound that some have compared to gunfire.

One resident told this newspaper that living next to the Winchester Racquets and Fitness Club was like “being on the Somme”. And while indoor facilities are quieter, they are also much more expensive to build.

Padel’s economics are interesting. It is usually more expensive to play than tennis, owing to the construction costs, which are rarely less than £50,000 per court. To convert a warehouse into an indoor padel centre – the model followed by the Padel Hub brand – requires operators to invest a large initial sum as well as annual overheads of £500,000 or more.

As a result, Padel Hub memberships start at less than £100 per month, although a more typical figure for padel court hire would range from a minimum of £30 per hour to £80 in high-end city locations.

Tennis is comparatively cheap to play, by comparison. You can usually find a public court for £10 an hour or less, while annual memberships for most clubs range between £20 and £40 per month with no extra court fees. Even so, the magnetism of padel is such that – according to LTA figures – more than 400,000 people played it at least once last year, an increase of about 300 per cent on 2023.

The charm of padel is easier to experience than it is to describe, but UK Padel’s Baker did his best “You will always hear laughter from a padel court,” he said. “Yes, some of that is banter, but it’s also the way the ball does strange things as it pinballs around off different surfaces. It’s the way epic rallies break out with unexpected regularity. Padel is varied and surprising and stimulating. Ultimately, it’s just a lot of fun, whatever standard you play at.”

Returning to Murray, he happens to have been the first British tennis player of note to participate in a padel tournament. “I played in a little tournament at the Chelsea Harbour Club about 10 years ago,” Murray told Telegraph Sport. “They had a few pros playing, not necessarily high level. I played in the B category with my friend and coach Alan MacDonald.

“There were two teams that were good, maybe Spanish. I don’t think they had necessarily travelled from abroad to play the tournament. And Category B was a mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly.

“At that time there was nowhere else to play in London. They had three courts at the Harbour Club. You could see the difficulty in putting events on and getting people together and growing the game. I’ve been based in London since 2007, when there was a huge international community of people who were desperate to play padel but there were no courts to do that.

“Like my brother Andy, I invested in Game4Padel a few years ago, which I believe is still the leading company in the country in terms of number of courts. It’s an interesting one in terms of seeing how it will play out nationwide, what the numbers end up being, and who will switch over from tennis to padel. I’m sure there’s a lot of people that have already done that.”

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