The Path Less Travelled - Going Pro as a UK Padel Player
Pro padel - how does it work?
When I was first introduced to padel, the professional circuit was played under the banner of the World Padel Tour (WPT). I’d spend hours watching Paquito Navarro ‘tocando la guitarra’ (playing the guitar) after delivering ‘puntazo’ (unbelievable point) after ‘puntazo,’ or Juan Lebrón, known as El Lobo, arching his back as he went for yet another ‘por tres.’
Back in 2020, coverage of top-tier padel was almost exclusively in Spanish. The WPT highlights not only fueled my newfound addiction but also became a valuable resource for picking up some handy padel colloquialisms.
Last year, in a landmark acquisition, Qatar Sports Investments took over the upper echelon of padel in a drive to “grow the sport everywhere.” The circuit now tours more countries than ever, and coverage is becoming increasingly multilingual.
In this blog, I’m going to take you on a pitstop tour of how the circuit and its rankings actually work. Finally, I interview a top GB talent to uncover the route into professional padel.
(Paquito ‘tocando la guitarra’ after a ‘puntazo’)
What does a Season Consist of?
Between February 26th and December 8th, the top pros will compete in 24 tournaments across 18 countries. At the end of this whirlwind season, the top eight ranked pairs will battle it out in Barcelona, with the finals culminating on December 22nd.
The highest-ranked pairs will automatically qualify for each event. This year, in the men’s division, two pairs—Ale Galán and Chingotto, along with Coello and Tapia—stand head and shoulders above the rest, allowing them to compete less frequently while still maintaining their top spots.
Here’s how the ranking points are awarded throughout the season:
Premier Padel Major (four events throughout the season)
2000 points for the winners, 1200 finalists
48 pairs
Premier Padel Finals (end of season event)
1500 points for the winners
8 pairs
Premier Padel P1 (12 events)
1000 points, runners up 600
48 pairs
Premier Padel P2 (10 events)
500 points, runners up 300
32 pairs
You need to be ranked in the top 175 to have a chance at gaining entry into these tournaments. For Premier Padel hopefuls, there are five tiers of International Padel Federation (FIP) events where they can earn points, helping them climb the ranks and compete against the best.
The Path Less Travelled - Going Pro as a UK Player
Premier Padel is dominated by Spaniards and Argentinians for a simple reason: the game has been around in and around their lives from the get go. Hispanic players grew up with facilities on their doorstep and an abundance of padel role models. Here in the UK, I’d guess that only 1 in 50,000 Brits have even heard of legends like Fernando Belasteguín and Juan Martín Díaz.
We don’t have thousands of kids who grew up idolising padel greats. But as the sport becomes mainstream in the UK, our talent pool will grow, and more young players will start dreaming of competing on the Premier Padel circuit.
There are, of course, outliers—those who chose padel as their calling despite living on an island obsessed with football, rugby, cricket, and tennis. Nikhil Mohindra, British no.3, is one of those outliers.
(Nikhil in Action for GB)
How did you get into padel?
I left school at 17 to work in the family business and found myself with heaps of spare time. I was a member at the local David Lloyd and used to play a lot of badminton and table tennis.
When they built some padel courts I gave it a go out of curiosity. I enjoyed it but would only play once every 2 or 3 weeks to start with.
When did you start taking it seriously?
One of my childhood friends, Sam Jones, was taking it super seriously and having a lot of success with it. Seeing someone who I grew up with achieve success in such a short amount of time made me think, “why not me?”
Very quickly I started to play more and more. I’d hit balls with a friend every morning at 8am before starting work and before I knew it I was entering british tour tournaments.
Back in 2017 the padel community was very small so I’d enter these tournaments and have the opportunity to play some of GB’s top players. Naturally, I got thrashed, but I learnt so much from these matches.
Whilst I was getting beaten comprehensively against these guys, the fact that I was even able to have some success after such a short amount of time playing, led me to start taking padel a lot more seriously.
(On court with childhood friend and fellow GB athlete Sam Jones)
How far are you off Premier Padel and what are the next steps?
The two UK players above me at 1 and 2, Christian Medina Murphy (125) and Sam Jones(164), are already competing in Premier Padel.
Currently, I’m 23 and ranked 499 in the world. I hope that by the time I’m 25 I'll be competing in Premier Padel events.
To get there, I need to start training a lot more and then it’s really just competing as much as possible in FIP tournaments to gain points. I recently got a couple of points by beating the top Swedish pair at a FIP rise event in Belgium. I’m actually on my way to Belgium again right now to compete in another FIP Rise event!
How long until we see a UK player in the top 10?
Given the length of time padel has been around in Spain, I’d say we’re another 10 years off having a British player break into the top 10. But, we’ve already got Christian close to breaking into the top 100, so who knows!
Is it possible to pursue a padel career full time?
Right now, not really. Prize money at the FIP events, and even at the lower end of Premier Padel isn’t enough to support the prohibitive costs of training and travelling to competitions.
With the recent acquisition of the pro circuit by Qatar Sports Investments, I expect to see prize money continue to grow. Perhaps by the end of the decade British padel players will be able to pursue and sustain themselves fully from professional padel.
What does the UK padel industry need to do to compete with the Spanish or Argentianian?
It’s simple, we need more courts and more time to catch up.
Here at PPUK, we would love to learn and discuss this topic more in the hopes of bringing about changes in UK padel governance. If you are of a similar mind please reach out to george@padelprojectuk.com
