The Joy of Padel podcast with Nallé Grinda
Welcome and Introduction
– Minter Dial welcomes back Nallé Grinda, the only guest to appear twice on the show.
– Discussion about their shared passion for padel and Nallé’s current activities in Miami.
Current Activities and Upcoming Events
– Nallé shares his plans to travel to Europe for vacation and padel-related events.
– Highlights a charitable event in Saint Tropez featuring top padel players.
Insights from the Playtomic 2024 Report
– Minter and Nallé discuss the Playtomic 2024 report on padel.
– Surprising statistics: 500 padel courts in the U.S. and high Google search interest.
– Nallé notes the longer time to market in the U.S. compared to Europe.
Growth of Padel in France and the U.S.
– France emerging as a strong market for padel despite initial regulatory challenges.
– Nallé’s experiences with building padel clubs in Miami and Boca Raton.
– Challenges with permits and environmental studies in the U.S.
PadelX Launch and Expansion
– PadelX opened in Miami on April 1, 2024, with immediate success.
– Plans for expansion with new clubs in Boca Raton and Palm Beach.
– Emphasis on creating a connected and comfortable club environment.
Creating a Community and Club Culture
– Importance of location, quality installations, and thoughtful design.
– Role of events and memberships in fostering a sense of belonging.
– PadelX’s unique recycling program for plastic emissions.
Padel as a Lifestyle and Future Plans
– Padel’s growing influence on travel and vacation plans.
– Nallé’s vision for padel holidays and partnerships with hotels.
– Comparison to the rise of golf as a travel activity in the past.
Professional Padel Landscape
– Discussion on the evolving professional padel scene with multiple tours.
– Potential for consolidation and growth in the sport.
– Insights on the upcoming World Championships in Doha.
Final Thoughts and Contact Information
– Nallé shares ways to connect with PadelX through Instagram, their website, or visiting the club in Miami.
– Encouragement for listeners to experience the community and camaraderie at PadelX.
To find out more about Nallé Grinda and Padelx:
- Find or follow Nallé on Instagram: @nalleus and @Padelx.us
- Here’s the PadelX main website
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Send in your questions or reactions:
Please send me your questions — as an audio file if you’d like — to nminterdial@gmail.com. Otherwise, below, you’ll find the show notes and, of course, you are invited to comment. If you liked the podcast, please take a moment to review and/or rate it! ¡VAMOS!
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About the host: Minter Dial
Minter Dial is an international professional speaker, author & consultant on Leadership, Branding and Transformation. His involvement in sports has been a lifetime passion. Besides playing 18 years of rugby, captaining athletics teams, coaching tennis and playing squash for his university, he’s been a lifelong player of padel tennis, starting at the age of 10, from the time of its very first public courts at the Marbella Club in 1974.
Then, after a successful international career at L’Oréal, Minter Dial returned to his entrepreneurial roots and has spent the last twelve years helping senior management teams and Boards to adapt to the new exigencies of the digitally enhanced marketplace. He has worked with world-class organisations to help activate their brand strategies, and figure out how best to integrate new technologies, digital tools, devices and platforms. Above all, Minter works to catalyse a change in mindset and dial up transformation. Minter received his BA in Trilingual Literature from Yale University (1987) and gained his MBA at INSEAD, Fontainebleau (1993). He’s author of four award-winning books, including Heartificial Empathy 2nd edition (2023), You Lead (Kogan Page 2021), co-author of Futureproof (Pearson 2017); and author of The Last Ring Home (Myndset Press 2016), a book and documentary film, both of which have won awards and critical acclaim.
It’s easy to inquire about booking Minter Dial here.
Full transcript of interview via Flowsend.ai
This transcription comes courtesy of Flowsend.ai, an AI service for podcasters.
Minter Dial:
Cousin Nallé, you are my second, my second timer on my show, the only such person. Great to have you and to talk some more about our common passion. Nallé, how the hell are you, man?
Nallé Grinda:
I’m great. I’m great. And you? I’m in Miami in this very hot summer out here and for a few, for another week and then I’m heading to Europe for some vacation, but also some padel related occupations. There’s a lot of events going on in Europe and helping out a few friends. They’re launching a charitable event in Saint Tropez on the 22 July and where all the top nine of the top ten players are going to be there. Top ten players in the world. And it’s going to be the opportunity to mix our passion of padel and.
Minter Dial:
For good cause I’m deeply jealous. Wow, wow, wow. It’s cool. Well, I’ll look out for what’s going on. And you’re being based in Miami. You obviously have your past as a champion of France and you’re playing around the world. You have this sort of worldly knowledge of padel which few people really have. And plus you incarnate the spirit of padel. You and I both read the Playtomic 2024 report that just came out. Looks back at 2023 and I was wondering what sort of top line thoughts came to your mind as you read that report. What are the things that surprised you, shocked you? Or you just said, well, buff, no.
Nallé Grinda:
Actually, there was a couple of things. It’s funny you mentioned this, I have to look it up again. But, basically, what did I take it out? I saw what I was surprised and I hope those numbers are accurate because 500 course in the US, that all the brands, all the attention, the Google searches and so on are extremely high in the US and the businesses are really aiming, the companies, the manufacturers are investing a lot of time and money to build the us market. So, everybody has really great hopes for the United States. But what I also took out and things that I knew from experience in them myself, is the timely, the time to market is much longer than in other more mature markets, Sweden or Italy or Spain. Of course, the other thing that was greatly surprised in a good way, is France. France is really the strongest market right now. Yeah. Picking it up, they took a little more time, I think probably for the same reasons, for regulation reasons. Permits can be a bit difficult and tricky in France at first, but then it is really, and I hope this is the way it’s going to happen in the US, that once the cities, once the states, and all the more and more people are going to be aware of padel and realize it’s a secure sport and talking about security with the glass and so on, that they’re going to be much more inclined to deliver, deliver easier paths to build padel clubs. I’m seeing it now with my club in Miami, I’m seeing it in Boca Raton where we’re building our second club. We have tremendous amounts of studies, environmental studies for an indoor club, impacts on the traffic, impact on even the tree counts for an indoor club. I say, well listen, we’re not touching anything on the outside. Why, why do we need to have a study on the tree count? And the, how is that, how does our activity, oh we don’t care. You just have to do it. So, it’s, it’s really, really, really painful. And so, I hope we’re being trailblazers and others are being trailblazers in their own, their own counties and cities and so on. And once Adel gets more in the common picture in the United States that it will be easier to and faster to build clubs.
Minter Dial:
Well to just completely go your way. Nallé, in the report I picked out the two statistics that you exactly talked about. One is 45% of all views of Google came for the US. Whoa. And then the only 454 courts in the United States. And I feel like you are going to be building a lot more of the future. So, let’s talk about PadelX. When did you launch it and how did the idea come around? Because Miami you could say is a town with a lot of padel already.
Nallé Grinda:
Yeah I mean there’s a lot already and a lot more coming. I mean I was just at the opening of this, this month I’ve been, I’m going to four openings. Wow. Yeah. Just in Miami just went to ten by 20 on Saturday. There’s another called one, one padel I think. And you know they can’t track right now. It’s a lot. This platoon padel I’m putting soon sunset padel So this club’s everywhere. But to get back to parallel, we launched and finally opened to public April 1, 2024. That was our day and since it’s just from day one, it was full. We were literally, we were surprised to have the ten courts all booked on April 1 from six to like 630 like for two increments from six to eight or six to 830. But that was quite, quite spectacular. So, the demand is there you know, and it’s been growing since we had, we didn’t have time to even do like a proper opening so we ended up, we had so many events in month of April and May, we took on the challenge of organizing a red padel event in May. On the first week of May, they had a cancellation of a club that was not. Not ready to host it. So, we took it over. In two weeks, we turn it over to build the biggest padel tournament to ever have taken place on us soil with over 180 players. And it was a great success. And the week after, we had another bigger big event called the big hit padel event, where we associated with Blondish, who’s a great DJ. I don’t know if you know her, but she’s very passionate about padel and also about ecology. And we created a. Or she created with her team, but with us as well, to take care of the club, of the event. I want to say a social event around padel to benefit an association called Bye bye Plastic. And that shares exact same values as us at PadelX. So, the connection was immediate because I don’t know if you know, but at PadelX, we recycle 100%, 100% of all our plastic emissions, all our bottles, anything you throw the bags and so on. We have our own recycling program where we recycle them to create our merchandise, our clothing and all our furniture. So, all our furniture, like our benches, for instance, for the courts, we make them as we produce plastic. So, we didn’t have enough plastic at first to make all of them. We needed 24 benches. We only had ten the first week. And as we go, we’ve built them because we need 1500 bottles per bench.
Minter Dial:
Wow.
Nallé Grinda:
That’s. That’s how. And it’s all printed on the bench. So, it creates a history and it creates awareness about, a, recycling and b, about, you know our motto and our commitment to. To try to, you know, a little commitment to try to make it. Make things better on the. On the planet.
Minter Dial:
That’s beautiful. So, the launch, April 1, it felt like it was April Fool’s Day, but you made it April full day, right. And so, you have ten quarts, as I understand it. That’s. Is that. Is that the end of the growth or do you plan to make it bigger?
Nallé Grinda:
No, no, that’s the first step of a first step, you know, milestone. I mean, PadelX has been in the making for two years now. And I’d say, and we were even before opening this first club, we were already committed on next two. So, we already have two other clubs in the books and in the making. One is in Boca Raton, where we’re going to build eight indoor courts. The plans are ready. We’re just now in the permitting process at the city. And hopefully as soon as we get those permits, we’ll get building and we’ll be ready to open by the end of the year of 24. So, that’s the goal for second one, the most precise and concise project we have. And the third one is in Palm Beach, where we are a bit further back, a few months, a couple months behind. We’re finalizing the plans as we speak. It’s, for now, seven quarts outdoors with a new concept we’re doing. You’ll see it’s something surprising with the floor plan. We’ve been always very praised, and the feedback from the clients at PadelX Miami have always been that we have a great floor plan. Meaning, and what does that mean? Design. The floor plan has really been a key component of PadelX. We want to be able to. For people to be in a place where they always feel connected. Even though we have ten chords, you’re always very close, so the clubhouse is very centric and everybody feels connected to that. And the clubhouse is also an event space, so you can feel, you feel comfortable staying after playing. Before playing. We have our ice baths, you have the locker rooms, you have everything there in one place. And the bar is very central as well, so you can go 360 around the bar. All these things are thought of to make sure that there’s a great interaction between all sections of the club, and that’s what we’re pushing that into the next level with our clubs and specifically with this one in Palm Beach, where we’re going to make a very central clubhouse that will be touching the entirety of the seven courts. That’s something we’re very keen on.
Minter Dial:
I love that we have in London several clubs, and one of them is called Padel Lands in Wandsworth, and they have that very much that same sort of idea. Everything is around the clubhouse area, but there’s also a nice bar area, there’s a watching television area. So, it’s more like an experience experiential place, but everything is very quickly into the club. The indoor courts drain quickly into it. All the outdoor courts are visible in the same space. And then there are other clubs which I see, and the ambiance is completely dead because they haven’t integrated that social aspect. Yeah, so I love that idea. And so, your learnings now, you’ve been open now for three, four months, you’ve got it going at a good level. It seems like events seem to be a big part of getting it going. I mean, if you were talking to, because it was still a little bit in the beginning stages. And I hope you don’t mind sharing what helps get a club going. What are the things that, you know, if someone’s listening, who’s in thinking about opening a club in, I don’t know, in Athens or whatever, what are the types of thoughts they should be really bearing in mind? Number of courts, people, space, you know?
Nallé Grinda:
Yeah, I think. Well, I mean, it’s a combination of all these things, I believe, of course, location, and I’m not going to lie to you, I think that the location we’re at is prime and it would have not been as easy to start had we not been at this location. We are downtown Miami, right off the ocean, next to the American Air. I mean, sorry, the Kaseya arena. Now it’s called where the Heat play basketball. Yeah, basketball. Right next to the opera house. We’re right there in the middle of things. So, it became, by choice or by default, the closest club to a huge chunk of the Miami population. So, that’s one. But that does. That’s not enough. It’s a combination. That’s one thing.
Minter Dial:
And.
Nallé Grinda:
But then the quality of the installations, the quality of the courts and. And all these things that I think I bring to the table, which is with my 30 plus year experience, the orientation, the spacing between the club, between the courts, all these things that make people don’t understand why. It’s like a bit of a feng shui, you know, it’s. They don’t understand why they. They feel comfortable or why they like this club or discord better than another, but they just do, you know, and those are details that need to be brought into. And then there’s a lot of. I think a lot of. There’s two things. I think there needs to be a great animator to the club that has experience, that animates the club, that brings people together and events, you know, to create the club feeling, you have to have events. And at PadelX, we really try to do this. We create a membership club that is inside the club. You have a membership, you don’t need a membership to play. You can come to pay and pay to play as much as you want. It’s not a problem. And you don’t even. It’s not even about getting so much because a lot of memberships give you discounts to play in some places, but we didn’t build that. Our membership is symbolic. It’s more of a. It’s $125 a month or $1,200 a year. It comes down to a $100 month if you pay on a yearly basis. But it’s more for the belonging, you know, and what we do with the membership. Yes, you get some access to premium courts, you get access to reservations earlier because that’s today. If you’re not a member and you want to play at prime peak hour, like at 06:00 p.m. on a weekday, there’s very little slots left. But we did an event with Casatua last week, sorry, last month that was a members only event where we mixed the Casatua members with the PadelX members. We did a gathering and that’s kind of a members exclusive type of event. We’re going to build some club matches against other clubs where members will play each other. So, all these things creates energy and creates activation in the club that makes people want a, to participate and b to belong. And that, because that’s really the difficulty and it’s not a good or a bad thing, but it is a good thing for the club owners, is to try to make people belong. Because if you look at that report you were just mentioning padel to the difference of tennis, for instance, is a very multi club sport. You can see in the report from Playtomic that the typical player plays in six, seven or even eight clubs indifferently. And that’s a specific of the sport compared to others. I don’t know if it’s good or bad, but it is a fact, and I can see it here. I have players, they come and play at PadelX that played at Ultra the day before and play at reserve the next day. And we’ll play at Wynwood on the Thursday event and they’ll play wherever the game is at, you know, so it is our. And I don’t see that as a problem. I see that it’s good for the community, it’s good for the ecosystem as a whole. And then for us at parallel x, we try to create some events to make the people belong and feel that they belong to one place more than another.
Minter Dial:
It makes me, I mean, I have to believe that some part of that is because parallel is still new. And in order to find the best group of four, you’ve got to be flexible. Otherwise you stuck with the same four every time. It could be good, but in order to get good, balanced games, you have to be, you know, quickly looking at where there’s a club, there’s a court available who’s going to be able to play. And if you’re stuck with one place where, you know, maybe it’s also convenient for everybody. And so, so it can become a little bit of a. Do you think that’s part of padel being new, or is that really endemic to the game?
Nallé Grinda:
No, I think it’s absolutely, I think it’s, it’s a bit of both. And there’s a third thing that comes to mind in this matter is, yes, it’s new. So, like you said, there’s still scarcity of good games or so you take the opportunity wherever it’s at. And second, it’s also the community, the way people live today. You know, tennis was created in the 19th century and grew in the 20th century, but people were very mono activity at the time. You had people even in my youth, that were dedicated their entire life to one activity, like tennis or golf or so on. In 2024. In the 21st century, people, they just need, they want quick entertainment where it’s at, and they just go and they take it and they leave. Even the way they consume padel totally different to where the way we consumed sports. If the 30 years ago, when you and I were kids, we’d go to the club from 08:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. or 08:00 a.m. to 08:00 p.m. and we’ll hang there and we’ll spend the whole day and we’ll, there’ll be activities around. Yes, we play tennis for a couple of hours, but then there would be tv or cards or pool or baby food, you know, your backgammon, whatever, but you spend the day at the club today. No, this is a different way of consuming sports. People, a lot of people come in, they play the game, they leave, they go on the boat, they go on to work, they go this, they go that. So, it’s a different way of consuming sports, the way they consume all sorts of entertainment in their day. I’m talking about everybody. So, that’s the factor. And the third one is the rise of these softwares that are organized and booking softwares. They expose you to everything at once. So, you see today before, when you were playing in one club, yes. You didn’t have a court at 06:00 p.m. well, too bad you look at eight or you look at five or you don’t play. Today, with all these software, you’re very much more flexible. You actually decide, okay, I’m going to play because I can only play my busy schedule at 08:00 p.m. on a Tuesday, you’re going to look at your primary court, and if it’s not there. You’re going to look to the second club and the third club and the fourth until you do find a court at that time. So, you don’t flex around your schedule, you actually flex the courts or the clubs and you go wherever you find that court. And those are factors that, that make it that the people today play in multiple clubs.
Minter Dial:
Those are some great insights, Nallé, And one of the questions I wanted to ask you about PadelX and going forward is actually the choice of software. How strategic is it for you, the choice of software? And do you have a favorable opinion of the one that you’re using that you would recommend?
Nallé Grinda:
Well, I mean, listen, that’s a tricky question because, sorry, I put you in the hole. No, listen, I know I’ve looked at all these softwares I met with. They obviously, now that we’re on the map, they all are very interested in having us in their system and so on, but, and we chose and we’re with Play by Point. That’s a fact. We consider many other solutions. And play by points seem to be the right answer at the right moment. At that moment. They are quasi in a monopolistic, uh, situation in Miami, at least, uh, on the historical, historical, historical clubs. And um. And yeah, there’s some, some details that made us choose there. And that’s the main one. Be part of a network, basically. Um, and uh, and, and it was, it sounded easier and faster to get connected to all of the Miami community. At first, that was the main reason. But, but you know, it’s evolving every day. Sure, we’re looking at what’s out there. We’re happy for now and maybe forever, but maybe not. We’re open.
Minter Dial:
It does strike me that, I mean, as a user, I’m on so many of these apps, so I do get to see them, the differences. And some are more flexible than others. Some of the rating story is a little bit better than others. And anyway, it’s a, it’s, I would say it is. It has to be a strategic component, a, because it helps you in tap into any community. And two, it’s part of the customer experience. You know, the ease of pay, the ease of setting up games. These are finding people. It has to be. I mean, if you’re, if you’re a customer of PadelX, whether you like them or not, the experience that I have on Play by Point. is going to contaminate or improve my experience at PadelX.
Nallé Grinda:
You know what? You’re correct 100%. And I’m not as I’d be open to your maybe off air to your opinion on this, because you are much more of a multi-use. You know, what happens is that when you start owning your own club, you don’t go to the other clubs anymore or as much. Yeah. So, and it’s important. I still, I’m trying to make the effort to go once in a while, see what’s going on around. We’re so focused on our own strategy and own development that. But it is important to just keep on looking what’s going out there, because people have great ideas, you know, and.
Minter Dial:
And things are evolving.
Nallé Grinda:
Things are evolving. And I’d be curious to say, see what you have to say about the customer use of all these apps. That’s what I’m saying. See what your opinion is on that.
Minter Dial:
It reminds me of a conversation I had with the CEO, and I reminded, or him, that customer service is going to be a really important part of his marketing arm. And he said, well, every time I call, I always get great customer service. Well, of course, you’re flagged up as the CEO. Try calling as a stranger and experience what it’s like to be a customer. And we did that together. And it was awfully interesting because with a different number, my number, he all of a sudden saw that it can be a different experience. So, getting the shoes of the customer was the moral of that story. I did want to tell you, Nallé, and I thought of you deeply yesterday morning, because I, for the first time, managed, and I had to think, go back to the time you and I did this in Miami. I stayed in an ice bath for 15 minutes yesterday. Yeah, I took an hour and a half to get better. It wasn’t as cold as yours. It was maybe it was maybe ten degrees or something like that, but I still.
Nallé Grinda:
That’s too much.
Minter Dial:
But I was gonna, I was gonna do it.
Nallé Grinda:
You’re supposed to stay five minutes.
Minter Dial:
Yeah, well, I took an hour and a half to actually stop trembling, so. Hey, you know, I’ll learn.
Nallé Grinda:
Don’t overdo it, huh?
Minter Dial:
Well, anyways, that’s beautiful. So, the other thing I wanted to talk to you about, Nallé, is your experience in so many countries, you really know the culture of padel And there’s differences because the Argentinian style of play, certainly in the past, the sSpanish style of play that was there were they, were they used to consider big differences. What do you. How do you think there is such a thing as the culture of padel And if so, how do you describe it? And if there isn’t do you think that there’s a different culture, for example, in the United States, to padel
Nallé Grinda:
I’m sorry, you meant you’re asking me if there’s a. A culture culture.
Minter Dial:
If there. Do you think that padel has its own culture that’s transnational?
Nallé Grinda:
Yes. Well, I think. Well, first of all, like anything, you’re right, it’s different places play and have a different way of playing, but. And we can get into that if you want. But I think there’s a huge culture of padel It’s more of a culture getting to a lifestyle. I love to see not later than yesterday, this French friend of mine that hadn’t seen in ten years maybe, or eight years, we used to be part of the same club, of a French club here in Miami. He calls me out of the blue and says, hey, I want to reach out to you because, you know, my whole family is obsessed with padel and. And just another one. Yeah, another one and so on. And it’s just like to the point where people start making plans, even on their vacation, depending on whether there’s a padel club or not. And the hotels. I’ve understood this. Now you go. I was just a central pay, like two weeks ago, there’s five hotels, not one. Five hotels built. padel club, padel courts, and not one, like most of them have two courts inside their hotel, because that’s what’s going to happen. And that’s the next thing I really want to focus on at PadelX is building a like. Like a destination with padel and an experience with. We have hotels all around the club, so an experience where people will come and take their holidays dependent on whether there’s padel involved or nothing. It’s just like the gulf of the eighties or the nineties where people were traveling to, you know, Dominican Republic on a golf trip or to who. I’m not a big golf golfie guy, but, you know, you see what I mean? Marbella or South Florida. A lot of people would travel to Miami in the winter because they couldn’t play in Europe, in cold Europe. And this is the same way. I think there’s a great opportunity there to create these padel holidays, partner up with the local hotel and do a bundle with the plane tickets and so on, to come and spend a week in Miami when it’s cold in Europe and enjoy the city, enjoy what the city has to offer, but have padel every day at a specific time with training and games. That’s something I’m really actually keen on, and I’m sure it’s going to do well.
Minter Dial:
So, if Camille is listening, check in. So, last question for you, Nellie, because I know time is short. The game professionally has been evolving. You’ve had great success playing in the professional space of padel It’s moving on at a rate we’ve got now Premier Padel. We have still A1. We have Ultimate in Spain. We have Hexagon, have the professional padel league. Do you? I mean, it seems like it’s a little bit chaotic almost how much there’s happening on the professional side. What’s your reading of where the game is going professionally?
Nallé Grinda:
Well, listen, that’s like any market right now is the wild, wild west. Okay. Because the point of entry is still, it’s getting, actually, you say it’s messy or, or fragmented. I think it’s consolidating quite well right now because, you know, I mean, you maybe don’t know, but when I was playing 15 years ago, there was a new tour opening every month, and there was tournaments all over the place and there was total deregulation. There were, people were doing things all over the place, and it started professionalizing itself a little bit with the world panel tour, and then the FIP got involved. Then we got that time where we had two tours. That was not a good thing with the world pilot run premier. But now things are getting a bit cleaner. But to get to your point, it’s still a relatively cheap point of entry. Anybody today that has the motivation and sees that’s, and that’s a given, sees the potential of the game in the, in the further future with the tv rights, they’re going to be involved and so on, they can enter the space today still at quite a low cost, I think. You know, when you compare the leagues, the padel league, with all the big leagues that, you know, you know, the soccer leagues, the basketball leagues and the football leagues, and you name it, you know, these leagues are billions of dollars of value. And padel is immediate compared to this, even to tennis. You know, we make big deal about padel but, you know, what is, what is padel compared to tennis? It’s not even 5%. So, we have a lot, I’m talking about tours, not size of markets, but we have a lot of growth in that, in that field. And anyone, you know, I hear, still hear things, you know, now that maybe the Saudis are going to get into it or, you know, some coming from the tennis, there’s, there’s a bunch of things because we all agree on the potential of the sport, and it’s all a matter of who is going to win the jackpot with it. I think it’s going to be a shared. Everybody’s going to gain from it. Whether it is the tour that’s going to prevail is probably going to be premier now because, you know, they have a, quite an exclusivity now for the, for the top level, but there’s many others, like you said, the ppl, the.
Minter Dial:
A1, the Ultimate.
Nallé Grinda:
Yeah, I don’t know so much about the A1, but the Ultimate Hexagon, all these formats, they’re going to defer on formats and offer. Oh, sorry, an offer. They’re going to differ on formats and they’re going to differ on rules, but I think that they’re going to be eventually complementary to each other.
Minter Dial:
All right, last question. And of course this presupposes your good knowledge of what’s going on the inside. World championships in Doha in October. On the women’s side, I think it’s a foregone conclusion. We’ve got Spain winning probably against Argentina, but who knows, maybe Portugal, Brazil on the men’s side. I think it’s a little tighter. Maybe you have a call on Spain, Argentina on the men’s side. But who do you think are the surprise teams and, and do we have hope for some non Spanish / Argentina / non Latin-American final semifinals coming soon?
Nallé Grinda:
I mean, listen, no, as for the title, absolutely not. There’s no hope. Absolutely not. And I mean, listen, it’s just, it’s just simple math. It’s simple statistics. You look at the top 20 in the world because again, you’re playing with six players, three teams, and so basically you gotta have six players that are in the top 20 basically to be a winner of the event. And you know it. There’s probably, I haven’t looked at the last ranking, but probably there’s ten Spaniards, nine Argentinians and one Brazilian for that way. So, Campagnolo. But you know, if you’re talking about, actually Bergamini is the head of Campagnolo.
Minter Dial:
Oh yeah, over there you go.
Nallé Grinda:
So, but if you talk about the team event, I already think that France being third is, is something for history, you know, and will never be repeated because that’s what, that’s basically what the others are fighting for. And for them to reproduce that, it would, it would blow my mind, honestly. I think that Portugal and Sweden right now are superior, but surely the Italians.
Minter Dial:
Are going to be coming soon. I mean, they got 9000 courts, so they surely got the system.
Nallé Grinda:
You’re correct. You’re correct. Italy also Italy, Portugal, Sweden, France, all these teams are in contention for that third place, which is the Grail, along with Brazil. And Brazil, of course. Yes, you’re right, Brazil. But Brazil, I think, is more on the descending route and the other teams are on the ascending. But you’re right, all those teams in Brazil has lost its supremacy on that third place during the last championship. So, that, to me, is really, I’m excited about that, knowing who’s going to win with France. I mean, Spain and Argentina. Yeah, that’s going to be that match. The final is going to be great, but the route to the final is already traced, so I won’t look up for that. But the fight for third place between those five, six, seven teams, that’s actually very exciting.
Minter Dial:
That’s super. Hey, listen, Nallé, thank you so much for taking the time out to come on the show yet again. PadelX, beautiful startup in Miami. You’ve got Boca Raton, Palm Beach, coming along. Hope to see you on a padel court soon. Have another cold ice bath with you, which I’ll stick in for just the right amount of time. Natalie, any other ways people can reach you? Get in touch with or find out more about PadelX and what you’re up to?
Nallé Grinda:
Of course. Listen, I mean, the usual, the usual channels like Instagram websites and just walk into the club. Trust me, I’m there almost every day. I think it’s the best. That’s what we try to do as much as possible. And what we really want to showcase at the PadelX. is the community, the camaraderie and the comfort of play. So, if you ever come to Miami, I encourage you to come and visit.
Minter Dial:
Vamos. Thank you so much, Nallé.
Nallé Grinda:
Thank you.