The Joy of Padel podcast with Tom Murasawa (JOPS03E02)
In this episode of the padel podcast, I chat with Tomaki Murasawa, the coach of Japan’s national padel teams. Tomaki shares his personal journey from tennis to padel, discussing how the sport has evolved in Japan since the first court opened in 2013. With only about 50 courts across the country, the passion for padel is evident. We touch on the need for more investment to grow the sport’s infrastructure and how it can better fit into Japanese culture. Tomaki also highlights the importance of strategic play and deception to enhance the skills of Japanese players.
To find out more about Tom Murasawa:
- Find or follow on Instagram: Tom Jack
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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: All right, great. So, just introduce yourself first.
Tom Murasawa: Yes. Hello. My name is Tomoaki Murasawa. I’m the coach for the Japanese team, and I’ve been playing Padel for seven, eight years now and have been coaching the national team for two years.
Minter Dial: Brilliant. And so you coach the women’s national team or both men’s and women?
Tom Murasawa: I coach men’s, women’s, and also a junior team now.
Minter Dial: So, seven, eight years ago, what was your route into Padel? Why on earth did you pick up padel?
Tom Murasawa: Well, like everyone, I used to play tennis, and I was quite a good volleyer. And one day, padel came up on Facebook. I was like, oh, this sport might be fun. And there was one location close to Tokyo where I live. So, I was like, I’ll just give it a try with my friends. And then after that, I played once a month, then got really seriously into it. And the Japan Padel association was founded in. And Japan Pirate, the official Japanese ranking was established in 2017. So, me and my partner, we were like, okay, let’s go for number one. Let’s go for national team. And that’s when we started training hard.
Minter Dial: Brilliant. So, in my understanding, then you also represent. You play for the Japanese men’s team?
Tom Murasawa: Yes, I’ve been playing for the Japanese team for about five, six years, maybe. Yeah, five years or six years.
Minter Dial: So, what is the state of Padel in Japan? I mean, it’s obviously very far away from most of us. So, tell us where we are with.
Tom Murasawa: Padel in Japan for the numbers. We only have approximately 50 courts in whole Japan and about 22 clubs now. And the first Padel court was established in 2013, which is more than 10 years ago. But from that it’s growing, but it’s not growing as fast as it is like in the Middle east or the European countries or even in Southeast Asia. It’s growing fast. So, we would say padel has been with us for a long time, and the players are improving a lot. But for the environment itself, we need more investment. We need more love for padel within this country.
Minter Dial: In many countries, the battle plays out between the federation of tennis, whether there’s a single federation for Padel or a joint federation. And sometimes people feel the need to protect tennis because in Japan, there’s obviously huge amount of great tennis players. What. What is the status in Japan for.
Tom Murasawa: Us, The Japan padel association is the governing body, and we are an individual association, and we’re not with the tennis association because we want to do things differently.
Minter Dial: And sometimes that Means you don’t have quite the same means as does the ones that are mixed. Like in England we have the LTA that does paddle and tennis, so does Italy, but in other places. But if you’re just the Japanese padel association, you don’t have quite resources. How’s that going and where, what’s the future of paddle look like in Japan?
Tom Murasawa: So, to be honest, as for manpower, we do not have that much. You know, we need more support from everyone and the padel players in Japan. But resource wise we need more sponsors too. But I think we’re a lot of the young players are working by themselves, like individually working for sponsorships, trying to invite companies to play padel. And for me I’ve also established a group called padel Samurai which is me and two other national players. So, we’re trying to invite more corporate padel events so that, you know, in that way we think padel will pick up much faster in Japan and more people would start, you know, just picking up the racket.
Minter Dial: Do you believe that the world championships in your representation with the women’s team here, to what extent will that help? Is there any coverage media wise in Japan?
Tom Murasawa: Yes, it does mean a lot. And for this tournament we’ve achieved the highest ranking for the fourth time. So, we do have a lot of coverage on media too and we do have a lot of sponsors now and big companies from Japan. So, we think this will help boost the sport in Japan somehow.
Minter Dial: Well, so a lot of, I mean I know in Japan line is one of the favorite social media. I’ve never, I have a Line account but I don’t know to what extent padel is online. I’m assuming it’s still more Facebook and Insta in Japan.
Tom Murasawa: I would say it’s more on Insta now. And also TikTok.
Minter Dial: Oh yeah, TikTok, of course.
Tom Murasawa: And online is just for. It’s like a messenger. So, not much exposure online, but there are a few in Instagram and also TikTok.
Minter Dial: All right, I want to just talk a little bit more about your padel. So, you are playing tennis, you’ve converted to Padel. Where are you on the journey from getting rid of tennis habits or bad tennis habits, should we say towards becoming an all-round good padel player.
Tom Murasawa: So, for me I still, I’m a coach but I still compete. I’m around like 505 B ranking at this moment. But I think for me and also the Japanese players in general, we need to learn how to deceive the opponent much more like the Argentinians, the Spaniards, how they fake the shots is amazing. And because, you know, the Japanese are very straightforward. Right. When we play Olav, it seems. Seems like lob. And of course we play a lob, so.
Minter Dial: Looks like a lob.
Tom Murasawa: Exactly. It is love. Exactly. So, that’s what we have to work on. It seems like lob, but we’re going to play a chiquita, a straight shot, so we need to be much meaner, is what I would say. And for myself, I’m too kind. Of course.
Minter Dial: You know, there is this tradition in Padel where as soon as you hit the other player on the opposing side, you have to say sorry, which I’m sure you do a lot of that sumimasen. I know that from the Japanese culture. But so on your game, then what would you do? You play left or right?
Tom Murasawa: I play on the right side.
Minter Dial: So, you’re more of a control guy, you know your way around. And what are you, what are you presently, what do you feel is your best shot?
Tom Murasawa: My best shot is maybe my backhand volley and my backhand strokes in general, because I have a lot. I know how to hit the ball very well and control it straight across, drop shot and everything so well.
Minter Dial: I always say that actually the person. If you. If you have a good backhand volley, best to play on the right, because you’re going to have more shots on your backhand volley. You’re down the line, serve returns and all that. So, what are you working on? I mean, is it. You’re just. You talked about deceit, but is there a shot that you feel like you need to improve, I would say the.
Tom Murasawa: Quality of the chiquitas, because the professionals here, they hit the chiquitas crazy. You know, the height from the net is just like a few centimeters away. But they always get in for the Japanese, sometimes they make it, but sometimes it floats so the opponent could just smack it. So, that’s what, for me, I have to improve a lot.
Minter Dial: And yeah, their margin of error is pretty impressive. All right, what about. So, you’re on the coach, you’re on the bench, you’re the coach. What are you focusing on when the players come off and you have 90 seconds, how do you manage those 90 seconds?
Tom Murasawa: 90 seconds is really short is what I was. What I thought within this World cup. But I just try to give them simple and short explanation of what’s happening and what to focus on. Like as an example for the women, sometimes they try to be defensive at the net. So, I just told them to move your legs, just push one foot forward for the volley and that’s it. So, I don’t try to explain too much, just try to keep it simple.
Minter Dial: Last question, maybe. I’ve been in Padel for 50 odd years myself. I was wondering to what extent do you believe there’s a specific culture of paddle and how does that translate into the Japanese culture?
Tom Murasawa: That’s a very tough question. I would say the culture of the community in padel is what we could relate in the Japanese padel community as well because everyone likes to sit around and watch games in the European countries and also in the South American countries as well. And the Japanese, we like to see, sit around and also, you know, enjoy our beer. Everything we have the izakaya bunka. So, you know, we like to hang out. But to be honest, today the Japanese padel is lacking that kind of sense because the courts are very small. There’s not place, there’s not that much place to hang out. So, I think the sport matches Japan really well. The size of the court is small. We have a small land which is perfect. But culture wise, I think we could do much more so that this paddle so that the sport could fit or blend into the Japanese culture.
Minter Dial: All right, and so how do we get maybe the future of padel? What can I do to help you make the future of Padel stronger in Japan?
Tom Murasawa: I would say, to be honest, we need more courts. So, maybe if we could invite more investors from outside of Japan who would be interested in the mixture of Japan and maybe the British brand, maybe we collaborate. So, yeah, I would say more investors and more padel courts for the Japanese community.
Minter Dial: So, anyone out there who has any affiliation with Japan or any desire to go hang out in Japan, drink some great green tea there, you’ve heard the words. Thank you very much for being on the show and good luck. You have one more day, right? Go for it.
Tom Murasawa: Okay, thank you very much. The Japanese team is going strong. So, thank you very much for all your support and hope to see you soon.
Minter Dial: Thank you.
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