The Joy of Padel podcast with Tom Murray

To find out more about Tom Murray:

• Find or follow on Instagram: TMurrayPadel
• Check out the LTA Padel Strategy via PDF
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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!

Further resources for The Joy of Padel:

British padel federation | indoor padel courts | LTA padel strategy | padel coaching certification | padel communication skills | padel competition landscape | padel court construction | padel court expansion | padel court planning permission | padel Culture | padel for beginners | padel for youth | padel growth UK | padel in England | padel in tennis clubs | padel Olympic sport | padel performance players | padel player development | padel playing styles | padel Tactics | padel tournaments UK | padel training environments | padel vs tennis | padel world rankings | Tom Murray padel

This transcription comes courtesy of Flowsend.ai, an AI service for podcasters.

Minter Dial: Tom Murray, I am So, glad to have you on the Joy of Padel podcast. You have been working in padel through the LTA, but you had a beginning in Padel which started when. How did you get into padel? And I know you could do it all in Spanish, but for us we need you in English.

Tom Murray: Minter. Nice to be here. Well, I got involved in padel typically as an ex-tennis player discovering a new racket sport or failed tennis players. I quite often say I moved to Spain to be a tennis player at the age of 13 and the quick answer is I came back a few years later with a padel bat in my hand to my parents’ surprise.

Minter Dial: Well, it’s certainly true in Spain that pretty much every tennis centre has a padel court beside it. I mean, my son was training in tennis down in Valencia and basically all the whole attitude was, oh, we go to play padel for fun. You do 5 hours of drilling on the tennis court and then padel is with swimming, you know, that had to get relaxed.

Tom Murray: Yeah, exactly. It really is that kind of family sport. Right. Or it’s a racket sport for the masses almost. Yeah. Being So, easy to pick up, not power dominant. It’s friendly.

Minter Dial: Yeah. And one of the things I love to ask my guests, especially when they’ve played a lot of tennis, is the transition to padel. How did you manage the transition? What were the things, what are the insights that you could provide for someone who’s a tennis player listening to this saying, shoot, I really wish I could play better padel. What is it that I need to transition out of or change in my manner?

Tom Murray: Its an interesting one. I mean, some people just take to it right away. Quite often tennis doubles players start with the volleys and just kind of build from there and enjoy the angles. Right. Whereas other tennis players, maybe your typical bass liner or western forehand kind of player, struggle. And unless you’ve played squash as a youngster, you’re going to struggle with the corners and the rebounds and things. When I first started playing padel, first discovered padel, I think I was about 16. I didn’t think much of it to be fair.

Minter Dial: You had your usual tennis player nose up and looking down at.

Tom Murray: Yeah, definitely. So, I mean, yeah, I moved to Spain at 13 and I saw it when I was about 16. And you know, suddenly tennis clubs were adding padel courts and all the tennis coaches were playing padel kind of socially and stuff and we would just kind of see them and just think, what are they doing? You know, like, let’s get going over.

Minter Dial: To sort of like me with pickleball, but don’t tell anybody.

Tom Murray: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, I suppose I didn’t really give it a chance then because I’m still competing. I was still playing tennis or striving to become a professional player. And I then went to the US on a tennis scholarship at 18. So, I actually didn’t start playing padel until years later, until I finished uni. So, it was sort of around 2004, 2005. Now, when I was around 23, 24, and then suddenly all of the tennis players I used to train with, they were just all playing padel. And I was like, okay, let’s give it a chance.

Minter Dial: If they’re doing it, maybe I can too stoop down to that level.

Tom Murray: Yeah, well, at least if wanted to spend time with them, it was kind of my only option. And, yeah, two, three times in, I was just suddenly hooked and I got it. And how social it was, your position, close to your partner, your opponent. So, it was just a lot of fun. So, I quickly became very amused and it wasn’t long before I was buying my own bat and just really getting into it.

Minter Dial: Hooked up, hooked in. The challenge remains is how to transition out of your tennis habits in some regards into padel. So, talk us through how that has, you know, how did that happen for you and what sort of, you know, looking back, insights could you provide for tennis players today?

Tom Murray: Yeah, it’s an interesting one. So, I was very attracted to padel and thought, you know, well, I could start competing and, you know, surprised it hasn’t taken off in other countries. So, you know, let’s see, this sport’s got a long way to go. And I even thought, you know, this will be easier than tennis. It will be less demanding on my body because I stopped playing tennis because of injury. I played probe for one year and literally had to call it a day. It’s like sciatica. So, it wasn’t really much I could do, and it was still bothering me playing padel, but it was just So, fun and I was just addicted at that time.

Minter Dial: Right, So, the best anaesthetic.

Tom Murray: Yes, exactly. So, I think just the more and more you play, once you start having dreams about how a ball rebounds in the quarter and how it reacts, I think there’s kind of no going back then. But I definitely think that both sports are very complementary. It’s not like tennis and squash, where one is very wristy, both skill sets are very complementary. And I believe venues, moving forward, they should all have both. I challenge anyone to find a tennis club in Spain, as you said before, that doesn’t have a padel court. I saw it happening a good 20 years ago now. So, yeah, it’s done wonders for tennis venues and obviously from there, the sport has just grown in other venue types and it just hasn’t stopped going back.

Minter Dial: To the solution to convert tennis players into padel. The answer sounds like you need to dream about the walls.

Tom Murray: Yeah, I think, yeah, just stick a couple of walls behind a tennis player and then you’re going to have to figure it out quickly.

Minter Dial: That’s it. Well, I’ve had the great pleasure to play with some of the best tennis player, doubles tennis players, including Dom Inglot, who has taken the padel. And it’s very fun to see where tennis can be useful, especially if you’re six foot six at the net. and as a padel player, it’s also very fun for me to try to find how to find the chinks within that armour, despite the speed and height. There are ways around ways to get them.

Tom Murray: Yeah, there are lots of doubles players. As we said at the beginning, Jamie Murray is one of them, and even his coach, Alan McDonald, he’s got so, such good hands and they’ve taken to padel So, quickly. I think even Bruno Suarez, Jamie’s doubles partner, initially Brazilian guy, he’s also a very, very good padel player, and So, many of them are. And they now travel with a padel bat in their tennis rackets and the tennis balls.

Minter Dial: I haven’t had this opportunity to talk about this on the podcast, but back in the seventies, when I started playing, I had the opportunity to play one extremely fun game. I was maybe 16 years old and on the court it was obviously still in the concrete courts and concrete walls, but I played with a guy called Manuel Orantes, who at the time, he won the US Open and was a finalist in Roland Garros on clay. And so, a small Spaniard and a guy called Fred Stolle, who was an Australian guru on doubles, tall, and my uncle also tall, a former Davis cup captain for France. So, tennis players abounding and boy, did they have silky hands. And it was just such a lot of fun. We were trying to play one trick shot off to the other back in the days, playing with that type of racket you have in the background, ivy with 600 grammes and all that, but a different game. Anyway, that was fun. So, you also write, you play on the left. I haven’t met you in person, but I don’t see you as being a six-foot-six Dominic Inglot type. Why do you like playing on the left?

Tom Murray: I think a lot of tennis players favour the left-hand side, probably for the rulo, it’s just easier. And the characteristics of style of play. But as I mentioned before, you know, I’ve been injured for a good three, almost four years. So, that knee surgery, I just didn’t recover from. And, you know, I’d be playing all the British tour events in the UK until now if it wasn’t for that. And it’s really unfortunate, but I’m playing again now and, yeah, I’m going to have to start on the forehand side. I think people overtaken.

Minter Dial: I play on the right of largely when I’m playing with good players, of course, and I think it’s a real need to have good players on the right, you know, à la Chingoto in the men’s, who’s a right-handed right player, right side player, and or Di Nenno, you know, or Mike Yanguas. Those type of players are in hot demand because everyone, usually, especially amongst Men, prefer to play on the left because that’s the. I would say the dominant side. That’s where you’ve got the testosterone going for the big smacks and everything. But anyway, first of all, I can’t play those types of shots. I mean, I got all the Rulo and all that, but I don’t have that power game anymore.

Tom Murray: Well, I mean, the best example is LeBron. You know, the fact that he’s on the forehand side, he’s. Well, it’s such a playmaker. He’s creative, he’s got the power. So, it’s. Yeah, I think that’s kind of started a new trend on the men’s side, at least. And I, you know, others are exploring the forward side.

Minter Dial: I believe. I have inside information, but I believe we’ll be playing on the left in the world championships. Oh, you see. But anyway, moving on to your. Your role as head of padel at the LTA, it’s. Tell us a little bit when that happened and why that happened.

Tom Murray: Yeah, I’ll give you the quick version. We’ll be here all day otherwise. So, I suppose it’s good to start at the beginning, just for context. Obviously, I’d moved to Spain to be a tennis player, and after uni, I’d kind of started playing again because I was working in Spain again. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t taken off in the UK, and other countries, for that matter, at that time. So, we’re talking around 2012, I made the decision to move back to the UK to set up a padel club. And obviously this isn’t. You can’t see this, but the image behind me is a pop-up event we used to do in Canary Wharf. But we had an indoor padel club that we created in 2012. I raised some money from Spanish investors and we had four indoor courts, just kind of a stone’s throw from Canary Wharf in Wood Wharf. It’s no longer there. There’s a skyscraper in its place, unfortunately. But obviously Oman and pallium have created a much, much nicer venue than the one we had covered.

Minter Dial: Uncovered.

Tom Murray: Yeah, well, as was indoor.

Minter Dial: Oh, it was as well. It doesn’t look like that by the photo.

Tom Murray: Yeah, this was a pop up we had, like, in front of the station, just to kind of things, but, yeah, So, that was kind of my experience. So, as a kind of a private operator, we wanted to expand one to open other clubs, but also we wanted to max out of peak hours. Sorry, off peak hours and going to schools we were unable to. So, yeah, bear in mind, this was 2012 2013, as padel wasn’t officially recognised. Schools just literally wouldn’t even entertain the idea of playing a sport that wasn’t classed as a sport. And when we were trying to find other sites, planning permission was so, So, difficult, just simply for not being on the official list of sports. So, I suddenly saw that if we’re going to stand a chance to ever do this, or anyone is going to have a chance to ever build a padel court or club, we need to get a padel officially recognised by Sport England and the other UK sporting councils. So, I just kind of went on a mission, literally, to try and get the sport recognised. So, we started an association called British padel. There wasn’t one at the time quickly realised, you need to have a governing body to build from that, and if the sport is to have a chance at sort of being sustained as a mainstream sport in the future. And other countries were having this same problem. So, anyway, myself and a few kind of board of directors, about four or five of us got together, created British padel. I, interestingly, was consulting for David Lloyd at the time because they were adding courts into their Chigwell site, then bushy, then Chelsea, where you were playing, and obviously now they’re really expanding. But back then it was just a few sites, So, I was consulting for them, trying to help them kind of fast track that journey, which was a challenge because they kept getting bought out by different groups. But quickly, padel was growing. There were more and more sites coming on board, So, setting up British padel made complete sense, spoke to Sport England and their strategy back then was to push us in the direction of an existing governing body. So, whether it was tennis, squash and racquetball, badminton, they said, please speak to an existing governing body and try and collaborate and do it with them. So, as I’d consulted for David Lloyd, it kind of came full circle. And as Scott Lloyd was then CEO of the LTA, it was a welcoming conversation. They were interested. They’d seen padel being governed by tennis federations in other countries, you know, since it kind of boomed in Spain, for some reason, it wasn’t really crossing borders. You know, the content was all in Spanish as well, on social media. Hence your Sandy Farquharson coming along and creating his padel school. It was very welcomed by everyone, and obviously still is. And then, yeah, it kind of just took off in Portugal, then took off in France. Sorry, Italy probably first.

Minter Dial: Definitely.

Tom Murray: Yeah, more or less, sort of, at the same time, France, Sweden, Netherlands, Belgium. Sweden wasn’t a tennis federation, but, yeah, your France, Italy, Netherlands and Belgium were. And that the kind of the examples that the LTA were looking at. So, it was an easy conversation and I was just looking at it as, how do we get the sport recognised? So, actually integrating into the LTA, it would just happen overnight. That was my understanding. It was just a no brainer. It made sense. Sport England were telling me that if you were to do it independently, it could take you ten years or you might not achieve it at all. So, for the sport, we’re like, let’s fast track it, let’s make this happen. And then the LTA hired me to continue doing the same thing I was doing, but with their resources and support. So, yeah, it was an interesting time. That was in 2019. So, we were independent, let’s say, for a good five years, going through the struggles of it not being officially recognised. There were more clubs then, they were unable to go to schools, new projects, struggling to get planning permission. So, a tough five years. So, what a lot of people are going through now because it’s still a challenge and I can touch on a few of those points. It was really difficult back then, as.

Minter Dial: You can imagine, but there are certain countries where they have their independent padel federation. Unless I’m wrong, they didn’t all go through the tennis federation in order to become legitimised. They became standalone and had to fight through. I’m not suggesting that it’s the wrong path, but it feels like the majority of padel countries have their own federation. I mean, obviously the outliers being France.

Tom Murray: And Italy, and that’s how we started off here as well. That’s what we were doing for five years. So, I think in most countries, it started off independently and then once you get to a stage where the sport needs to be officially recognised. That’s when you kind of get to that crossroads to decision. Either you get encouraged by your kind of sporting ministry to go at it yourselves as an independent sport, or you don’t. And that was the case in the UK, encouraged to go through an existing governing body. If that was to happen now, maybe that wouldn’t be the case. But the strategy back then from sport England was that and a way to fast track that kind of recognition. I suppose I quite often joke and say I was ten years too early. I created that indoor padel venue in 2012, thinking that the UK would grow a lot faster than it has like in other countries. But a few countries have, you know, they’ve struggled, and I think there’s a lot of red tape, whether it’s Germany, whether it’s us. We’re kind of similar trajectories. So, it just depends. It’s really unfortunate, it’s frustrating and, you know, I’ve been patient, let’s say, for ten years, but it’s finally happening, right? Any country that gets to the 500-court mark, it starts building the interest. Everyone gets excited. People start creating padel brands, court installers, there’s more and more of them, and then operators, private equity investors start getting involved, and that’s when it builds. Once you get to the 1000 court mark, as we’ve seen throughout Europe, that’s when it starts to mature. You get some market leaders. So, it’d be interesting to see that this next three years, which is the start of our, the LTA’s padel strategy and we’ve launched specifically at this time when we’ve been around the 400, 500 court mark, obviously the padel development plan was focused on getting us to that point. I know there’s been a lot of criticism as well on social, and I read it all, like, I want to be in the know. And a lot of this padel strategy that we’ve just launched has been us listening to what the private sector is doing, what it expects. And the idea is that we want to work together, not against that isn’t the role of a governing body whatsoever. It’s here to facilitate.

Minter Dial: Federate. Federate.

Tom Murray: The federate to facilitate, yeah, exactly. And I think in a lot of countries they have struggled, both independent padel federations and tennis federations, they’ve struggled to bridge that gap with the private sector and private operators. And it’s tough, right? You get startups popping up, new clubs popping up every other week. So, you’ve got to convince new groups coming into this ecosystem. Almost educating what the role of the governing body is. A lot of people have come from different backgrounds, which might not be sports, So, therefore there is an educational piece there which is the responsibility of the LTA and to communicate it accordingly. So, that’s kind of what this strategy.

Minter Dial: Is about in my mind. I’m thinking probably of your conversations with financiers, hungry entrepreneurs who want to break and break every rule possible in order to get things happen and break it until you make it kind of thing. But the thought now seems that as we are now, we have the LTA padel, but is there any thought or what is the future of moving towards a title à la Italy, which has padel in the title? It seems to me that that would mark a true change in direction. I mean, names are what they are. I’m a branding guy. But the difference. The French federation of Tennis has padel, the Italian has padel in its name, whereas the French have stayed with the FFT because I’m French otherwise. So, I know a lot about that one.

Tom Murray: Yeah, I mean, there’s roughly around 28 tennis federations right now governing padel across the globe. You know, Italy, the Italian Tennis Federation, tennis and padel Federation have been the first one to change their name. They’re significantly further ahead. There’s about 7000 courts there right now. They integrated well before the LTA and any others, So, they’ve kind of been on this journey a lot longer and they’ve reached that critical mass padel. It’s represented in terms of participation, infrastructure, workforce, and then the player base. So, once we get to that point, who knows? And obviously we have the example of Italy and maybe others at that point, and then does it become there’s other racket sports as we know, there’s pickleball and other things tapping on everyone’s radar. So, does it become almost like a rackets family? Because in my opinion, a venue should accommodate all. It’s like a family of rackets. So, should there be one governing body? Should they all be independent when it comes to safeguarding challenges for a venue? If you’ve got to federate with 2345 different governing bodies, it’s a bit of a headache. And obviously, if, you know, it’s. They’re kind of coexisting within the same infrastructure, essentially. You know, it does make sense. There are benefits, at least to highlighting that, you know, each venue is and each, each sport is safe to practise and, you know, welfare and safeguarding is obviously, all those boxes are ticked.

Minter Dial: Well, all right, So, in the. Your mission, which is described in your padel strategy, which made for great fun to read and exciting to grow padel by making it accessible, welcoming, enjoyable, of course, I love that one. Joy of Padel. Enjoyable of padel and inspiring. So, the growth story, obviously, we in England have a thing called the weather, which we love to talk about. And this is not uncommon for other countries, maybe like the Netherlands, Belgium, obviously, Sweden, Denmark and all these other countries that have weather issues. I would say at a higher level, some of them. How do we grow padel courts? And more specifically, how can we get the planning permission for covered padel courts in England?

Tom Murray: Yeah, it’s. I mean, for that reason, it’s taken longer to grow in this country. It’s been easier in Italy, right. Where generally the weather is nice, three quarters of the country. How do we get covered? Courts planning applications, obviously, step one was official recognition, recognition for the sports, So, that local authorities, you know, that they padel’s on their radar and more importantly, they know who to go to when they have questions which LTA. And obviously they have an existing, existing dialogue, let’s say, with the LTA for many applications that go across the board. Step two is educating local authority So, that actually they know a little bit more about padel and could they look at it strategically. So, there’s a lot of work that we’ve been doing over the last, sort of two, three years now. And the first case study really is Manchester. So, Manchester City Council, we’ve kind of engaged with them on a strategic level to identify how many courts, you know, Manchester City could facilitate. Think of Bristol, whereby operators suddenly went in, opened quite a few venues at the same time. So, the idea is you want to grow this sustainably. So, we’re engaging with local authorities and this will be kind of rolled out across Britain, across England, initially for local authority, and identifying with significant sort of mapping exercises. So, you can determine minimum drive time to a venue. So, where could you facilitate by installing courts? And that’s been done in Manchester, as I said, I think they’ve identified 42. 42 courts, sorry, 42 sites, actually, as a potential to kind of coexist and move forward in a sustainable way. And they’ve then opened that up for private operators to tender, rather than the opposite happening, which was what was happening. So, being bombarded piece by piece. Yeah, but they were being bombarded with inquiries from private operators and not really knowing that much about padel. They’ve come to us needing a bit of help and guidance. And you can imagine that’s happening with lots of different local authorities. And local authorities is one. One facility type almost, right, one market, you’ve also got other governing bodies. The RFU we’ve worked with quite a bit. They’ve got significant space, a lot of their rugby sites, and again, they’ve been bombarded by inquiries from private operators. So, between you and I, Minter, all those inquiries have actually helped. Right. Suddenly padel’s on the radar, So, therefore they start engaging with us strategically. I’ve been trying to be proactive and be ahead of this, but until there’s lots of applications coming in, it’s not really a priority for a lot of these other bodies. But that’s the beauty about padel. It can go anywhere. It doesn’t have to be existing tennis venues, it can be any sporting facility, any venue type, really, or private land, greenbelt, whatever it might be. But like you said at the beginning, planning is still the issue. But you like to think that all of this works that’s going into it will streamline and fast track significantly planning applications compared to what used to happen. You know, the application might go in, it will take them six months to respond or figure out what padel is. Then they will try and touch body with touch base with the governing body. Another few months go by and it’s a year before you’ve heard no. And that’s been the frustrating thing for a lot of private operators, So, rest assured there’s a lot of work going behind the scenes to kind of just facilitate those, kind of put the, kind of the pieces together and facilitate as much as possible. So, that’s work that no one really sees until a local authority goes out and tenders. So, that will be happening more and more across England, and obviously tennis Wales and Tennis Scotland will be doing the same respectively.

Minter Dial: It seems to me that a big piece of this is the education piece, and that a council that receives this, oh, I want to put up a padel court, and then, of course, the neighbours all get their knickers in a twist about that. We could, in England, benefit from understanding why they have to be covered courts, and think about it from a strategic standpoint. When it’s raining and nobody’s getting out, everybody’s in house, everybody’s getting sort of that claustrophobia feeling kids aren’t allowed to get their goats out. Having an indoor padel court allows for everyone to play, the whole family. It feels like there’s a whole educational piece about the social, mental health and physical well-being, that if we had padel courts that were indoor, we. Plus you could get coaches that actually could make a living if we had indoor padel courts or year round, as opposed to waiting for the two and a half weeks that summer looks like in Britain.

Tom Murray: Yeah, that’s the finer detail that goes into a lot of the letters of support that. So, we have delivery teams across the country that own kind of that local relationship with local authority based on years of working with specific local authorities. So, it makes sense for them to obviously, support as many applications coming in from the private sector. And our teams now are being very proactive to try and engage with these private operators that don’t yet have a site. And that’s been hard to build up throughout our integration phase, because if you think of a tennis federation, they’re not used to new venues popping up every other week. Tennis venues have been built in stone for the last 100 years, So, it’s a really new area that we’ve had to train the teams up So, we can be proactive in this space and enable padel to thrive. So, these local delivery teams will issue letters of support to private padel operators to support their planning applications. And that’s been happening for the last four or five years.

Minter Dial: Is there one line in there that says a covered padel court could even diminish the sound issues?

Tom Murray: Yeah, exactly. It’s saying it’s necessary, really, for. For UK weather.

Minter Dial: All right, so. Yeah, of course. So, tennis club. I’m a member at Queens and So, historically a rackets place, but with four sports, we now have completely cottoned on to the beauty of padel. But they’re outdoor. Talk to me through the arguments that help move a tennis club. Let’s say a traditional, like you said, 200 years old, you know, like a Wimbledon, for God’s sake, getting them to sacrifice one of the gospel, you know, the sacred lawn tennis courts into padel, especially covered. What is there? Is there not a financial and a social argument that says that’s what every club should be doing?

Tom Murray: In all honesty, I think it’s almost a slow burn, like my local tennis club have. You know, I’ve been talking to them for years, as you can probably imagine, and even with me as head of padel for the LTA, then that hasn’t happened. That’s warmer tennis club, I’ll name it, just to get it out there down in deal in Kent. And it’s a grass court tennis club, So, very traditional. Yes, there’s a couple of hardcourts, but getting a padel court, there’s not much space. So, when will it happen? It’s a good question. So, based on that experience, I know exactly what you mean. I’m hearing stories across the country and I was speaking to Queens for many, many years. To try and convince them as well as with So, many other tennis clubs, it is a slow burn with several. I’ve been chatting to probably six, seven, eight years. It’s not just tennis clubs, it’s parks as well. I mean, if you look at Hyde Park, it took them four years to get approval to move a tree So, that they could put the padel cord in. And, you know, there’s So, many variables, not just committees and decision making internally at a club, you’ve then got planning applications which could go on for a very long time. I’ve learned over the last six years that there’s protected species of everything from snails to bats to. Yeah, it’s everything. Absolutely everything. It’s quite. It’s a negative. Right. For the sport and it’s, it’s really hard to swallow. Let’s say, you know, I’ve got lots of contacts or even close friends that are trying to set up padel clubs and, you know, I can’t help them. And it’s, it’s really unfortunate. Really unfortunate. And, but how do I commit to tennis club? I suppose I quite often use the examples of the ones that have. And so, one might be hurling them. So, a really, really traditional club, you know, waiting list, really difficult to get in. Like, that’s like, you know, the club, right? So, if they’ve managed to do it, surely a little tennis club could convince the committee. Right, if Queens have done it and many others. Now, they’re the examples that these little, you know, almost tennis clubs in towns or villages need to hear because quite often they’ve been striving and following in their footsteps for the best part of 100 years anyway. So, when they were adding a gym 20 years ago to engage, to retain membership base, attract new audiences, that’s what padel is now like. Every tennis club needs to have a padel court.

Minter Dial: Well, it strikes me that just from a, a racketing thing at the Queen’s Club, since the Queen’s club has had their two outdoor courts, it is a uniting sport. It brings together real thorn squash and rackets and everybody can come into padel and it’s the only sport where everybody can join in because it requires a little bit of everybody, everything, you know, with the tennis players, the net, the racquets is good for the speed. Squash is good for the walls, real is good for everything. And, and so, I think that’s the first piece. And I was. Secondly, I would argue that because of the culture of padel, it’s, it’s more inclined to have everyone go to the bar afterwards and the bar is where you make your money, that’s where the margins are. So, any club owner should be thinking about that as well as the community aspect of having that social aspect. Our WhatsApp group at Queen’s Club for padel is thriving, and yet we’re struggling to get more and indoor courts. So, there’s. And then there’s the economic question, because you get two and a half, well, on a clay court anyway, two and a half padel courts per clay court. In terms of clay court, you have usually a larger, bigger surface, etcetera. So, you could then have more players playing this and that. But it’s a long, slow burn, as you say.

Tom Murray: Yeah, I mean, for me, I’ve found that the early adopters might be squash clubs, you know, squash clubs with tennis courts. So, you know, a bit of both. They’ve got that kind of hybrid model with padel and that’s the opportunity it presents. And suddenly they’ve got, you know, their two-player base from squash and tennis actually able to engage and play together on the same court, whereas previously that probably didn’t, didn’t happen. Like, Huddersfield Tennis Club is a prime example, and then they’ll all, you know, engage at the bar afterwards. So, I do believe it’s a matter of time for most tennis squash racket venues in general.

Minter Dial: So, in the realm of helping the LTA to bring a long padel into clubs, I have an unofficial five rules of padel. And rule number five is after padel beer, which I still, from the spanish speaking of the spanish element you have at the LTA, the coaching certification for padel, which you’ve now installed. And I was wondering to what extent you have a freedom within the way you do that versus the way tennis coaches are made, because tennis is lawn tennis is existing in a thing that’s been around a long time, number of clubs, number of coaches, number of players, whereas in padel it’s very different. And I was wondering to what extent you have, you’ve circumscribed it the tennis way and you created a customised padel way to bring in. And if I could just add slip in. To what extent do you bring in culture of padel into the coaching certification?

Tom Murray: Yeah, it’s a fantastic question, and that’s applied across the board for anything we’re doing at the OTA. Like, do you mirror what’s been done in tennis? Or is there a reason to padelify that’s actually become a word?

Minter Dial: I love that word. I’m going to have to put that in the title of this podcast to padelify.

Tom Murray: You know, it’s. A lot of people will think, oh, traditional tennis federation, it’s not the case at all. Like, the people that work there are just in love with padel. Like, they’re all playing padel on their lunch break or three courts at the National Tennis Centre, and they’re packed, absolutely packed. And throughout meetings, like, you know, the first three years really was integrating padel amongst teams So, that they can then deliver on both tennis and padel. Padel is. I quite often call it innovation in a box. You’re able to just think differently with padel, and that’s what is happening at the LTA. There’s no reason to mirror things that are happening in tennis. Yes, you can take learnings from tennis. What’s worked well, might that work in padel, but we’re not necessarily mirroring how you do things in padel, copying tennis, not at all. And we’ll see that throughout the new strategy, with lots of new products and programmes being. Being added, new competition formats. But going back to coaching, I’m not going to lie, it’s been hard initially, because initially it was, do we mirror the coaching pathway? It would make sense to, because we have one in an existing sport and it’s doing well, it engages 10,000 coaches across the country and the accreditation and the benefits that go with it are fantastic. But does it work for padel? So, we’ve created the first course, which is kind of the first course to the pathway, which is. We’ve started at level two. To be fair, level one we’ve skipped, because that was more of an assistant coach. So, actually, a lot of these venues with just one court, two courts, three courts, even ten courts initially, they’re probably not assisting anyone. So, you kind of need a head coach initially. So, that was kind of the first argument. The level three course is being developed as we speak. There’s a girl called Jo Ward, my colleague, who heads up the padel coaching side of things. Ex tennis player, top 100.

Minter Dial: I remember her, yeah, good, good.

Tom Murray: And she’s falling in love with padel. So, she’s developing the padel coaching pathway as we speak. She’s in Madrid right now, actually developing content for that course. And that will kind of. Once there’s more than one course, we will kind of then have a pathway with two courses. But quickly, we’ll be introducing an activator course, because obviously that will be more relevant for a lot of padel venues that sometimes might not need or want a coach, but they need someone, and I say this a lot to facilitate. It might be whoever’s on reception, or it might be personal trainer, whoever it is that’s welcoming people into a venue might just be, you know, quickly showing someone how to play a few shots, how you score where you need to stand. And that’s not really coaching. They’re probably not then getting paid for it. They’ll go sit down and concentrate on getting more bookings. So, that’s what it needs and that will be launched next year. So, an activator course, probably just one day course versus the four-day coaching qualification. And it’s a busy space as well. So, we’re not saying that you have to take the LCA coaching pathway, you can take others, but all we ask is that you then accredit to the LTA, get your insurance through the, through that coaching accreditation. There will be more and more padel benefits as we move forward for both venue registration and coach accreditation. I think it’s an important piece because a lot of people get confused with coaching qualification versus coach accreditation. So, a qualification you could take with the LTA, you could take in Spain, you could take with another federation. Well then validate that and you can come into the LTA landscape and just get your. Become a member. Essentially you get your coach accreditation which comes with insurance and significant benefits targeted towards coaches. And going back to your first point, I suppose going back to what you said about Italy as well, when do you change the name of the federation? You’ve got to remember that padel is still tiny, tiny, tiny compared to other sports and specifically tennis participation is probably 2% of tennis as is workforce, as our venues. So, we’re very, very small. So, for us to. I feel like and hopefully people will understand this and we’re doing a few actions now, like engaging more with private operators. We’re bringing a group together shortly in the next few weeks at the NTC to almost explain our role to educate that private sector. I need to be viewed as everyone’s representative at the LTA. So, whatever people think that we need for a padel federation, that’s what I’m working for internally at the LTA. I’m that spokesperson and know that it’s in a very good space. Like I said, people are very engaged at the LTA with padel. They absolutely love it and just view it as a way to do things differently and that’s exciting.

Minter Dial: Yeah, I love that. Last zone of question really is about development of padel players. You have on the one hand, the top of the iceberg, the Tia Nortons and Nikhil and all the gang Sam, who are trying to penetrate into the professional world and get into the ranking. And then the second is the youth programme. So, a, how does one. I mean, without spending your time in Madrid or Barcelona or Alicante, how does one, how do we get the pros up a level within the country? And then two, what are we doing? How do you think we can get the youth programmes to be working now that, of course, it’s fully recognised?

Tom Murray: Yeah, I think it’s twofold. It’s enhancing training environments and also it’s improving the competition landscape. So, if there’s enough competitions in the UK, high enough level, then actually people could. Players could be based in the UK and do most of their year in their home nation, which is what all the players are striving for. But if you look at France, you look at Italy, Netherlands, Belgium, the top few players have all moved to Spain.

Minter Dial: They all speak Spanish, by the way, I have Carolina Orsi coming on my show shortly.

Tom Murray: Oh, great. Very good, very good. Yes, I mean, they all speak Spanish, which has been great for them right now, their careers moving forward after playing. But I think quickly countries now, by enhancing the competition landscape, they’re encouraging people to want to stay in the UK in their respective countries, and that’s going to happen in the UK shortly. So, we already do a handful of fips. There’ll be more and more year on year and then specifically for juniors. So, we’ve just started running more junior camps because there’s one problem. The player base is very small and we rely significantly on these venues to develop players and almost talent id them So, that we’re aware of them. And that’s kind of my ask to a lot of venues and coaches as well. Let us know that you have a player base, because otherwise we’ve kind of got to do a bit of guesswork and we’ve got to get on the road and see for ourselves. It’s all about the communication. It needs to be two way. If people think there is a wide enough player base, then we need to know who the players are. So, our first initiative has just been running a few camps. We’ve run four this year and we want to run more and more and more. Steve Yeardley has been recruited now as a padel manager and he’s heading up all of the the junior side of things amongst quite a few other areas as well. But his role is a bit of a mix between development and also cuts across into performance. And we’ll be doing more on the performance side, whether it’s recruiting another individual to come in and manage the performance side of things like we had previously and Steve is kind of really focused on that development side, building relationships with the private operators, but ultimately building that player base for youth. And if we think about it like, we all believe that this is going to become an Olympic sport, whether it’s 2032 or more than likely, I would like to think 2036. So, that gives us twelve years, maybe eight, but twelve years, in my mind, to develop an Olympic team. So, you know, that’s your eight year olds, your six year olds, your four year olds right now, that’s what we’ve got to be looking at, and building programmes to support that. So, working with venues to put these programmes in place, rather than adult play, which is the majority, that’s the bulk of participation right now. I think 30%. I think, I know 30% of participation are over 55. Great for the sport, great for venues, people spending money. So, it’s great for the padel economy, the padel sector, venues surviving and becoming more sustainable. But for the sport to be more sustainable, we’ve got to focus on youth. And for me, that’s my main priority. And also getting more girls into the sport as well. I mean, it’s vital. It’s vital. And we’re seeing the trends from other countries, So, we know what not to do, we know what to do. We’ve got examples, good and bad, from all of these different countries. We’re not the first to do it. So, let’s see what’s working and implement it here. Same on the infrastructure side and venues and operators. Let’s see what happened in Sweden and correct things and assure that it grows in the right way in the UK.

Minter Dial: Yeah, it does seem like we could. It would be great to sort of do a jump skip and not go through all the same hassles and learnings that everyone else had to go through and break their teeth on. So, that’s very exciting. And I love this idea of the dream to represent your country. This would be one of the easiest ways to do it. I mean, considering, as opposed to playing football for Britain or England. Sorry. And I still dream of representing my country somehow in padel. Haven’t done it yet. The last question was just to circle back on this notion of bringing the culture of padel, whether it’s into the coaching or the youth programmes. Do you think there is such a thing as the culture of padel? I mean, being in Spain, I certainly have always thought, and in Argentina, this notion of the. There is something that’s in common. Should it be internationalised, as in coming from the hispanic roots? Or do you believe that there should be a different type of culture, which can be nordic, which can be british.

Tom Murray: Yeah, I mean, the sport has evolved significantly over the last five to ten years anyway, with different playing styles. You know, you’ve got a lot of the scandinavian countries that have made their sport more fast paced. It’s fascinating when you go to world champs every other year, even european champs now, the standards are So, high just to see these other countries competing, how far they’ve come, and the different playing styles, it’s fascinating. So, almost catching off guard, a lot of the Spaniards that have been growing up playing a certain way, or even Spain versus the argentinian way, the Argentina, exactly, 100%. Be more forceful. I look at Galileo playing, it’s So, refreshing. But still, in Spain, you still get a lot of players that play the kind of the old fashioned way, the slow way. And in my opinion, that’s really how you learn how to play padel. And you should experience that at least once. At least once. At least once in your career. I mean, So, junior players, as soon as we identify certain players coming forward in certain age groups, let’s get them over to Spain just to play a few tournaments and just fast track a lot of the development that might take a few more years in the UK. So, Spain’s very close, So, it’s not a bad thing going there to get certain competition experience. At least it happens in other sports, tennis specifically, it’s. Everyone either moved to Spain or Florida at a very young age to be a tennis player. One, for better weather, but two, for their training environment. Environments, you know, it’s just what you need to do. And other sports can, can say the same thing. So, yeah, I believe that culture, that kind of slower way of playing sounds bad, doesn’t it? So, slower way of playing, a patient way of patient. There you go. Like from tennis, like your clay quarters, like, if you want to compete with clay quarters, move to Spain or South America, right?

Minter Dial: Absolutely. I was speaking with Thomas Ligue, the number one french player who came from tennis, who got to the round of 32 at Holongaus, and he’s been working on the Chiquita. That’s his shot. Now, there’s So, many different styles of shots within the patient play, you know, the lob, and that’s probably the most important shot in padel. And it can be an offensive lob, it can be also defensive, but in learning this type of culture, and then the other piece, which seems to me So, foreign, when I play with my english friends, british friends, is communicating, is talking, what’s going on? Not just my call your ball like we have in tennis, but what’s the opposition doing? How are we talking about tactics in the 20 seconds we have between breaks? That’s in competition or in the changeovers? What are we talking about? And so, many seem to find that sort of odd, or not cricket, as we might say.

Tom Murray: Yeah, that’s experience, isn’t it? And that’s quite often when you’re at a higher level in a competition and you suddenly see that you’re exposed to it. You see just how players transition So, well around the court because they’re communicating like, you know, when their backs are to the opponents that they or their.

Minter Dial: Eyes are looking at the lob. You know, there’s So, many times we’ve got to be doing that, communicating, and I feel like that’s the cultural piece that is deeply missing in coaches, in coaching and in the padel that we’re playing outside of the hispanic world.

Tom Murray: Yeah, no, it’s true. But I mean, it’s definitely worth mentioning, though, that our performance players have come So, far and I think, and that alone is really important for youth coming through. They’ve got, you know, that players, they’ve got people to look up to. Right. And your elite players, let’s call them. Right. So, even Christian Medina, he’s almost top hundred. And same with Tia Norton, Amy Gibson. And on the women’s side, there’s more players coming through now. And I really believe we can kind of close the gap there with other countries. I mean, it’s great to see in the world rankings now when you suddenly see another flag next to the Spaniards and Argentinians in the top 20.

Minter Dial: Exactly.

Tom Murray: I think there’s one Portuguese.

Minter Dial: There’s one Portuguese, yeah. Sofia Araujo.

Tom Murray: Exactly. Of course, you’ve got a russian girl at 21 now and then Alex Colombon. She’s fantastic to see as well from France. I think she’s around 30 now. So, it’s really good to see them coming through. And that’s the nice thing we see at kind of world championships when we see these other countries playing. And that’s what I love to see about the world tour, like premier padel, you know, whenever you see a foreigner competing in the mix, you’ve got a few Swedes that are up there now as well.

Minter Dial: I’ve had Danny Wendahl on my show. I just had Marta Ortega, by the way, on my show. But I’ve also interviewed Alix Colombo because I’m french and I’ll be transcribing that. Anyway, Tom, I’ve taken over more time than I asked. So, I really appreciate your patience. You’re indulging me with my questions and for coming on the show. How can people who are interested in knowing more, communicating, as you say, two ways with the LTA about padel? What are the ways that you would like for people to communicate with you, or at least follow what’s being. What’s going on?

Tom Murray: Yeah, I mean, several. Lots of tournaments across the country now, So, either Steve or myself will be present. Like I said, we’ve got our local delivery teams across the board, So, there’s going to be more presence at padel venues, but otherwise, you know, on the website as ways to get in touch with us there. But, yeah, I mean, look out for us on the ground. That’s probably the. Probably the best way to assure that you’re kind of, you know, getting the information that you need.

Minter Dial: William, one of the things that. Just to follow up on that is that I was talking with my friend Vianney, who does padel intelligence. He talked about how in the world there are maybe 35 million people who play, but only a million that watch padel. And one of the amazing things of padel is, even if it’s not at the highest level, it is deeply entertaining to watch. So, this is a call out to anybody who hasn’t gone to a tournament and you don’t feel like playing, still go and watch. It’s fun. And then you can also meet up with the LTA players, LTA representatives.

Tom Murray: There you go. I mean, you’ve locked onto something there. Like, unlike other sports in padel, all fans also play. You know, it’s such a captivated audience, and that’s really hard to come by, So, it’s fascinating.

Minter Dial: Last word. What’s the future of padel in Great Britain?

Tom Murray: We’ll hit the thousand court mark in a couple of years, and then I think we’re on that olympic journey. So, it’s about youth getting more and more junior players. And like I say, we need venues to support us on that journey. But it’s a really exciting journey, and it’s the goal of making padel sustainable for future years.

Minter Dial: Let’s make it epic. Beautiful, Tom, thank you So, much. Vamos.