'I took up padel and was addicted straight away'

Padel leaders have applied to start the first Devon padel league as the sport grows in popularity in south-west England.

Devon padel ambassador to the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) committee, Jonathan Gliddon, said the league would "comprise of four or five [clubs] to start with that will have home and away matches".

Across Devon and Cornwall there are currently 12 clubs with 30 courts in total.

Padel players said they believed the sport had grown in popularity because of how social the game was and they wanted to see more courts opened up.

Padel is described as a mix between tennis and squash and Mr Gliddon, a former squash player, said a lot of the skills were transferrable.

He said he discovered padel when he was not sure whether he could continue playing squash.

"[I was] addicted straight away, and it helped me make the decision to finally retire my squash rackets," he said.

He has since become a qualified padel coach, referee and the Devon padel ambassador for the LTA committee.

As part of his role in the Devon LTA, he helped organise the first Devon County Padel Championship in July 2024.

"It was a great event with lots of players coming from different areas," he said.

The sport has also seen growth in Cornwall.

Seaspace in Newquay has had about 140 members join since it opened in November.

Farrah Guiducci, a regular padel player from Cornwall, said: "It would be great to have access to more professionals, and great to have access to covered courts."

Ms Guiducci began playing in 2021 and said she took up lessons in Alicante, Spain, because it was easy to fly there from Newquay.

"I would have taken tuition here in Cornwall but the problem is, in the UK in general, we're very far behind the rest of Europe," she said.

She added she loved the social element because "you can play singles, but more or less, you're always playing in a four".

Tom Hutchins has played since university and created Padel Cornwall to encourage people to get involved in the sport.

"I've been playing ever since really, I caught the bug," he said.

"For me, the most important thing is accessibility and people being able to get into the sport."

Amelia King, from Newquay, said she believed the sport was accessible in terms of anyone being able to play.

"It's not as intense or demanding as squash so older people can play just as well as kids," she said.

She said she loved the social aspect of the game: "I've brought quite a few of my friends along who've not played before. And then they're addicted to it."

David Belcher, a former tennis player from Cornwall, said his favourite thing about picking up padel was meeting a range of different people.

"I would say 70% of the people people I play with now I wouldn't have met playing tennis," he said.

Mr Belcher added that as he got older his knee joints started playing up and padel had given him the opportunity to continue playing a sport without causing more damage.

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