Focus on the Squash Club Parc Ducup. Located in the east of Perpignan, the club was opened in April 2015 but the padel section was added in April 2016. Mickael Place opens the doors of his multi-sport club with squash, padel and an "in-house" fitness area.

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 Can you tell us about your journey?
 
Well, I'm going to surprise you, but I don't come from padel, nor from a racket sport, my field is nutrition / fitness / sports coaching. This sports club is in a way the project of my life because I have combined my passion, my skills and magnificent sports that are padel and squash.

 Yet you didn't start by playing padel... 

Indeed, padel came later. First, I focused on indoor practices: My basic profession, sports coaching, with modern methods and techniques adapted to athletes and squash. We have 4 courts.

Then premises became available and at the same time I discovered an exciting sport, padel, thanks to the Mas club in Perpignan, which was at the time the only club to offer padel, and to Mathieu Oribes, President of the Saint Esteve tennis club. Mathieu joined the padel project at the center.

But we were lucky to have a location that became available close to our premises. We jumped at the chance to offer a new activity: padel.

We have put the 4 padel courts. 1 outdoor, 2 semi indoor and 1 indoor.

 Soon 1 year of padel…
 
It is a sport that is exploding; many squash players are moving on to the padel activity. We have 2 padel teachers: Leo Decarli and Laia. He is Argentinian and she is Catalan. They both come from Rosas to give padel lessons 3 days a week.

 Are there going to be some changes?  

The semi-indoor pitches will soon be fully indoor. No more wind, no rain on these grounds because in Perpignan, it can sometimes scold loudly. On the other hand, our outdoor terrain will remain outdoor. There will be no changes at this level.

 The club is offering more and more events related to padel?  

We had the Padel Infinity recently with difficult weather conditions, but we still managed to complete our tournaments. We will offer padel tournaments at the end of each month.

We offer educational tournaments every Saturday morning. Our teacher is part of this group of 8 to give advice. It works very well.

We also have grill nights in perspective for the summer season.

However, the club remains very focused on the leisure and not on the competition, even if one develops it for some time.

 Combining sports coaching with padel, is it coming soon?
 
It is indeed planned. We are putting in place a physical preparation specific to padel.

Group preparation starting in April will be planned.

These are groups of 10 people with a coach. We will do it once a week. All the people who compete will be able to have a preparation dedicated to padel with work with the racket.

It will be a great first in the world of padel and I believe we will have very good feedback.

 Interview by Franck Binisti 

Franck Binisti

Franck Binisti discovered padel at the Club des Pyramides in 2009 in the Paris region. Since then, padel has been part of his life. You often see him touring France to cover major French padel events.

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