Laura Buteau: “Throwing away snowshoes when you can repair them perfectly at a low price, what a pity!”

Laura Buteau, 14th French player, is the creator of Black bee Padel, a unique snowshoe repair service in France.

If you are a player padel, you have certainly already broken or cracked your racket padel and you surely said to yourself that it was a shame to put it in the trash? Well Laura Buteau has the solution, that of repairing the snowshoes of padel. The creator of Black Bee Padel tells us about this project but also about its ambitions in the padel French, and more!

What ambitions at the sporting level?

The first question which may seem easy, but which is difficult for me! Not having a fixed partner, it is difficult to plan in the long term. In principle, I would say P2000, P1500 and a few P1000s. I would also like to do some tournaments in Portugal and why not test a FIP. I don't close any doors, I want something new!

The start of the season was with Camille Sireix, I played on the right. Then we decided to stop and now it's haphazard, but I can play both sides, that's the advantage! Why not a Portuguese partner since I can't find one in France.

I have already had the opportunity to go 4/5 times to Lisbon. I train with the same partner at Direct Padel, and we played our first tournament together on May 26th. We will see later!

My ambitions as a player are:

Joining the French top 10, but I think that will only be possible if I find a permanent partner.
Participate in Portuguese tournaments in order to continue my progress by facing new pairs.
Participate in a FIP and pass the first and/or second round.

Joining Team France, a dream

Who does not dream of representing their country at least once in their sport? For the moment, the players present are better. I am still far from their level in my opinion. I would like to develop my range of shots, to have more weapons to face these players and to surprise.

For now, I think it's easy to read my game. I would also like to be more consistent and “have volume in the game” as Simon Boissé would say. In short, before thinking about Team France, I focus on improving my padel (technical, tactical, mental, physical) and find a partner with whom I will have a good connection and the same objectives.

Laura-Buteau-service-P2000-Perpignan | Padel Magazine

“Interesting to be able to train regularly with your partner"

I know that many French players try the Spanish adventure and I had the opportunity to live it intermittently when I played with Camille. I loved living this experience: the training every day, the complicity with Camille, the weather, the city too.

But for me, the most important thing is not the country (France, Spain, Portugal). In my opinion, it is to have good training conditions with a good coach in whom we trust and a partner who can and wants to share all that with me.

I find it interesting to be able to train regularly with your partner, it's a real plus to get to know each other, create automatisms and put in place game strategies. Besides, I've never made such a good start to season than playing with Camille, even if I played on the right.

Stop throwing racquets in the trash systematically

As creator of Black Bee PadelI basically want two things right now:

That all those who are used to playing padel know that before putting their racquet in the trash, there is a quick, reliable and inexpensive solution. And that Black Bee Padel is a mark of trust.

The origins of Black Bee Padel

The initial idea was to create our racket brand. I say "we" because it was a project I had with another player from padel : Melanie Ros. It had to be "Be Padel », with the aim of creating rackets focused on power (Be Power), focused on control (Be Control)…

At the same time, I broke a lot of racquets during this period (no nervousness, even if my past sometimes catches up with me). I even happened once to unpack a racquet, to play with it during practice, and on a smash, it cracked… we thought it was such a shame that there was no solution to this problem. The racket just became unusable, in the trash.

Then Mélanie became curious, she discovered that a solution existed in Spain and South America (cradle of padel). You should know that it is very manual. She proposed the idea to me and I told her to go for it with the 5/6 racquets that I had cracked.

Following that, we played with our own repaired racquets on big tournaments, then we repaired racquets of our friends, players of padel also in the top 30. Everything worked perfectly. And we got started and Black Bee Padel was born: the black bee, a sign of ecology and recycling, and I thought the idea of the logo was classy (at least in my imagination). Today, Mélanie and I have stopped our collaboration.

Which brands are more fragile than others?

I'm not going to name specific brands, each brand has its own manufacturing process. What I can say is that it's not always the racquet that's fragile, sometimes it's the player that makes the palas break more.

Who of the beginner or the expert breaks the most?

I hope everyone, but the big difference is that the beginner/intermediate repairs, the expert less.

For where you usually break, it depends, I've seen everything: the frame, the face, the heart. But the frame comes back most often. There are 3 major reasons:

A shock with his partner: the famous “I aaaaaai” in the middle, but your partner does as he pleases, takes your ball and smashes your racket.
With the windows: personally, I don't see myself losing the point just because I don't want to scratch my racket defending a ball near the window...
By smash: that was my case and yet, I don't have the strongest smash on the circuit (laughs).

And sometimes, just playing, for no apparent reason, maybe wear and tear or the manufacturing process.

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