Laure moreau, President of the Communication Commission of Yvelines Tennis Committee, accepted Lorenzo Lecci Lopez's interview request on THE subject: the padel.

With her expert eye and her great experience in communication, Laure Moreau gives us her opinion on the growth of this sport in France and the policy led by the FFT.

Padel can only grow

The development of Padel is already one of the development axes of the FFT

Padel is a complementary offer to tennis: we attract new licensees via a new fun and friendly practice. Clubs need to reinvent their economic model, new offers and padel is a real opportunity for development…

There was fear that tennis would lose players to padel, but in hindsight the percentage is minimal.

I would go even further: I think that padel allows players to remain under the FFT umbrella and to limit the decline in the number of tennis licensees. If on paper, it is still complicated to understand the phenomenon, we observe this trend very clearly on the ground; at the same time, we attract "new" players to padel, sometimes beginners, but the big advantage of padel is that everyone finds what they are looking for, whatever their level. Moreover, in Yvelines as in Ile-de-France, many tennis clubs have not been mistaken: they are equipping themselves with tennis courts Padel and its development is only increasing!

Tennis and padel: compatible and more!

We don't have the same padel history with Spain... Empirically, people who have been playing tennis for a long time have fun at Padel or even compete too.

But of course, you don't necessarily find what you feel in tennis when you play in singles for example.

For me, they are two different but complementary sports, if only because padel is more accessible for beginners. I have yet to meet anyone who has played padel and not had fun!

Having tried padel, I would even say that we can find a certain complementarity there, mainly in terms of the volley!

The two sports are complementary and more and more tennis clubs are banking on padel to regain their attractiveness.

I sometimes hear players and clubs talking about the development of a French Federation of Padel. Frankly, I don't see things that way. The FFT has expertise that can help the development of the practice of padel by avoiding certain mistakes of the past...

Padel clubs on the rise

Competition will increase as many FFT affiliate clubs have padel projects and interclub padel are now a reality in several departments, especially ours.

Perhaps we should think about more coherence in the development of padel in our territory. But it is far from being that simple. Today, many tennis clubs want padel. We see this demand growing more and more.

There is real work by the FFT upstream to work on this strategy for developing padel in France. The Yvelines are also associated with the inherent strategic thinking, in particular via Catherine Lefebvre, President of US Pecq Tennis, who heads the commission Padel of the IDF League.

The FFT relies on the attractiveness of this new sport to boost its clubs. And I think the FFT is right to enjoy this new sport. In my opinion, it's win-win.

Padel needs tennis to accelerate its development. Tennis must take advantage of this padel wave to reinvent itself.

Professional padel: not a showcase for the moment

I don't think professional or elite padel is a showcase for now. It is certainly an additional showcase, but our investment must be made mainly at the grassroots level, that is, leisure. Let's avoid making some of the mistakes of the past.

Let's not try to gild our coat of arms at all costs when there is everything to do. There is a time for everything. But let's not deny ourselves our pleasure and our pride because Yvelines still has elite padel players with Benjamin Tison and Adrien Maigret, former tennis players!

Padel remains an emerging sport where there is everything to do and it is also very motivating! We must insist on access to the practice of this new sport for all.

The FFT has a development strategy

We must develop padel hand in hand with the tennis federation. 

The FFT has made it a strategic development axis and it now has expertise in this area. He must eventually be helped to better organize himself, to better optimize his financial investments. Today, we have, in my opinion, put too much emphasis on the competition part.

One of the missions of the FFT is to support its affiliated clubs and that is what it does! And so we try to help them through the strategies of the FFT, the league and the departmental committee.

Competition is important but ...

Of course, competition is important, but isn't the investment disproportionate compared to helping develop padel as a leisure activity, promoting this sport to make it known to as many people as possible?

We are talking about €500.000 over a year for less than ten stages of the FFT PADEL TOUR. The circuit has the merit of existing. But even if the Federation can afford it, we can imagine that concentrating this budget on the promotion of this sport itself could have been more effective...

As I said earlier, the FFT is betting on padel and that's a very good thing. But investing so much in the elite of French padel, and even if I understand that having a real sports showcase is necessary for development, isn't it a bit too expensive?

We need to democratize this sport, and to do that, we need to make it more visible via a padel court in “city centers”. And the FFT is working hard on it, and I myself, as club president, am currently working on it! Maybe invest in personalities who bring people in. Even in tennis, it’s not so obvious.

I think that the experience of tennis can be useful in padel. So let's take advantage!

From his names, we can guess his Spanish and Italian origins. Lorenzo is a multilingual passionate about sports: journalism by vocation and events by worship are his two legs. He is the international gentleman of Padel Magazine. You will often see him at various international competitions, but also at major French events. @eyeofpadel on Instagram to see his best padel photos!

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