Le padel in Martinique undergoes a first major expansion. The number of players is increasing, and a first P500 has been organised. Padel Magazine meet  Raphael Porry , the CTR of the league.

“Padel is popular”

 Lorenzo Lecci Lopez: What is the situation of padel in Martini?  than ? 

 Raphael Porry:  “Today, there are 5 padel courts. 2 are in the center of the island at the Tennis club de la Plaine, and there are 3 indoor courts in a private structure called the Arena. This structure has applied for affiliation. There arenot sixty players, and about ten female players. The next event will be a mixed tournament to allow women to progress.”

“Padel is popular because it is a new discipline in the area. It is very quickly accessible, even for someonen who has never played tennis. Everyone is having fun.” 

“A Spaniard and an Argentine train regularly with us. They help us a lot to progress faster.”

padel martinique

Many ongoing projects

 Lorenzo Lecci Lopez: What are the current projects in Martinique   ? 

 Raphael Porry:  “The first project is to develop the practice. We set up 2 open days. The first on Sunday February 20 with activities around snowshoes. The second will be set up on March 13, and will be associated with Women's Tennis Day. We would like to organize a P500 men, a P100 men and a P100 women every month. So we could touch the entire padel community.”

“We want to increase the number of padel courts. There are 3 clubs that would like to have 2 courts. We want to help them in terms of funding to make this happen. By September, 5 clubs could propdare to have padel courts. We could have at least a dozen padel courts.”

“With Jérémie Euphrasie, padel coach, we also want to organize training sessions for young people. The goal is to be able to offer a team of young people tor the French championship which will take place in 2022. This is part of our development policy.

“We are going to organize training in partnership with the Occitanie league, so that teachers can have the diploma. This training will take place from April 11 to 15 on the league center. “

A first P500

A first P500 took place in Martinique at the League center, organized by the Tennis Club de la Plaine. Twelve pairs took part from Saturday morning to Sunday evening, in a very good state of mind. The matches were hotly contested until the quarter-finals.

padel martinique porry p500

Raphaël Porry and Jérémie Euphrasie won the final against Lionel Grangenois and Jean-Jérôme Izambard

 

“When the top seeds came in, the games were a little drier. All the world asked us “When is the next tournament?”. It forces us to look at a schedule that is being established.”

The long term vision

 Lorenzo Lecci Lopez: How do you see Martinique padel in the next 5 years? 

 Raphael Porry:  “If we manage to have 5 additional clubs, regular training for young people, and parity in practice, the objective will be to increase the density of the calendar with tournaments for young people, and more regular P500s. We could even do P1000s so that people from the mainland can come. A circuit of 3 P1000s on our different clubs is possible to develop the visibility of this very attractive discipline. In 5 years, we want padel to be well establishednted to be able to organize an international tournament »

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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