The tennis licensees interviewed in this questionnaire believe they know the padel on average for a little over 3 years (3,4 years exactly).

In the literature review, we showed that the padel had a real craze in France about 4, 5 years ago. We can see that this figure is significant, since 27 people in the sample, i.e. 67,5%, believe they know the padel for 3 years or less.

Only 2 people have known this sport for more than 5 years (10 years and 15 years). Victor told us during the interview that " Le padel it appeared anonymously, but in the 70s, early 80s. »These two people in the sample thus probably experienced this practice in a place in the South of France, where the padel has always been more developed, or even in Spain.

3 out of 4 people practice padel. The frequency of play is very variable as we can see in this graph below:

About one in three people play several times a week. In contrast 55,2%, so more than half of the sample plays more often than once a month, because half of these 55,2% say they play only once a year.

While the overall sample knows the padel for an average of 3,4 years, they estimate that they tried for the first time on average 2 years ago (for those who play padel Of course).

Then we wanted to know why they would play in a particular place.

We see that " the quality of infrastructure Is the most cited criterion (23 times for 28 respondents to this question). Then we find " the atmosphere "(12 times) that as for the tennis venue seems important, since about 43% of the respondents to this question cited it. Then we find the criteria "Proximity to place of residence "(10 times) and" near work place (9 times).

When it comes to competition, a third of the people in this sample playing padel, play it in competition. This represents about a quarter of the total sample. We saw in section 5.2.2 “ The profile of practitioners of padel »That competitive players are over-represented by tennis players. In section 5.5.1.1. during the exploratory phase, we were able to see that in France there are approximately 3 padel all sexes combined. In France there are a little over a million tennis players, so the licensing report of padel compared to the number of tennis licenses is low. This figure of a quarter of people in the sample is therefore not surprising. It might even seem important, but it must be remembered, as we could see in the exploratory phase about the offer of the padel in France, that the padel is very well present in Hauts-de-France compared to other regions where the padel is not found.

We then wanted to know if they would continue to play in a private center if a padel was built in their tennis club:

We therefore wanted to know why, whether for negative respondents and positive respondents:

55,9% of padel of this sample would stop attending a private center to focus on playing on the court of their tennis club for three reasons: proximity to the place of residence, price and preference for club life. The most represented reason among these three is " the proximity of the place of residence »(42,8%).

But it's interesting why the other players would continue to play in a private center, which represents 44,1% of the players of padel of this sample. There are thus four reasons. The most important, which was cited by 30,8% of these practitioners, is that he does not practice the padel with the same partners as in tennis. Then, 23% of respondents of these people believe that the infrastructure of private centers will remain better than tennis clubs in terms of quality. Then, three reasons were cited fairly, by 15,4% each of these people: the availability of superior courts in a private commercial center due to the number of lessons in general quite large, the atmosphere and the proximity of the venue. job.

Finally, we wanted to know their opinion on the development of padel in France. Only three of the 40 in this sample believe that the padel will stop its development in France, because they think that this practice is offered at too high prices, that it is a fad and that there is not a culture of padel in France sufficiently clear. For the 37 others, they strongly believe in the progression of this practice, because they think that it is a fun and very accessible practice for 22 of them, and friendly for 5 people.

Regarding the development in tennis clubs, 77,5% of the total sample believe that this practice will develop in tennis clubs, because it attracts new members, there is a federal impetus, and that the padel and tennis are two very complementary practices. The 9 other people are not of the same opinion, in particular because the installations are expensive, and they think that the associative structures will not have the means to support this. Moreover, 40% of the sample declared that their club did not plan to develop the padel, and 35% don't know.

Pierre Lemonnier

Pierre studied STAPS, and validated a master's degree in sports management, after studying in Reims, Frankfurt and Lille. I discovered the padel in 2014 during my Erasmus year in Frankfurt thanks to a Spanish friend. Damn it is good padel !

On the same subject