Le padel is sometimes opposed to tennis, yet these two sports seem to be quite complementary.

Tennis, a chance for the padel

Tennis is one of the most popular sports in the world. There are certainly many disciplines that would like to be cousins ​​of tennis and take advantage of its aura.

Le padel, a sport much younger than tennis, has made a lightning breakthrough in the media space in recent years.

Yes, it will certainly make some teeth cringe, but we can say thank you to tennis for the opportunities it offers to the padel.

Without tennis, there is no padel à Roland Garros or at the Foro Italico in Rome. the padel is today integrated into very powerful sports federations financially and in terms of communication.

In France, the French Tennis Federation has shown what it is capable of by offering a competition still unimaginable a few months ago: the Greenweez Paris Premier Padel Major at Roland Garros.

In Italy, the Italian Tennis Federation (FIT) should see its name evolve and become the Italian Federation of Tennis and Padel (FITP). It sounds crazy and yet, we can see that the tennis federations believe more and more in padel and that the padel take full advantage of it.

Is this a reason to consider that it is necessary to have a Tennis Federation to manage the padel administratively ? No, experiences are different depending on the country and the truth of one day is not always that of the next day. For example in Spain, the Spanish Federation of Padel (FEP) has more licensees than the Spanish Tennis Federation.

Le padel to revitalize tennis?

Tennis is a very powerful sport with headliners crossing the sport like Roger Federer, Rafael Nadal or Novak Djokovic. Very few sports have such well-known athletes, which allow tennis to shine at this point.

But it is clear that the base is suffering, with fewer licensees, even if the FFT succeeds in curbing this trend for the moment, practitioners less present in the clubs, clubs which precisely criticize the mode of operation of tennis. More generally, tennis is going through an identity crisis, it needs renewal.

And if the padel was precisely one of the antidotes to get back afloat? Inexorably, tennis clubs are equipping themselves with padel to enrich the sports offer but also to instil a state of mind that has perhaps disappeared in certain clubs.

In the padel, we often speak of the “3rd half” as a key moment in the way the sport works. The clubs of padel are sometimes surprised by the strength that this sport generates at bar level (sic).

All this makes us think that padel and tennis are two complementary sports: what if we had to stop opposing them?

Franck Binisti

Franck Binisti discovers the padel at the Club des Pyramides in 2009 in the Paris region. Since padel is part of his life. You often see him touring France going to cover the major events of padel French.

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