Your opinions – Women and padel: what people like and dislike

Here is the continuation of our investigation into women's padel, the opinions and specific expectations of women who play or would like to play padel. In the first part of this investigation, we have seen that the ladies fall for the playful side of this sport, the atmosphere and the conviviality that reign there and the type of physical effort that it allows. Conversely, the 197 (!) women who responded to our questionnaire mostly believe that prices that are too high, the number of pitches that are too low and the still insufficient course offer are obstacles to practice.

After a numerical approach, the rest of this file allows us to give ample voice to those who have strong opinions and do not hesitate to express them, sometimes vigorously. We did not hesitate to cite certain redundant opinions, proof that they come up very often in your testimonies. This is particularly the case with regard to women's tournaments, which attract a lot of criticism, as well as the distribution of roles within couples. A vast debate, which goes beyond padel...

► What you dislike

In particular, we asked you to specify which aspects you dislike and why. Here are your most salient answers.

■ Discrimination.- “When there is a women's event alongside a men's event, women are discriminated against. For example a tournament where we are given the balls and then we organize ourselves for the pool; a tournament where the worst slopes are necessarily for the girls; a tournament where the short formats are imposed on the girls”.

■ Take or put beatings.- “In some tournaments, we play three matches in two sets of four games, with heterogeneous levels: we give thrashings or we take thrashings in 20 or 30 minutes. That's 1h30 of padel for 20 or 25€ registration. Robbery! Sometimes, the levels of the tournaments are heterogeneous. For example when girls from the top 80 or 100 register in a P250, or players from the top 20 to 30 play in a P500, making the tournament as strong or almost as a P1000. Taking thrashings in the quarter-finals of a P500 by a top 10 player or in the semi-finals of a P250 by a top 30 player in twenty minutes, 4-0, 4-0, it's infuriating and it's a bit disgusting…”
■ Tournaments over several days.- “A two-day tournament is acceptable for a P500 or even three days for a P1000, with qualifying on the first day. But a P250 over two days is a waste of time, energy and money.”
■ Tournament endowment.-“Not offering prize money for P100 and P250, ok. But the clubs should have the obligation to offer gifts, because the players still pay between 15 and 25€! Not receiving anything when you win a P100 or a P250 is outrageous!”

Rates too high

■ Prohibitive prices.- “The prices to learn padel are sometimes prohibitive: we were lucky to progress through an association and to have cheap and regular access to courts, which allowed us to progress a lot thanks to our friends who made us play. We also went alone to play basket for free. This does not exist in many places and I think that puts off a lot of players. The access fees are much too high. Too few tennis clubs have invested in padel courts and allow as many people as possible to have access to them at an association cost: between €2 and €5 for 1 hour 20 minutes or an annual rate of between €150 and €300. Many players do not even play once a week or do not take part in tournaments to keep the money to train.”

■ Tennis mentality.- “The tennis mentality is increasingly coming to padel! I left tennis because I couldn’t take it anymore, and it’s starting to rub off on padel! Overall I play mixed 95% of the time!”

■ Feminine mentality.- “I don't like the mentality of women. They come for a lot of tennis, only play with each other and play from the baseline… It's not interesting.

■ Create parts.- “There aren't many easy ways to create games by level. There is Facebook by club but it's not great or WhatsApp but we're drowning in requests. So everyone creates his or her Whatsapp… In short, I miss it. There are not enough apps where you can immediately see the level of the games on offer.”

■ Too much waiting or matches.- “The duration of the competitions is a problem: one day is good, but what a wait between games! And there are sometimes too many matches: 4 or even 5 in one day for the classification matches.

■ Not enough tournaments.- “There is a lack of tournaments near my home. I have to give up doing P1000 or P500 tournaments for lack of money… so I do P250 and P500 for men when I find a partner.”

■ Organization difficult.- “When the tournaments are announced late, it's hard to organize: you have to be able to find a solution to watch the children for example.”

■ Too expensive, too crowded, too long.- “What I don't like: the price of renting the land, the lack of a financially attractive subscription; the great difficulty of reserving a pitch during peak hours; interclubs that start at different times; the allocation of a single pitch in competition which means that the waiting time can be very long.”

Too heterogeneous levels

■ Ranking “bought”, players too strong.- “The fact that you “buy” your ranking by doing as many tournaments as possible. The fact that P500 or P250 tournaments are open to top 50 players.”

■ The lack of beginners.- “I was frustrated for several months not being able to find games because I was a beginner and it is by playing that you progress. So I compensated with individual lessons.”

■ Levels issues.- “The self-assessed level of play discourages playing with strangers who overestimate themselves; in tournaments, the ranking does not always reflect the level of the person but above all the fact that he has done a lot of tournaments; during a tournament, it's super hard to play, sometimes stopping for an hour and then playing again...”

■ Padel and tennis.- “A tennis club that has had a padel court financed and only lives on the rental of the court. A tennis teacher who does not accept the arrival of a padel teacher in the club. So no lessons!”

■ Heterogeneous levels, prices too expensive.- “There are too few tournaments, and too much heterogeneity of levels in the P250s. Some players find it too easy, others take plates. Tournaments are too expensive: €20 should be a maximum.”

► What should be improved?

After the criticism, some more constructive criticism: we asked you what would need to change so that padel becomes a sport (almost) as feminine as masculine...

■ 100% female weekends.- “There will never be as many female practitioners as male practitioners. However, offering 100% women's weekends would help in my opinion. And especially pedagogy and communication from the FFT (?) to explain to women who play in P100 that they can also register in P250 and above, so that they have matches of homogeneous level in hens. ”

■ Mixed and 100% padel federation.- “We should maximize mixed tournaments of different levels so that girls can play with men. Organize friendly matches by level in the departments so that other girls can discover padel. Expand to the regional level when the level rises. Avoid tournaments with four hours of waiting between two matches… Make a mixed team championship, better communication to attract girls from other sports or girls who only go to gyms… And of course, that a padel federation can see the light of day!”

■ Trainings, gatherings and prizes.- “Regional and departmental training courses and training should become more accessible, with less expensive memberships because women play less and are more often in leisure or with their family. Access to instructor training could be less expensive since we lack coaches. We also lack exchange platforms, more frequent sports gatherings and a 100% padel federation! Club managers could get involved for a wider adult audience because the courts are often monopolized by schools, which are more profitable… But things are moving, they are on the right track! Even if in all sports there is a minority of women… that's how society is made.”

Rude and belittling

■ A free initiation or almost.- “Learning should be developed through free or semi-free courses to learn the basics. At the Castres club, the president organized 2 or 3 learning sessions which attracted between 8 and 12 girls: it was friendly, we learned, it was really good, motivating for us who were thirsty for progress. If we had been to Toulouse at the prices charged, I think we would have stopped!”
■ Stop discrimination.- “We must stop discriminating and always put phrases on the announcements of tournaments such as “open to women” or “women welcome”. It always reminds me of the time when black people were beginning to be integrated into our societies and where you could see “open to blacks”. I find it so rude and demeaning that we really need to stop this discriminatory behavior.”

■ More leisure tournaments.- “More women's tournaments, at reasonable times, because we are working. More P25 and P100 because the level of the players is too disparate. The majority of tournaments around us are P250s, unplayable for women who want to get started.

■ It's super expensive.- “We should train young people, that the federation takes care of the best under 20 years old. Review the new point system, totally demotivating, review the prices of tournaments, much too expensive (25 euros for a P100!). Offer annual packages because at the session, it's made for rich people... The equipment is also super expensive, with the racket to be changed every six months or a year...”

■ To change the mentalities.- “It's the mentality of women's sport in general that needs to be changed. The idea that sport is for boys and moms are at home…”

■ Tournaments and visibility.- “We need more mixed and women's tournaments, which are very poorly represented. And more visibility for women who play at a high level, especially in France. And also create mixed or female groups or evenings in clubs, once a month, in order to expand the network of female players.

■ Retaining women, a headache.- “In all sports, it's the same problem. It would have been necessary to carry out a questionnaire to know precisely why women cannot be faithful in their discipline. Depending on the age group, we come back to the fact of becoming a mother and the role of women once a mother. But of course there is something else, the clubs do not encourage women to compete. There are only small tournaments. “It costs too much to make a P500″, that's what we're told. You just have to think like men for one day to change. But we know that we are different and do not have the same priorities.

That men also take care of children

■ Girls and boys.- The girls have to really get into it and all the boys have to agree to play with girls, without prejudice.

■ Internships and prizes.- “There should be one-day refresher courses reserved for women. Preferential rates for tournaments. And no difference in reward between men and women.”

■ Do not hide women.- “We need more female referees, more female tournaments, more equality. And during tournaments, do not relegate women's matches to distant grounds when men are playing at the same time.

■ Do not cancel tournaments.-“I think we need to develop tournaments and possibly reduce the number of compulsory teams rather than canceling them, this would make it possible to meet potential partners, increase the number of licensees and therefore inspire others. .”

■ Sometimes reverse roles.- “Let the wife get into the habit of letting the husband look after the children more often, in the evenings included.”

■ More present men.- "That men are more present and active at home so that women can free themselves to go play."

■ Babysitting.- “Let the men let their wives play and agree to take care of the children so that they can play!”

■ Dream of another world.- “We need another world! In this patriarchal world this is almost impossible. Women are still fighting in tennis to have the same conditions, so in padel…”

■ Stop sexism.- “Stopping the almost reflex sexism by giving bigger bags to men than to women or different rackets with pink colors or different shapes… when it changes absolutely nothing.”

Differentiate from tennis

■ Different priorities.- “The girls are less motivated it seems. And the priority of obligations for men and women is not the same. For tournaments, there are significant differences in levels and the girls are disgusted to play three matches losing each time 6/0 6/0. So for me the girls tournaments today are more for levels from 6, which scares people away.

■ More promotion.- “We should have more 100% female events and promote women's padel more. As in all sports and in life in general, women are not very prominent…”

■ Tennis = pollution? “We need to stop comparing this sport to tennis. Stop being polluted by female tennis players, because of their mentality and their game. Change mentalities about the relationship between men and women. We live in a very macho country compared to other European countries. We need to develop padel more in general, differentiate ourselves from tennis, by having our own federation.”

■ Promote padel.- “We should develop the practice as I saw at Asptt Metz. It brought in a lot of women. The goal is already to make this sport known so that the atmosphere of padel attracts more and more women. I would love to participate in the development of women's padel in the Grand Est!”

■ The role of clubs.- “That the clubs themselves play the leading roles. That there is this will on their part to promote padel for women and it is not by stopping, for example, holding girls' tournaments because they are not profitable that we will get there.”

Many thanks to all those who spoke out, too many for all their contributions to be reproduced here. The ball is now in the court of the leaders and entrepreneurs of padel in France, so that this sport becomes more feminine than many others.

Read here our other surveys

More Info on women's padel HERE

Jerome Arnoux

After 40 years of tennis, Jérôme fell into the padel pot in 2018. Since then, he thinks about it every morning while shaving… but never shaves with a pala in hand! A journalist in Alsace, his only ambition is to share his passion with you, whether you speak French, Italian, Spanish or English.