Say hello to padel, the racquet sport everyone's playing

A fast-paced sport that combines elements of tennis and squash, padel is drawing young Indian enthusiasts in droves

- Shrenik Avlani

Top with the pickleball mania already. There's another racquet sport whose star is rising and anyone who finds pickleball boring loves it. Say hello to padel—the hottest game in town today.

"It's impossible to find a court in the mornings or after office hours on any given day in Mumbai. Everyone wants to play it and despite a dozen or more courts, I cannot find a free slot if I don't book way in advance," says Tunali Mukherjee, 38, a screenwriter from the city. The padel boom, according to Mukherjee, is insane at the moment. "There is a luxury club coming up in Worli and another one is in the works in the office district of Lower Parel. There are more than a dozen padel facilities in South Bombay alone. And most of the legacy clubs such as Radio Club, Cricket Club of India and Bombay Gymkhana have set up a padel court for their members and guests," she adds. Padel courts have also mushroomed in Bengaluru, Kolkata, Hyderabad, Pune, Delhi and Gurugram.

Mind you, this demand for padel is not in metro cities alone. People in smaller cities and towns, too, are keen on having a go at this sport that is a mix of tennis and squash. Nikhil Singh, 44, who runs a pickleball facility in Jamshedpur, is looking to start a padel court as he feels the steel city has a healthy demand for it thanks to the sport's omnipresence on social media and YouTube. Suraj Juneja, 46, founder of Alt Sports that sets up pickleball and padel courts, says tier 2 and 3 cities want to try out the new racquet sports as much as people in cities want to. "I am setting up padel courts in Siliguri at the moment," says Juneja.

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