‘No sport has had such success in so short a time’: padel takes off in Italy

At one of Italy’s darkest moments in the pandemic, the government introduced a list of draconian rules to halt the outbreak of Covid, including which sports Italians would be allowed to practise.

Among the activities the authorities considered safe were a few Italians barely knew. One was padel, a fast-paced racket sport popular in Spain, similar to tennis but with a dash of squash thrown in.

For Italians, it was love at first smash.

According to data from the Padel National Observatory, since early 2020, the number of padel courts in Italy has increased fivefold, up to almost 5,000. Padel schools and clubs have tripled, with the game likely to become the most practised sport after football in Italy.

“No sport in Italy has ever had such success in such a short time,” says Salvatore Palumbo, 35, the Sicilian under-18 former tennis champion and soon to become a padel instructor. “Italians had to deal with one of the strictest lockdowns in the world. Playing sports was the only relief and a reason to leave the house.”

Sports such as football and basketball were effectively banned for months because they were considered contact sports and therefore risky, while gyms and swimming pools were shut down.

“At this point, there were few options left, such as tennis and padel,” said Palumbo. “But if the former requires lengthy technical preparation, the latter is much easier to learn and lots of fun. Success was immediate.”

Padel was invented in 1969 by a Mexican businessman, Enrique Corcuera, who wanted to build a tennis court at his holiday home in Acapulco. Not having enough space on his property, he decided to make a smaller court and to use the walls that delimited the area as an integral part of the game.

Padel is almost