Why change is required to spice up UK’s quickest rising sport | EUROtoday

Padel is booming within the UK however figures present girls and ladies are at risk of being left behind.

The tennis-squash hybrid has exploded in recognition over the previous few years and the expansion exhibits no signal of slowing down.

The Lawn Tennis Association, which is the governing physique for padel, will announce its newest figures for courts and participation subsequent week however one stands out for the incorrect purpose – solely 30 per cent of gamers are feminine.

Tennis is the main international sport for ladies – the three top-earning feminine sports activities stars for 2025 and eight of the highest 10 had been tennis gamers – however thus far padel has an equality drawback.

It is one thing the LTA is conscious of, with head of padel Tom Murray saying: “As the national governing body, the LTA is committed to opening up padel, breaking down barriers to create meaningful opportunities for women and girls to discover, play, and thrive in the sport.

“As part of our She Rallies plan to make tennis and padel truly gender-balanced sports, we continue to work closely with venues across the country to ensure they are fully inclusive spaces, including the introduction of dedicated women and girls-only sessions, which can help to create welcoming and supportive environments that build confidence and connection.”

Pepita Stonor recognised the demographic points rapidly after selecting up the game in 2020.

“It was social and fun but there were no women,” she tells the Press Association.

After operating tournaments for buddies and discovering an actual urge for food, Stonor arrange Empower Padel in September 2024 to encourage girls to take up and keep within the sport.

Stonor sees large potential in padel as an exercise for ladies to thrive, saying: “When I got to my late 40s and I was meeting women who had never played sport before, I realised quite quickly, when you’re at that age, to take up tennis or golf, because they’re very technical and hard, you need a lot of coaching.

“Whereas, with padel, it’s easy to take up – difficult to master – but I started seeing women, when we introduced them to the sport, really loving it and feeling so much more confident.”

Empower Padel now has a database of two,500 girls, runs quite a few occasions and is aiming to be the world’s greatest neighborhood of feminine padel gamers.

Stonor believes the game should deal with the gender imbalance rapidly whereas padel continues to be in its relative infancy within the UK.

She says: “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Some of the ladies at Women in Football have said this to me, whereas in football they’re undoing things, padel has the chance to start fresh and that’s really, really amazing.

“In some of the established countries like Spain and Argentina, they do have good stats for men and women playing socially, but, when you get to the competitive level, in a recent report only 28 per cent of top players were women.

“So there’s an issue there, and certainly for the juniors there’s an issue, because many of the competitions in the UK have girls’ events that are cancelled. They’re getting 20 boys or whatever and no girls, or very few.

“And it’s also down to parents and aunts and uncles and anyone playing padel to think, ‘OK, does my sister play, does my niece play, does my goddaughter play’? Making a real effort to bring girls on to court.”