Can anyone explain to me why this sport is so popular that it’s taking over prime locations in expensive cities?
Simply put: it’s a very fun sport.<p>It’s doubles so you only need four people to play. The underarm serve gives it a very shallow learning curve so almost anybody can play.
However, there is enough nuance to the game that there’s lots of tactics and skill to learn as you get better.<p>Also the app (Playtomic) for organising games works great.<p>We have indoor courts here in the UK where’s there’s not much else to do in the winter. It’s a lot easier to get four people together to play padel for 90 minutes than trying to get 10/12 together for a 5/6-a-side football match.
I ussed to play it with friends. The big advantage to tennis is that the ball never gets too far away :)
It takes much less time to learn it at a playable level than tennis. In my opinion, learning tennis and being able to hit a powerful drive is much more rewarding, but nowadays people don’t want to “waste” time in improving technique.
Yuppies/expats love it, that's pretty much the reason.
yeah, it is getting popular everywhere.