Try Something New: Padel - Slazenger Padel Club opens in Seacroft Leeds - video Dailymotion

We discover the world of Padel, one of the fastest-growing sports in the world, at the recently-opened Slazenger Padel Club in Seacroft.

Transcript

00:00Anyone who does an intro to paddle with us, within the hour they are playing paddle.

00:04They're not learning lots of skills, they're not doing lots of things, they're just playing

00:08and then we can help them enhance their skills to get better as time goes on.

00:11A venue dedicated to the fastest growing sport in the world can now be found in East Leeds.

00:16We met Alan Cutts from Schlesinger Paddle Club in Seacroft to find out all about it.

00:21I've worked in tennis all my life.

00:23About two or three years ago a friend needed a doubles partner for a game of paddle.

00:26I popped along, gave it a go, popped along again and then like everybody else I was hooked.

00:31I was playing constantly all the time, fitting it around my other job and trying to remember

00:36that I've got children and family at home and also there's room for them and room for paddle everywhere.

00:40It looks like tennis, it's got a ball, we've got a net.

00:43The ball is slightly smaller and less compression so it's easier to hit, easier to read.

00:48The paddles are much smaller and easier to use.

00:52And then because you're encaged with the fence and everything round,

00:57you don't have to go pick the ball up as often if you make a mistake.

01:00So generally people are enjoying it because they can just get straight into it and get on with it.

01:04I think the biggest plus is that it's an underarm serve.

01:07So people have not got to learn a complicated way to get started.

01:09They drop a ball, they hit it over the net, them and their friends are playing.

01:12The sport is proving really popular among Leeds locals and the club has already hosted numerous events

01:17with some of paddle's best players, with many more competitions in the pipeline.

01:21In our first three months we've done something like 9,500 matches on these 12 courts in here.

01:26We've got a set of people called Paddle for the People.

01:29They've got two tournaments, three tournaments, three tournaments on the same day.

01:33We've then got some LTA, so working with the Lawn Tennis Association who also run the British rankings.

01:38We've got Grade 2s and Grade 1s which is the top end.

01:42We'll be working with the Britain Paddle Tour again who bring a £2,000 prize fund.

01:48We've already had the UK No. 1 and No. 2 come and play here to win that event at the end of last year.

01:53I feel like I could go on about events and events and events.

01:56They're all coming, everybody wants to come and we're quite happy to find a way to get them all in.