Padel Enthusiast Now Getting Into Tennis After Growing Up

CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT

A young man with no injuries and a disposable income has today revealed he doesn't know why he spent the last few years playing padel, when he could've just been playing the real version of this sport.

Popular amongst retirees in Europe, padel is one of the fastest growing social sports in the world. While usually played in doubles on an enclosed 20x10m court. Players are equipped with a hole punched racquet, also known as a paddle, and rally with a low-compression ball.

While the game follows basically the same principles as most racquet sports, it is known for it's less difficult underhand serves. The rules also change slightly between nations.

After picking up this sport in the pandemic, local tech salesman Drew Yupp (30) has always loved the social aspect and the exercise that comes with padel.

But recently he's discovered another sport that is also sociable, physical and played in doubles.

It's also somewhat more challenging, and has a universal and ancient rule book that 99% of the planet agrees upon.

That sport is tennis.

"Don't why it took me so long to book a court with some friends" he says.

"I learnt tennis in school, but for some reason I ended up playing padel"

Drew believes that his 5-years spent playing the easier version of tennis was a natural progression from 'pickleball' which is the low-fi version of squash.

"A lot of my old padel teammates used to call it the thinking man's version of tennis. But now I realise they're just intimidated by the speed and physicality of the real game"

Despite his own realisation, Drew has been unable to convince his old competitors to join him at the local tennis courts, as they insist on remaining loyal to their weirdly competitive minor league.

"They'll grow up eventually. That's what happened to me" he says.

"They keep thinking I'm going through a phase"

"But until I do my knee or back... I'm gonna stick to the real thing"