From the Court

The lead note: two directions at once

Padel grew in two directions this week, and the two could not have looked less alike. In Pretoria, the professional tour set up in sub-Saharan Africa for the first time in its history: the game reaching new ground at the very top of the sport.

The other kind of growth carried on as it has all year: not champions and pathways but comedians, ex-internationals and YouTubers, teaching most of Britain what a padel court is. It is, remarkably, all the same game.

This week in the game: Pretoria

Pretoria, then. The Premier Padel P1 runs to next Sunday at the SunBet Arena, and for now the story is the home draw. Two South African wild cards, Linge Steenkamp and Zoe Kruger, are in the women's event, and so is Basma Ali, who is fifteen and the youngest player in the competition. Among the touring pairs is Claudia Fernández, arriving with a new partner in Martina Calvo, a reshuffle worth following on to London.

None of the locals are expected to trouble the seeds. That is not quite the point: a teenager from the host nation gets a place on the same court as the touring elite because the elite have, at last, come to her continent. The finals are next weekend, and we will carry the result, and what it meant, in the next note.

The crossover

The celebrity end of the game had a loud week. The Pro Am Padel Tour returned for 2026 at a club in Stockport, the former England full-back Alex Goode's side taking the first leg; talkSPORT has partnered with the tour this year and will screen its Grand Final in London come October. It is the most organised the celebrity circuit has yet looked.

Beneath it the freelancers keep working: Joe Marler and the presenter Tubes put out an episode of their padel channel, Big Smash Padel, most weeks, half coaching and half chaos, while the comedian Jason Manford, an LTA padel ambassador, campaigns for padel courts in schools. None of it is elite sport, and nobody involved pretends otherwise; it is simply how most people in Britain now arrive at the game. We think that arrival deserves a proper piece, and we have started to report one.

Compiled from official and named sources: Premier Padel · The Padel Paper (Pretoria P1 draw; the Pro Am Padel Tour, July 2026). The observations are the editor's own.

Live on The Alborán

A note from us before you go. Next week the tour reaches London, and The Alborán will be there with a press badge, courtside at the P1. It is the first Premier Padel event we cover from the inside, and we mean to come back with the kind of thing a live stream cannot give you. More on that soon.

On the site now: Episode One of The Sessions, with George Modler, and Alex's written companion to follow.