The Alborán · 7th September 2026 · ISSN 3153-7235
From the Editor
The Same Number Twice
Two open matches at the same club in Govan, booked seven weeks apart at the same level. They were not the same game, and they were not close.
The Terrace
The Standing Room
Two rooms in Antón Martín, five minutes apart: a tiled taberna that has poured since 1908, where the city drinks on its feet, and the market kitchen the locals steer you to when they want you to eat well.
The Court
A Pool of Eight
Padel joined the World Anti-Doping Code in July. The international testing pool is being built at eight athletes, and the figure came from the sport's own testing agency.
The Court · companion
The questions we asked, and what came back
Six factual questions put to the International Testing Agency, and its answers in full, unedited.
The Court · companion
Showing the Working
A note on how these pieces are being put together, what has been established so far, and what has not.
The Court
People Make Padel
Racket Barn had been open five months when I got there. What it has built in that time is not a membership. It is a way in.
The Archive
The walled-court lineage
Padel is the youngest of the games played off a wall. Run the line back through squash, through rackets, through real tennis and the cloister, and the wall was there eight centuries before padel found it.
The Body
The Infusion
A wood-fired sauna on a trailer above the Avon, a cold river below it, and ten minutes of heat and scent that a sceptic did not expect to enjoy.
The Sessions · Episode Three
London P1
Recorded courtside at the Premier Padel P1 in London: the tournament as it happened, the crowd, the British game, and where the women's draw and the men's pull apart.
The B Sides · Track Two · Alex Robinson
UK Padel Has a Ratings Problem
Alex's monthly editorial. Ratings decide who you play with, which competitions you enter and whether an open match is worth the money. So what happens when nobody trusts the number?