Issue Two
The Alborán · 3rd August 2026 · ISSN 3153-7235
From the EditorCredentialsThis month we start reporting from inside the game, with the press passes to prove it. The TerraceThe Bottle My Friend TranslatedA £13 Sicilian red chosen for a Sicilian friend, who turned the bottle to the light and told the story of the town buried in Burri's white concrete. The CourtThe Racket RouletteAn intermediate player, briefly without his racket, sets out to discover whether he knows the first thing about choosing one. Four rackets on a hire wall, one he already owns, and a morning with someone who fits them for a living. A piece about the process, not the verdict, because there wasn't one. The CourtThe 7 P's of the SouthsidePadel, Pickleball, Pilates, Pastries, Patience, People and Pato: the seven P's of a Castlemilk club built for its members, by a man from Mexico City, where the numbers said not to. The ArchiveThe year it became an institutionThere is a difference between a game people play and a sport a body governs. For padel, by most accounts, the second began in 1991. The CoastlineBilbao Knows How to WaitWe went to Bilbao in the last week of January without a real plan to play padel. We never did, and that turned out to be the point of the trip. The BodyThe GroundworkThe body is the thing you bring to the court, and it plays better for a little work done away from the game. A personal trainer at my club talked me through how to prepare it, and why the preparation is the sport's quiet foundation: the groundwork, done long before anything aches. The SessionsThe B SideGeorge Modler at the Padel World Summit.