From the Editor

Three Days in Barcelona

A dispatch from the Padel World Summit, and what it told me about the publication you are holding.

The Court

The Next Diamond in the Rough

Everyone is looking at the United States this summer. Three markets nobody is watching are the more interesting bet.

The Court

Mixed everywhere but the top

The mixed pair is the most ordinary thing in club padel and the rarest at the top of it. A look at why, from a box league in Bristol to Premier Padel.

The Coastline

A Villa Called the Alborán

Gili Air, a villa that shares the name, a Sasak kitchen we returned to, and a padel court on a coral island.

The Terrace

Barcelona, by way of Gràcia

We went to Barcelona for the Summit and stayed in Gràcia for the breakfast. On Cal Boter, the esmorzar de forquilla, and a neighbourhood worth choosing.

The Archive

A machine for leisure

How the Marbella Club manufactured the Costa del Sol, why padel was the smallest thing it produced, and why our story begins here even though the game did not.

The Archive

Pádel vs paddle: the missing letter

How an English word lost a letter and became a Spanish sport.

The Body

The Sport You Can Play at Seventy

The first column from The Alborán’s new Body columnist — on why movement is not a project for later, and a seventy-year-old in Huelva who understood that before I did.

The Sessions

Episode One · George Modler

Filmed at the Padel World Summit in Barcelona, with George Modler of the Padel Directory.