”Our first target is to be the best padel country in Asia-Pacific”
It is one of the world's best countries for racket sports, with the tennis Grand Slam Australian Open being the year's big highlight. Can padel become big in the land Down Under?
— Australia has the perfect situation, Pere Valdivieso, the owner of Padel in One in Australia, says to Padel Alto.
Four years ago, you couldn't play padel in the whole of Australia. Pere Valdivieso wanted to change that. He set up Padel in One, the first Australian-based company dedicated to developing padel in the racket sport-crazy land.
— People here love to play different racket sports like tennis, badminton, squash. Australia has the perfect situation for padel, the CEO and founder of Padel In One, Pere Valdivieso, says to Padel Alto when we met him during the European Championship in Marbella.
Padel in One offers the design of padel clubs and padel courts and sets up the construction and installation of the clubs in Australia. The first-ever court in the country was a pop-up club in Sydney that was set four years ago.
There are now clubs in Sydney, the Gold Coast, Perth, and soon a few more in Melbourne.
— So far, we have three clubs, but I think we have at least six clubs more at the end of the year. So far, it´s just outdoor clubs,
But he says the first indoor club is opened in Sydney soon.
— It´s going to be four indoor courts and two outdoors there.
Every year, one of the biggest tennis events in the world is held in Melbourne, the Australian Open. So how is the new sport of padel received in the tennis crazy country?
— In the beginning, the people were very surprised and asked themselves: ”Is this tennis with walls or what is this?”. But when they played a few times, they become padel addicts.
According to Pere Valdivieso, Australia has around 2500 tennis clubs, and two million people play tennis. The main goal for Pere Valdivieso and Padel in One is to make padel the number two racket sport in the country both in terms of clubs and number of players.
— Our idea is that some of them could become padel players, and we are trying to reach at least 10 000 players that play once a week. That is our target. Maybe in two or three years, we will achieve that.
The national team´s first big competition on the men´s side was in the World Cup in Paraguay in 2018. It ended with a 16th-place and lost against Belgium, Uruguay, and Great Britain in the group stage.
— Our team is former tennis players that now have started play padel the recent years. We are improving step by step, so far we have just good tennis players.
Do you think we will see big international padel events in Australia in the future?
— Maybe we have a chance to set up one or two padel courts during a big tennis tournament. For us, it would be very important to promote the sport. But also develop the padel in the Asia Pacific. One big event would mean a lot for us.
Can Australia become a top nation in padel like it is in tennis, do you think?
— Yes. I think in the future. But we need to work a lot, to set up more clubs and bring more people into the sport. Our first target is to be the best padel country in Asia-Pacific, then compete with countries in Europe and South America. But that is in the long term.
