Former UK tennis NO 1: ”You can get to an enjoyable club standard quicker with padel”

Padel is growing rapidly in the UK, with both Andy Murray and former British number one tennis player Andrew Castle involved in building the sport at home. 
"Padel is a sport that could have a huge reach not just in this country, but around the world," Andrew Castle tells Tennis365 in an interview. 

Former tennis star Andrew Castle is one of those involved in developing and putting the UK on the map of padel around the world. 

Castle is among those leading the charge in the UK after taking on a role as a brand ambassador with Game4Padel, a company backed by two-time Wimbledon champion Andy Murray.

— Padel is a sport that could have a huge reach not just in this country but around the world, Castle tells in an interview with the tennis magazine, Tennis365.

Castle was the UK number 1 in singles tennis in 1986, reaching as high as World No. 80 in June 1988. Now he's one of the pioneers in making padel grow. 

— I think you can get to an enjoyable club standard quicker with padel than tennis. I have no evidence or statistics to back that up, but it feels easier to get to a standard where you can put a massive smile on your face. I think that would be one of the biggest selling points for padel, he says. 

Today Britain’s Lawn Tennis Association offers grants to tennis clubs to install padel courts. The Game4Padel group Castle and Murray are backing, taking that process to the next level.

Installing padel courts at clubs and taking a slice of the revenue from them, is a project with star backing that could take padel to a whole new level. Currently, Game4Padel has nine facilities in England, three in Scotland, and one in Wales where you can play padel. 

— Where do I see padel in five years’ time? It can only be bigger. It is quite intoxicating. When you play once, you want to go out and do it again. So where is it in five years? It has to be bigger, Andrew Castle says in the interview.