The new and old sports getting people on the court

Do games like pickleball, padel and padder remind us that sport is actually meant to be fun? Bridget Tunnicliffe looks at why these racquet sports are taking off.

Apart from having funny sounding names, participants say these sports are easy to learn, accessible, social and they can't get enough of them.

Pickleball and padel are two of the world's fastest-growing sports.

Padel experienced a huge renaissance in Europe, the Middle East, US and Asia about five years ago and made its way to New Zealand shores in 2023.

Wictoria Markula got interested in padel when she heard about the explosion of interest in the sport in her native Sweden and started to investigate bringing the sport to Aotearoa.

"It started picking up a little bit before the pandemic and then it flew off the handle," Markula said.

Sweden went from having one padel court to over 4000, one of the highest number of courts per capita in the world.

"They call it the 'pandemic push' so Covid kind of helped because in Sweden for example padel was a socially distanced sport and lots of people worked from home for up to 18 months so they were all sitting at home and needed to get out. The padel clubs would be so busy, even at 2am in the morning the courts would be fully booked. It was almost like the prohibition period, people would also just sit around chatting because it was an outlet I suppose."

Padel was invented in 1969 in Mexico by Enrique Corcuera, who combined elements of tennis and squash in a smaller, enclosed court with walls.

Markula, who has lived in New Zealand for 21 years, is now the president of the Padel New Zealand Federation. She said the biggest boon to the sport's growth in New Zealand has been the establishment of stand-alone padel venues.

In late 2023, New Zealand got its first padel court in Auckland. Now there are three padel court venues in Auckland, a purpose-built venue in Wellington opened over summer, a club in Tauranga has just opened and construction is underway on a complex in Christchurch.

"People in different sports sectors are talking about 2025 as the year of padel in New Zealand. We've gone from two or three courts for about a year, to now we're looking at 25 plus courts by the end of the year across the country."

Markula said the beauty of padel was that it was very forgiving.

"If you go in as a beginner you actually have a decent game because the court is enclosed and you can play quite a lot of rallies even if you're not experienced. The ball is slightly less pressured than a tennis ball and the racquet is quite easy to hit the ball with, it's got a big sweet spot when you're a beginner."

She said it also appealed to people who were time-poor.

"They don't want to invest in 16 or 20 lessons with a tennis coach. I think just going straight into a new sport without having any experience and still having a good time is very attractive. And it's much more gentle on the joints. You can start playing from the age of five to well into your seventies so it's got a big spread, which is not true for a lot of sports."

Brad Miles, a lecturer at the University of Canterbury's School of Health Sciences, said racquet sports often came out on top in international studies on what sports were best for health and longevity.

"Racquet sports do have a number of elements that could be beneficial so there's often bursts of activity followed by short rest periods. There's dynamic movements, there's strategy and decision-making aspects, but then there's the social aspect and that's likely to be a big source of the enjoyment and benefit people get," Miles said.

He said finding something fun and easy to pick up helped eliminate some of the barriers to sport.

"There's been some large scale surveys in New Zealand, a lot of people say that they want to be more active but they are not always successful and one of the leading barriers that they mention is time. So pickleball and similar games that are relatively short and perhaps don't require so much time to get reasonably competent, that's going to be a good option for many people.

"The fun aspect is really central to some of the popularity of these sorts of sports. Let's face it, exercise can be hard and unpleasant at times so the thing about some of these sports for many people, it's a fun game to play."

In 2018, Will Dewhirst was introduced to pickleball when he was the programmes team lead at Ākau Tangi, Wellington's major indoor recreation facility.

"It was seniors week and we were looking for sports that older adults could do and pickleball was one of them. There were a couple of people who were super passionate and I had these great rallies with these 60-70 year olds and I thought 'wow, what a sport' where you can play with and against your parents and grandparents," Dewhirst said.

Now Akau Tangi is bursting at the seams with pickleball players and it is a struggle at times to get court time.

"From there it really just blew up, over the pre-Covid and Covid period in Wellington, because it brings the community together, and it's usually two-verse-two so you're always having good banter with whoever you're playing with or against."

Pickleball was invented in 1965 in Washington by friends who were looking for a game that the whole family could play together.

It started going gangbusters in the USA in the 2000s and 2010s, then spread to other parts of the world. The first Pickleball Club in New Zealand was established in 2015.

Dewhirst said pickleball was a great endorphin kick.

"A lot of sessions are drop-in, see who turns up and have a bash. For me, I struggle to get to the gym because it's quite disciplined, you're really just focussed on your fitness, but with team sports you actually really get to talk to people. Often you are just chatting away as you're playing but at the same time you get a real sweat up because it's all anaerobic movement."

The 32-year-old has now set up his own coaching business and is a competitive player, captaining the New Zealand team at last year's Pickleball World Cup in Peru.

The best players in the world can earn a good living from playing pickleball in professional leagues, particularly in America.

"That's where it's really taken off and some of the top players in the world ... there is a 17-year-old who is a millionaire now between her sponsorship and prize money she has won. And globally it's on TV a lot more now because more and more people are playing it at a social level."

Dewhirst will be heading to play in Australia soon, after being picked up by a major league pickleball challenger team, and should have his costs covered.

"But the top players in Australia will be making a living out of it with their sponsorship. There is prize money a total of $1 million I think this year in prize money across the series."

An iconic New Zealand school playground game that was big in the 1970s and 80s is making a comeback.

Padder tennis mostly fell off the radar by the start of the 1990s but Paul Grubi, who grew up on the sport, is introducing it to New Zealand kids again.

After 35 years in the tennis industry as a player then coach, Grubi decided to set up Padder Tennis New Zealand in 2018.

"We are now in 60 schools in Wellington. We've done a demo down in Christchurch into 10 schools there, we've kitted out some schools down there, painted some courts. We've got people calling from Ashburton now," Grubi said.

"The uptake's been good, maybe we can just blueprint it around the country and everyone will be hitting balls at school with their mates for free every day."

Gen Xers will remember bats made from wood or plastic, old tennis balls, and benches if there were no nets. At Grubi's primary school the kids made their own wooden bats.

The new iteration comes with more consistency - carbon fibre racquets, low compression tennis balls and regulation size nets.

"And we've got kids who wouldn't otherwise play tennis take to it. They all get to serve, and they all get to receive a serve and once they get those two shots happening then the rally is on and they are engaged."

Padder was a good grounding for Grubi, who went to the United States on a university tennis scholarship, and got ranked number two in New Zealand behind Brett Steven in the 1990s.

For those kids who are more competitive in nature, Grubi recently ran an inter-school padder tennis competition, made up of 16 teams from around Wellington.

Grubi has trawled through archives to try to find out exactly how padder tennis came about in schools throughout New Zealand. He hasn't been able to pinpoint its origins, but it's highly likely that New Zealand adopted its own version of paddle tennis, which was adapted from tennis in 1898 in Michigan and gained a lot of traction in the 1940s and 1950s.

Meanwhile, the country's first national padel tour kicks-off in Tauranga on Friday. Across the weekend competitive players and newcomers will compete at the tournament, which will also contribute to the Padel NZ national ranking system.

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