Can anyone explain to me why this sport is so popular that it’s taking over prime locations in expensive cities?
Simply put: it’s a very fun sport.
It’s doubles so you only need four people to play. The underarm serve gives it a very shallow learning curve so almost anybody can play. However, there is enough nuance to the game that there’s lots of tactics and skill to learn as you get better.
Also the app (Playtomic) for organising games works great.
We have indoor courts here in the UK where’s there’s not much else to do in the winter. It’s a lot easier to get four people together to play padel for 90 minutes than trying to get 10/12 together for a 5/6-a-side football match.
I ussed to play it with friends. The big advantage to tennis is that the ball never gets too far away :)
It takes much less time to learn it at a playable level than tennis. In my opinion, learning tennis and being able to hit a powerful drive is much more rewarding, but nowadays people don’t want to “waste” time in improving technique.
Yuppies/expats love it, that's pretty much the reason.
yeah, it is getting popular everywhere.