Talking sport with Craig Salmon - I cannot understand what all the "racket" is around padel

Call me old fashioned but I just cannot fathom what all the fuss is about with padel.

A sport which has certainly been popular on the continent for many years has taken the UK by storm in recent years.

All of a sudden padel appears to be the trendy game that everybody wants to be seen playing.

It’s as though somebody has reinvented, sorry, invented the wheel.

Who would have thought it eh? A game which involves a bat-type object hitting a ball-type object over a net in a confined space. Never heard of that concept before.

Padel courts are popping up all over the place as entrepreneurs - fair play to them - are in a race to earn a slice of the action.

Before too long, I am sure a padel court will be the garden accessory of every middle-class household.

Obviously, I jest and before anyone has a go at me, I have played padel and I am certainly aware that no doctor will ever discourage people from doing something which quite clearly gets their heart rate up and blood pumping, not to mention the dexterity required to take part.

And so to that end, I’m in favour of anything which promotes exercise and healthy living.

But I’ll be honest, padel just does not do it for me.

In my opinion, it is a very poor relation to the great Olympic sports which are table tennis, badminton and squash - not to mention the crème de la crème of all rackets/bat sports - tennis.

I am lucky enough to have played all four in my life and the level of skill required to play them, in my opinion, far exceeds anything you need to play padel.

My 16-year-old twin daughters have been playing tennis for the past couple of years, attending coaching sessions on a weekly basis.

Their general play is improving to such an extent that they could possibly play competitively this summer.

The only thing holding them back? The mastery of the serve! It’s the hardest shot.

Getting all your body parts aligned to execute a perfect ball toss, an overarm motion imparting spin, pace and power on the ball to land over the net and into the service box is a hugely difficult skill.

It’s an ability which requires hours of practice, not to mention a certain degree of confidence.

It’s only once you’ve got the ball in play during a match that you can then start thinking about hitting top spin forehands, double-handed backhands - one-handed slices if you’re a Roger Federer fan - and drop volleys.

Compare that to padel where players literally underarm a serve into play to get the point started - well, there’s no comparison.

And maybe there lies the crux of it. Padel is a much easier game to play than the four traditional racket/bat sports and that’s why it’s so popular.

Maybe its simplicity in terms of shot production means it’s a great game for older members of society, who are perhaps starting to struggle with a lifetime of wear and tear on their bodies.

However, it would be a massive shame if people, especially the younger-ish generation, turned their backs on learning - and attempting to master - a higher skilled sport in favour of a lesser one.

Arguably the greatest tennis player who has ever lived, Novak Djokovic, voiced his concerns a couple of years ago that padel could endanger tennis.

There is evidence that tennis courts are being replaced by padel courts which take up half the space - and economically are more viable, but when it comes to spectator value, I would argue, tennis is the best to watch, with badminton, table tennis and squash not too far behind.

And let’s not forget we have one of the greatest sporting institutions in history - Wimbledon - to protect.

Maybe I am being slightly harsh on padel and perhaps it is the modern world which has had a detrimental effect on player participation in traditional sports.

I remember as a kid, I used to spend hours playing table tennis at my grandma’s house against her and my sister. We would set up a makeshift net over the dining room table and play for hours.

But despite learning all the different spins required to bring the ball down over the net and onto the opposite side of the table, it was the one sport I could rarely get the better of my dad at.

He had grown up in the 1950s and 60s where youth clubs were nightly go-to places and he would pit his wits against his peers in regular competitions.

Even now at 74-years-old, with arthritic knees and a walking stick, he reckons he could still get the better of me. Mmmm…not too sure about that any more, dad!

And come to think of it, the local squash club I used to frequent when I was a kid has been closed down for years, approaching decades.

To be honest, it feels like a similar story across all sports - from my own experience where I live, there are not anywhere near as many local football leagues or cricket leagues as there was when I was growing up.

Indeed, the first ever club I played for in amateur football boasted seven separate adult teams. There was also a cricket section - now the club is defunct.

I can only surmise that the younger generation nowadays prefer their virtual reality headsets and gaming chairs, rather than a traditional game of sport.

Esports are now recognised by the Olympic movement - so maybe we are not too far away from the first ever virtual reality padel champion from being anointed!