International Women’s Day
This post is dedicated to all the padel ladies across the world on this International Women’s Day, so let’s talk about some of the reasons why padel may be attracting more and more ladies to the game and reasons why this will only keep growing in 2021!
Unlike many other racquet sports, padel is attracting a high percentage of women to play regularly, both socially and competitively. In comparison with tennis for example (and other racquet sports), where less than 15% of players are women, now over 30% of padel players are female and it would seem this is growing all the time!
Firstly, women are being attracted to the sport for the same reasons as the men! As we have mentioned in previous posts, padel is more accessible for its ease of play for all ages, low impact on the body, high social focus and just how fun the sport is in general! So that’s easy to say, but what are the factors that are attracting even more women to play the sport?
Padel is well known for being a game that is easy to learn and hard to master and many aspects of the sport can really ‘level’ the playing field. A softer ball, underarm serve, slower pace and glass to the rear all makes for a more competitive rally. So with a reduced emphasis on power and pace, women can get involved in those rallies even more and mixed doubles is more appealing and enjoyable to play for everyone. Men don’t have to slow down their 120mph+ serve and ladies can compete with men on a level playing field.
As we see The World Padel Tour continue to grow, this creates more female role models who are inspiring women and girls around the world to try the sport. Not only that, but when they try the sport it is easy to play and get hooked! For example, if women are inspired to play tennis, then try to learn the sport, they quickly realise that it’s going to take several months and lots of lessons to master the sport (same as it is for men)! With padel however, after a game or two (no lessons required) the sport is easily picked up and regular social play is achieved quickly.
So in short, when players like Arianna Sánchez Fallada and Marta Ortega inspire women to play the sport, they are going to learn fast and become quickly addicted to the game!
As more women get involved in the sport, more pressure will be applied to The World Padel Tour to narrow the gender pay gap that apparently still remains.
Padel is gaining more exposure on social media and this has been key to the growth in several nations. That is, as more people get involved in the sport they are sharing ‘padel posts’ on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter. More recently, we are seeing more ‘Reels’ of padel games and the inevitable ‘Tik Toks’. This social media marketing is imperative to the growth of padel in general, but also attracts more females to the sport. Instagram for example has almost 80% of users who are female. As more influencers start to play the sport, this will have another wave of social posts and awareness about the sport, which is needed particularly here in the UK.