There is tennis, squash and padel. We see padel courts appearing more and more often in the Netherlands and that is not surprising: it is a very good sport. Now it seems according to a study by Holidu that certain cities in the Netherlands are extra padel-friendly. Here they are.
Padel
Padel is not known to everyone, but it is a tennis-like game with a ball and a racket that you generally play against others. Three others to be precise, because padel is officially played with four people in total. It is a mix of tennis and squash and you play it on a rectangular court of 10 meters wide and 20 meters long. That surface in itself is not the most interesting: that is the fact that there must be walls everywhere because the walls can be used to give the ball effects and get ahead of the opponents.
It is often wrongly thought that padel is a very aggressive sport that requires hard hitting, but that is not the case. Because people use the wall to their advantage, the padel ball can still give the right effect even if it is hit less hard. The padel ball resembles a tennis ball, but it is a somewhat slower ball. It is also useful to know that padel follows the same score series as tennis, so 15, 30, 40, deuxe, advantage and game and that 3 sets are often played.
In some circles, padel has now developed into a very social game that even takes the place of golf, which was previously seen as the social game that was also played for business purposes. This is also possible with padel, especially in the Netherlands. We appear to be extremely wealthy in our country when it comes to the number of padel courts available. According to the aforementioned Holidu research, most padel courts can be found in the capital. No wonder: Amsterdam is also the largest city, so it is not surprising that there are 88 padel courts there.
Groningen
The number two is more surprising, because that is Groningen. Now that is also a very sporty city, but that there are no fewer than 44 padel courts, probably no one expected that. Third place goes to Eindhoven with 37 padel courts and central Utrecht comes in fourth place with 35 padel courts. The advantage of having a padel court nearby is that it is less hassle to hit a ball. You don’t have to go home from work first and then not want to get off the couch: just go straight from work. Or maybe even go during the break with your colleagues. The advantage of padel is that even half an hour of playing does a lot for your body.
Cities where you should not live if you are fond of sport are Zaanstad and Velsen-Zuid, where there are exactly 0 padel courts. People there are probably still playing tennis or golf. Or maybe even nothing at all. In any case, padel has not yet been discovered there. A shame, because this sport from Acapulco, Mexico, is very accessible and fun to do. Moreover, it does not require as much space as tennis, which means that as a city you can have a court built quite easily: easier than a tennis court. That is how padel was created. The businessman Enrique Corcuera wanted a tennis court, but because he did not have enough space, he decided in 1969 to invent a similar sport. Padel was born.
It took a while for it to become the monster hit here in the Netherlands that it is now, but it is clear that padel has become indispensable in some cities. And rightly so: give it a try.
[Fotocredits © JackF – Adobe Stock]
