Adaptive padel is growing fast, despite its unique challenges, thanks to a handful of individuals and grassroots organizations.
WORDS
Lee McLaughlan
PHOTOGRAPHY
Jack Binstead & IPT
It’s a hot summer afternoon in east London. Nestled in the shadow of Shoreditch High Street train station are three padel courts.
On one of these courts is Jack Binstead showing his padel credentials. Jack is the padel manager – and he also has the distinction of being the UK’s number one ranked adaptive padel player. A former wheelchair athlete for Great Britain, an international pool player for England and a former TV actor, Jack is driven to succeed.
At 28, Jack looks to have found his calling with padel.
On court, he moves swiftly, deftly turns with one hand on a wheel, the other with his racquet primed to return the ball back with velocity. Whether the ball comes off the glass or is dropped short, Jack makes the double maneuver of moving his chair and hitting the ball seem straightforward, when the reality is very different.
Introduced to padel two years ago by his friend Luke Dolphin, who is also his coach and playing partner when competing, Jack is a new breed of padel player. He tells me, “When I started, I played four or five times a week for a month. I was sold. Padel took over and I started posting pictures and videos of me playing on social media and padel brands and other padel players turned around and said, ‘I've never seen this before.’ That's inspired me to think, let's start something. Let's build a team. Let's get more disabled people into padel. This is my passion.”
However, Jack’s ambitions of creating a team and a network of adaptive padel players in the UK are the real challenge. “I don't know why there are so few players or what that block is really. I've managed to bring a few people on slowly over time and it's been just through chance, really. When I was coaching at Wembley there was a guy that came to play with his mates and he looked like an ordinary guy. But I did a double take and saw that he was missing a leg and an arm. He put on a running blade and looked like he was about to compete in the 100 meters. He started playing padel on my courts and I stopped him right there and said, ‘you are coming to Spain with me next month.’”
Why Spain? The latest Inclusive Padel Tour (IPT), which has established itself as the global competitive event platform for adaptive players, was about to begin.
Photography: Jack Binstead
“‘We’re using racquet sports as a means of rehabilitation for our veterans. The VA, which provides our funding, isn’t equipped to reach our audience. So small organizations, like MACS are delivering programs which are able to provide one-on-one reach with veterans’”
It was founded in 2022 by Italian Paralympic sprinter Alessandro Ossola, who finished sixth in the 100m sprint at the Tokyo Games and competed again in Paris last year before retiring.
Alessandro, who lost a leg in a road traffic accident in 2015, found an outlet in sports. After a while he found himself needing a break from the demands of elite athletics.
Shortly after the Tokyo Games he discovered his love for padel. Initially, Alessandro didn’t think it was realistic to play with a prosthetic limb but once he saw it was possible, he realized there were no structured tournaments or competitions for disabled players to compete against each other.
Cue the birth of the IPT.
IPT events are open to wheelchair players and also people who have lost limbs. Adaptive players compete in pairs with an able-bodied partner and, until recently, all adaptive players were allowed two bounces before returning the ball. However, this rule has recently been tweaked so that adaptive players who have greater mobility now have just one bounce.
The very first IPT event in the Italian town of Pesaro had very humble beginnings.
“At the first tournament we had only six pairs,” recalled the 37-year-old. “I mean, it was a really, really small tournament. It was the first experience of this kind of tournament, which looking back now, it was more like a test event.
“But after that first event we started to grow to eight, then 10, 12 as more people became aware. We were also able to understand all the failures and where we can improve.
“We started to increase the number of players and involve as many volunteers as possible. It's not simple for one or two people to manage a circuit - the rules, the results, the rankings, the website, the social media and so on. It's enormous.”
The IPT’s first year saw tournaments mainly held in Italy with an end of year finale in Monte Carlo. Competitors were mainly Italian as well, though a handful of players from other countries would compete, with some financial support from the IPT for travel and accommodation.
Today, the IPT is forging ahead, having firmly established itself. This year, the IPT is spreading its wings with tournaments in Miami, Nice, Palma, London, Turin and Dubai. It has more players, top tier sponsors like Coca-Cola and Sky Television and is leading the way for disabled padel players globally.
“There are now more than 80 bionic [adaptive] players around the world,” said Alessandro. “They are coming from the UK, Spain, France, Switzerland, Italy, Egypt, the Emirates, Chile and so on.
“Our target is to let this circuit grow across the world because I think it's amazing to play together and for adaptive players to be able to play standing up as well as in wheelchairs.
“We are also trying to get more women involved and playing with us because for us it's really important. We don't have a lot of women. There are four or five women that come to play, but most of the 80 or so people are male. So it's a movement that can grow.”
Photography: IPT
The IPT has also made inroads with padel’s major stakeholders. Alessandro has partnered with Premier Padel, has regular dialog with the International Padel Federation and has secured padel’s inclusion in this year’s World Ability Games in Indonesia.
“We are trying to transform this circuit into something official. We have linked with the International Padel Federation, in order to be recognized and promoted.
“I have organized exhibition matches with Premier Padel, which I think is amazing because we are spreading a very good message. The aim is to have more.
“What we can do in the future is to try and schedule our events to tie in with the Premier Padel calendar. This could be the dream and I think step by step we can achieve it.
“However, the main target for us is to become a Paralympic sport and I think it's possible.
“I am a Paralympic athlete, so I have a lot of contacts. I am also a positive person, so I'm sure that in two, at least three Paralympics, we can be part of it.”
Alessandro is not alone in having that ambition as Jack Binstead is fully behind the push to Paralympic status. He believes the sport deserves its place in the pantheon of all sporting events and that the IPT and Alessandro have an influential role in making it happen.
“Alessandro is doing incredible stuff for adaptive padel on a global scale,” said Jack.
“I've seen a big change and the IPT has done so much for that change. I didn't know about the IPT until I was invited to Dubai to compete. I realized there was a whole community that I could be part of. If it wasn't for them, I really would be a lone wolf in this massively growing industry.”
While the ITP is providing a strong platform for adaptive padel players to meet and compete, the scene across the rest of the world is somewhat different as padel grows at a different pace.
In Asia the focus remains very much on developing the infrastructure and growing the wider padel community. Alenna Dawn, who is President of the Philippines Padel Association, admitted the continent would need its own ‘Alessandro’ to push adaptive padel in the region for it to truly take off.
Dawn tells me, “I am not aware of anywhere organizing adaptive padel or of any adaptive players in the region. I am sure it will develop, but someone has to start it and drive it. If someone can make that first move and make it their focus then I am sure we will see a rise and interest in adaptive padel.
“Right now, padel in Asia is still developing and the focus across the region is on creating facilities and infrastructure to meet the demands of the growing number of players in the region.”
Across the Pacific, the United States Padel Association (USPA) has positioned itself as a facilitator for adaptive padel. Bill Ullman, president of the USPA, is a strong advocate for adaptive padel but acknowledges that, with only around 400 courts in the US, there are limitations for the USPA but it is prepared to provide resources to enable adaptive padel to grow across the country.
Ullman says, “There are two things the US Padel Association can do. One is to provide financial support to back adaptive padel efforts in the United States. The other is to provide volunteers and become a way to reach volunteers to help the adaptive padel efforts of others.
“We are the national governing body of the sport and our core mission is to grow the sport and make the sport more accessible to everyone. Adaptive padel fits into that mission perfectly.
“It also has to be accepted that we're still so early in our development; we are overwhelmed with just dealing with what we have to do as an organization to host and sanction tournaments, recruit, select and support our national teams, building our all-volunteer organization to support our mission.”
Photography: IPT
“While adaptive padel is moving in the right direction, it does have its challenges – costs, court access and coaching all being pain points, reflecting the wider sport itself.”
Photography: IPT
One organization pioneering adaptive padel in the United States is Military Adaptive Court Sports (MACS), which delivers racket sports for veteran and active-duty service members with visible and invisible injuries and their families.
MACS was founded by Lieutenant Commander Steven Harper, USN (Ret.), 15 years ago to initially focus on racquetball. Under Harper’s guidance, MACS has diversified and also delivers badminton, pickleball and padel.
“We’re using racquet sports as a means of rehabilitation to our veterans,” explained Harper. “The Department of Veteran Affairs, which provides our funding, isn’t equipped to reach the audience like we can. So small organizations, like MACS are delivering programs which are able to provide one-on-one reach with the veterans.
“I oversee padel and we offer two different programs which give 12 hours of coaching. We do a mini-camp, which is over consecutive days or we do a six-week clinic with two hours per week.
“A mini-camp delivers four hours of coaching over three days from the basics of striking the ball to being able to lob and play off the glass. It's a progression and after those three or four days, then they can actually play a pretty decent match.
“A lot of folks who come and join one of our clinics absolutely love it. We use padel as an outlet for socialization, while it is definitely a good workout that gets them active again.
“Once they complete the 12-hour session we'll do a graduation ceremony for the attendees. We give them their own padel racquet and a graduation certificate so they can feel accomplished.”
Harper has delivered clinics to upwards of 350 veterans in the main padel hotspots including New York, San Diego, Richmond, Austin, San Antonio and Florida, working with the VA and padel venues. MACS also organized a tournament bringing together teams of veterans to compete for a Captain’s Cup.
Harper would like to be able to replicate this success outside of the military to the wider disabled population. However, as it is funded by the VA, MACS is only able to provide racket clinics for military personnel.
“If we get additional funding from another source, there's no reason why we can't go outside of that community,” he added.
All this points to a potential collaboration between MACS and the USPA one day. Ullman is very aware of the work being done by MACS and would welcome more organizations to support the growth of adaptive padel.
Ullman added, “We're so supportive of MACS, because they're doing amazing work, building on the USPA's mission to grow padel in the US. We want to be helpful to them.
“What Steven Harper and the MACS organization have done in creating clinics and some teams and competitions around the country for veterans to play and to get involved in the sport, is truly commendable.
“If there were a legitimate organization with capable management and coaches involved in adaptive padel that approached the USPA and wanted our help and support, we would be supportive of them too. As far as I know, we just haven't been approached by anybody else and I don't know if there's anybody else out there doing what MACS is doing.”
While adaptive padel is moving in the right direction, it does have its challenges – costs, court access and coaching all being pain points, reflecting the wider sport itself.
Back in London, Jack Binstead is very aware. “There's nothing specific in terms of adaptive padel to help me. I need an adaptive padel coach who can elevate my game and teach me how to turn fast enough, while holding a padel racket to be able to hit a ball when it's bouncing off two panes of glass at 30 miles an hour.
“What’s needed is the likes of Sport England (a government-funded organization to develop grassroots sport) to say ‘here's some money that we're going to put into advancing our padel players.’
“From a personal point of view, finances also matter. I don't have any sponsors on board ahead of my next tournament so I don't know how I'm going to afford it. My worry for every tournament is that I won't be able to afford it – even with the support from the IPT.”
The final words go to Ullman, who while reflecting on the US scene, could easily be talking about the needs across the globe: “To really have a robust, adaptive padel program we're going to need the existing and the many yet-to-be-built clubs to buy in to helping out and understanding that there are people out there that will potentially want access to the sport and being able to provide the court time, the space and importantly the coaching.” ✸
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lee McLaughlan
Lee is the Head of Media at Fair Game and founder of Sweetspot Communications & Auvent PR. Lee has over three decades of journalism and PR experience.
