Manchester's first outdoor padel club launches in shadow of Deansgate Towers

manchestereveningnews.co.uk:

Padel, the world's fastest-growing racket sport loved by world-class tennis stars including Andy Murray and Serena Williams has landed in Manchester.

Tucked between the iconic towers of Deansgate Square in Manchester’s emerging New Jackson neighbourhood, Club de Padel is a first for Manchester and is the brainchild of David Blake, James Wigglesworth, Matt McKinlay and Lucy Noone, who after coming across the sport in Barcelona several years ago were set on bringing the 'social sport' to Manchester.

A cross between squash and tennis and mostly played in doubles with stringless rackets, the sport was first devised in Mexico in the late 60s but has taken off worldwide in recent years with the help of endorsements from the likes of tennis icons like Andy Murray.

Today, it's played by around 25 million people worldwide in more than 90 countries, with more than six million players in Spain alone. READ MORE: The new hidden cocktail bar tucked away under a Northern Quarter pizza parlourREAD MORE: '£5 for a pancake is just unsustainable': The Manchester Christmas Market traders fighting for survival "A few years back in Barcelona we were walking down by the beach we saw all these floodlights and saw all these tennis balls flying about, and I'm a big racket sports enthusiast so I went over and started watching this game, along with lots of others around us, and I just thought it was amazing," recalls Club de Padel co-founded David Blake. "We came back to Manchester and at that point there were no padel clubs or courts nearby, so the idea to bring padel to Manchester has been germinating for quite a while.