Most likely you have seen a few highlights of spectacular padel points before even picking a racket up for the first time yourself. Or you tried to play, went home and wanted to see how it should be played…?! In countries where padel is developing, there is a bit of confusion over national federations, the governing body and the professional padel circuit. This article will attempt to clarify those:
World Padel Tour (WPT)
This is a private company that owns and manages the professional circuit. The company is under the same umbrella of companies as Estrella Damm, the main sponsor for the circuit. There are usually about 18 professional tournaments from end of March until December, with some challengers (smaller ones) and exhibitions thrown in. The majority of these are in Spain and Argentina (the home of padel), but in recent years a few other countries have held them too. The players are all contracted (and sponsored) to play these events and have strict rules about participating in other events outside that. The tournaments are usually streamed live on YouTube from the quarterfinals onwards.
www.worldpadeltour.com
International Padel Federation (FIP)
This is the governing body for the sport of padel internationally. The FIP are in charge of the World Championship and European Championship events, competitions between nations, as well as the junior versions. There is also an FIP calendar that is made up of all the countries that host tournaments that award FIP points. A country must register with the FIP in order to host these tournaments. Some of these events are streamed live and often depends on the country set
www.padelfip.com
Until recently there wasn’t much coordination between the FIP and the WPT, but this year the FIP tournaments are awarding WPT points in an attempt to allow players of all nationalities to gain points and to provide a transition for those at the lower level of the WPT as a way to improve. Due to the setup of the tours, it has previously been very difficult for young players to increase in the rankings. So let’s see if this will help both circuits…
National Federation
This is a federation setup by each individual country to help govern the sport of padel within that country. In different countries, this has been done in different ways, some countries the padel federation comes under the tennis federation and in some countries, it is setup independently. It is too early and there are too many variables in each country to determine which is the more successful route…
Details can usually be found for this at your local club/facebook/google…
As always, any questions about these or if you are struggling to get in touch with any of the above, let us know in the comments below!
