GB International Richard Brooks has revealed that he is making a professional comeback at 41 years old and will be targeting the FIP Tour as he looks to relaunch his career at the elite level.
Brooks was the first Brit to break the top 100 rankings with the World Padel Tour while he also achieved a global ranking on the ATP Tour peaking at 1036 in 2003.
While he has also enjoyed a stellar coaching career in tennis having mentored Jelena Jankovic to World No.3 and the Wimbledon mixed doubles championship with Jamie Murray.
Yet such is the reverence in which he is still held within UK padel Brooks has been ushered into the ranks of the Team GB men’s team for next week’s World Championship qualifiers at We Are Padel Derby.
In a recent interview with The Padel Paper men’s coach John Leach cited the veteran as a cornerstone of the team who was the key to Team GB hopes of making Qatar.
Now in a wide-ranging interview Brooks has discussed his hopes for his comeback and of formalising his involvement with the LTA and his fears that UK padel is playing catch-up with their continental counterparts.
But first how important is qualification for the World Championships?
Brooks said: “It’s vital. The last couple of years I have been playing the World Champs and the Europeans and it is a concern we are falling back. The other countries have an excellent base and they have ex-tennis players training padel and everyone is willing to do the right thing whereas in the UK we are behind them.
“If we are not doing the right things we will continue to fall back. We were previously 6th in Europe and 10th in the world and now we are not even in the top 10.
“We do not have many courts and it is still the same players and I am a retired player and I am coming back again at 41!
“For me I don’t know exactly what the structure is with the LTA but if I had a chance to speak to the LTA and explain from my real-time experience it would be great.
“I am the only one to have played World Padel Tour and the first British player into the top 100 in the world, and I want to contribute from that standpoint.
“I have heard a lot of news about building new clubs but I don’t really know much about the launch (LTA launch of padel in UK in 2023) next year.
“I do think in our team we have good players but maybe just not the depth of some of the other countries like Portugal and that is down to structure as we have some players in Dubai and some elsewhere and some of them are not taking it 100%.
“For me we are without the necessary structure in the UK and I see that as vital to make it happen in the next five years and if not we will just be so far back compared with the other countries.
“In this respect I believe that I can help as a coach and as a player that I can also still contribute to the team. I can travel with them, play with them, and help them with my experience and can give them a lot of feedback about the game.
“So for me it would just be amazing to be working with the LTA and travel with the British players for the FIP events and this is the perfect moment for me to do that.”
Dissecting his twin careers in tennis and padel Brooks was typically candid as he discussed the whys and wherefores: “After playing padel professionally I had to come back to the tennis tour as there was no money in padel although I would have loved to carry on playing padel.
“I had started with tennis and I made the finals of the Nationals and lost to Mark Hilton, Cameron Norrie’s coach, and I played junior Wimbledon and made it to the ATP Tour.
“But I found it pretty tough on the ATP Tour and I decided to coach pretty young and I had a group and ended up coaching Jelena Jankovic, who was three in the world and won the Wimbledon mixed with Jamie Murray.
“Then I went back to Spain and I started working with the Spanish Federation with their youngsters and then at the time I had the chance to make padel pro in the UK which was a difficult moment as no one knew about padel over here and that was how I started with padel.
“So, after my tennis career and I had an amazing job, Tom Murray (LTA Head of Padel) and I were talking about how I could help grow the sport of padel in the UK.
“But obviously you need British players to be somewhere and obviously you need the youngsters to have a role model and I hope I’ve done that role and tried to stay there and I have done so on two occasions.
“But I couldn’t afford to spend more money and I didn’t have any sponsors to carry on. It is not as expensive as tennis but it is money and if you are travelling it costs and if I quit tennis I didn’t have any income.
“Hopefully the LTA and the sponsors can come and help me while I am trying to grow the sport in the UK and I will give it a go for a third time.”
Brooks is electing to pursue the ‘three-peat’ of his career on the FIP Tour and was in no mood to hold back as to the reason behind this: “My priority is FIP more than World Padel Tour. I was there at the beginning of World Padel Tour and how professional they are but they are not willing to grow as big as FIP.
“It is now my personal opinion that FIP are really trying to grow padel worldwide and that they are really helping the players and not just the top players but all of them where the World Padel Tour only helped the top 20 and the rest had nothing.
“How can the No.21 in the world survive? Well he couldn’t and I didn’t agree with that. With FIP it is different.
“I watched Rome and Roland Garros and over the last five years I have had offers from young guys ranked around 150 in the world to play with them and partner them and they say we can play Paris but I was still working with tennis players and I can’t put that to one side.
“But all of that is just a really exciting prospect.”
When it came to the main dangers to British success next week Brooks has no doubt that the unseeded duo of Portugal and Sweden will pose the main threat.
He said: “I know Portugal very well and I know them from tennis and they have an amazing team and they have had great backing from their Federation with everything paid for by them and that has helped them build an amazing team.
“They are very dangerous as they are not seeded and their level is way above us. I know Miguel Oliveira is one of the leftie players and he is amazing and I think he has just done a final recently.
“They also have Diogo Rocha and Nuno Deus and they are a very talented team but with a great work ethic.
“It is the same with Sweden who have Calle Knutsson and Simon Vasquez and if Britain had to play one of these countries I think we would find it tough.
“So hopefully the draw will be kind to us.”
