The Britain Padel Tour (BPT) is preparing to begin its first full season and co-founders Fabian David and Razvan Pasat are aiming to raise standards to “100% professionals” by the end of the year.
In two weeks’ time (28 February) the first BPT event of 2025 starts at Rocket Padel Ilford, featuring GB No.3 Tia Norton alongside Dutch No.1 Stephanie Weterings, Denmark’s No. 1 duo Julia Isabella and Simone Alipieva, British pair Alfonso Patacho and Chris Salisbury, world top 100 Spaniards Joaquin Saura and Alex Romero, plus one of GB’s top juniors, 14-year-old star Ollie Grantham.
Building on its maiden events last year in Durham and Leeds, BPT are rolling out eight male and female events across the course of the year. Six of the tournaments will be held across two days, starting with the Ilford F2 from 28 February – 1 March. BPT’s first major of the year will be held over three days in Manchester in July, while the BPT Finals, also three days, will be held in London at the end of the year.
Speaking to The Padel Paper, co-founders Fabian and Razvan said: “We are open only to professionals, top-level professionals. We will keep the tournaments like this, and we will try to attract the best players. If not the same players, then we will try to attract better players each time, from different parts of Europe and different countries, from North America, Mexico and Argentina as well. The long-term plan for the tour is to hopefully become the next Premier Padel in the UK.”
Each BPT event will have two draws, men and women, with 16 pairs in each draw. There will be a group phase played across the two days, with group winners advancing to the semi-finals and finals. Both tournaments will be played simultaneously. “We don’t separate the men from the women,” said Fabian.
Razvan added: “If you look at our tournament in Leeds that we ended 2024 with, 30% of our players were professional. We aim to have 90%+ professional players for these first few tournaments of the year, then increasing to 100% towards the end of the year.
“We are very happy that we were able to disrupt the market last year and that everyone is trying to step up the prizes for the players, which was our main goal. We are doing this from two points of view. We wanted to make a great experience for the players and fans alike, so we are very happy that other tournament operators are bringing the prizes up for the 2025 season.
“We were blown away by the exponential growth from one tournament to the other. Neither myself or Fabian were expecting such a positive outcome. We were hoping for a good turnout, but the traction we got from the two events was fabulous. We secured our first round of investment at the start of the year, that is something really important to us, as we can maintain the same level of competition throughout the season. We couldn’t have done that without the first two events.”
Despite launching the Britain Padel Tour without the help of the LTA, both David and Pasat are hopeful of future collaboration with the governing body in order to develop the UK padel scene.
“We are very open to co-operation,” said Razvan. “We are trying to bring padel to as many people as possible. We have had some initial contact with the LTA and we are going to meet next week to discuss how we can collaborate for the 2025 season. We don’t consider ourselves a lone wolf, but we are trying to be the most professional tournament operator in the country, and we are trying to raise the bar extremely high.”
Fabian added: “I believe in a strong community in order to build a strong padel culture within the UK, from grassroots through to professionals. It must be done together with the community. We need the players to work with us, we need the people to work with us.
“We are trying to create a platform to showcase padel in front of as many people as possible, but we cannot do it alone. We want people from within the industry, and people who want to find out what padel is all about, coming to the events to cheer on the players. It will make a difference.”
