Last month saw arguably the most famous and spectacular venue ever conceived for a padel tournament – and it couldn’t have happened without a hard-working Englishman.
The A1 Padel Grand Master event (sponsored by the New York Yankees) was set in the shadow of the skyscrapers in New York’s iconic Central Park and was a feat of logistics and engineering expertise. Jubo Logistics, Infinity Brands and Padel+ joined forces to organise shipping, transporting, setting up and maintaining the court, as well as the lighting, and the man spearheading the project was Lee Witham.
Witham’s UK- and US-based company, Padel+ is the distributor for JUBO padel courts in North America, the Caribbean and the UK. JUBO’s Infinity model is the official court of the A1 Padel tour, so it was Lee’s task to get it through the busy streets of NYC, erect it on site and prepare it for the elite players, spectators, organisers and a legion of inquisitive potential investors. No pressure then.
“The venue was incredible,” Lee tells The Padel Paper. “It was like something out of a movie. You were sitting there underneath the skyscrapers and you felt so small. When the court was up and illuminated the scene looked absolutely stunning.”
But it took several 18-hour days from Padel Plus’s ground crew and many logistical headaches before Lee could stand back and bask in the picturesque autumnal urban scene.
“Doing anything in New York City is not easy,” he says. “Logistically it was very, very challenging. The tournament had been delayed from the summer due to permit issues, so having it in October brought the weather into play.”
The tournament was staged on the Woolman ice rink at the south end of the park, which regularly hosts mass participation pickleball.
“We had very heavy rain and the ice rink was actually flooded four days before the event,” says Lee. “Once that was cleared, our installation team worked for days and then until 4.30am to get the court set up for matches starting at 10am the following day.”
More heavy rain caused the semi-finals to be postponed on the Saturday – which was when most of the tournament’s special guests and potential investors were arriving.
“We got there in the end, it all came together and the court looked amazing,” Lee smiles. “Myself and our Sales Director, Rob Krizek, brought some pretty big investors in to see padel for the first time and they were blown away by it.”
Lee lived in New York for 20 years and is a lifelong squash player (as well as Padel Plus, Lee runs Squash Plus, specialising in innovations in outdoor squash courts) so he knows the US racket sports scene well.
He says of padel’s growth in NYC: “It’s obviously early days but there’s a real buzz. The tournament definitely wasn’t sold out but we had a non-paying mezzanine for passers-by and they were very curious to know what this really cool sport was. It’s important at this stage to just get it out there and putting it in front of people so they can see it.
“You still have to do your elevator pitch, but we’ve completed some really huge projects recently and we’re getting more and more enquiries every day. It feels like it’s about to get very big very quickly.”
