Home of Padel (HOP) co-founder John Leach is hoping for another great weekend, as both the men and women’s pro tours head to North Yorkshire for HOP’s biggest event to date, with £3,000 and 4,000 ranking points on offer.
Leach runs HOP alongside former LTA #1 Javi Serrats, with the pair organising padel competitions across the country for players of all different abilities. Serrats will in fact be competing alongside current #1, Jorge Martinez, as the top seeds in the men’s event.
This will be the first LTA Grade One event that HOP have hosted, taking place at the UK’s largest indoor padel centre in Harrogate. Surge Padel holds ‘state of the art facilities including six premium indoor Adidas courts, luxury changing facilities and a bar to help the players unwind after their matches’.
While the facilities were a huge bonus, another incentive for Leach was to bring the tour up to the north, “We want to take our tour all around the country. A couple of weeks ago we had a HOP Pro event in London at Hampton Court, which was a great success, so we just like to spread it out so that both Northern and Southern players have equal opportunity to play our events.”
The event starts on Saturday at 10am with the men’s draw, involving 17 doubles pairs. The tournament is headlined by the aforementioned Martinez and Serrats, amongst other big names including Nikhil Mohindra and Alberto Crespo. Mohindra will be part of the GB squad going to Dubai for the World Championships, in a couple of weeks’ time.
It will all culminate on Sunday afternoon, following the women’s final. This field is slightly smaller with only eight teams, something that Leach hopes to expand on in the future, “The women’s tour has been progressing year on year, and it is great to see high quality women in this draw. Of course, in the future we want to see an equal sized draw for males and females, and that will happen over time.”
As Leach mentioned there is quality in abundance, with the British #1 Tia Norton perhaps the biggest name in the field. The 18-year-old will be full of confidence after winning her first international title in London a couple of months ago, with Carla Fito. In Harrogate she will be teaming up with fellow Brit, Claire Smith.
However, they will certainly face strong competition from the top seeds, Lisa Phillips and Abigail Tordoff. The British pair are head and shoulders above the rest in terms of LTA ranking points and will be looking to show their dominance on Sunday.
Understandably, the prize money and ranking points are a huge incentive for players in this event, but Leach was keen to promote the social side being as important as the competitive.
“The main goal for these events is to make them sociable and enjoyable. Even if you lose in the first round there is a consolation event, so every team will get to play at least twice.”
“We just want players to have a great experience; they get a welcome pack, free t-shirts, drinks, they get a whole bunch of stuff. We also always try to choose a venue near to restaurants, so that even if the player gets knocked out early on, they still have plenty to do.”
As well as the incentives for players, there is also benefits for spectators as the event is free to watch, so if you have a free weekend why not go and watch some top quality racquet sport?
Keep an eye out for our tournament report this weekend.
