iPadel founder Ian Colligon has revealed that this year’s Winter Leagues are set to take the competition to the next level.
70 teams spanning the length and breadth of England and Wales will be taking part and Colligon is delighted to announce We Are Padel Derby as the hosts for the showpiece finals weekend in March 2023.
The West Midlands padel super-venue have also agreed to provide a £1,000 per competition prize fund across the men’s women’s and mixed tournaments.
With entry confined in the men’s tournament to players who have not competed at LTA National League One or international level and in the women’s to non-internationalists, the iPadel Leagues, which are about to enter their fourth season, are once again set to confirm themselves as the premier tournament for inter-club competition in the UK.
With the first round of fixtures scheduled for play by the end of October, teams from across the country from the Bourne Club in Farnham to Tennis World Middlesbrough are set to renew their rivalries over the winter months.
As Colligon revealed: “I set up the iPadel Leagues to provide clubs and their players with what they enjoy in tennis which is to play competitive padel against other clubs.
“This is not what the LTA are doing which is their National League and is for the top players and professionals, I wanted this to be for club players so we have some restrictions on who can play.
“So, basically if you play LTA National League division one (in the men’s competition) you are not eligible and that has proven really successful and we are now in our fourth season and I have 70 teams signed up for our winter league which kicks off later this month.
“It will run from now until February with the finals at We Are Padel Derby. We did the summer finals there and they were very generous in putting up prize money for the winter leagues and a huge thanks to Rosco Muller for that fantastic support.
“So there is now £1,000 prize money for the gents, ladies, and mixed winners, which is tremendous but it also creates its own problems! We have to be very tight with our entry criteria but this is the first time we have had prize money in the iPadel Leagues and the support of We Are Padel in this respect really is much appreciated.”
Turning his attention to the structure of the tournament Ian went on: “In the men’s we have eight divisions and in the ladies it is four divisions plus two mixed. Normally the London teams do well in this and our last winners were Roehampton Club and this winter for the first time we have the Chelsea Harbour Club entered.
“In this respect we have a bit of a distinction in terms of the playing criteria for men’s and ladies and I have had a chat with Rosco (Muller) at We Are Padel to clarify the entry rules as the ladies competition is slightly different.
“What we don’t want is to have elite players entering but the ladies have a smaller playing pool to draw upon so the criteria there is if you’ve played internationally you can’t play which I hope is the fairest way around this. In the men’s it is set hard, if you play National League Division One you can’t play.
“But basically the ethos behind it is to get people playing. It is an opportunity to play against other clubs meet new people and test yourself against people at a similar level to yourself from elsewhere.
“We didn’t want people saying ‘there is no point in playing in this because Nikhil Mohindra is playing’! So we wanted the best club level tournament we could create and that is what we have I believe and I’m pleased to say the first round of fixtures will be played by the end of October.”
Of course there are challenges in running a country-wide competition with 70 teams battling it out for a place at the finals weekend and Ian admitted his disappointment that there will be no Scottish division this time around.
He said: “It’s been disappointing with Scotland this season. The iPadel Leagues started as a result of a conversation between me, Nige Garton at Tennis World Middlesbrough, Chris Warren at Rocks Lane, and Dev McCulloch at West of Scotland.
“In Scotland the first league we did the Scots had their own league so they opted to play their fixtures over one weekend as West of Scotland is in Ayrshire and the rest are in Edinburgh, so it made sense for them to do it as an event.
“But I approached them to repeat that and no one has got back to me and that is really disappointing as we’d love to have them involved and the north and the Midlands down here are doing the same thing as Scotland did last time around which was very successful.
“Geography can be an issue although in the South East it is easy as there are loads of teams. We have clubs competing from The Bourne Club in Farnham, Hampshire up to Tennis World Middlesbrough and also clubs in Wales and East Gloucestershire so it really is nationwide and I am proud of that.
“But I’m delighted the finals weekend will be at We Are Padel Derby in March. They really are super hosts, in terms of hospitality, free courts and now sponsors, they are just brilliant.
“So that will be the winners and runners-up depending on how big your league is. If there are four teams it is just the winners if it is six then it will be two making it through to Derby.”
Colligon started iPadel in 2015 as almost a one-stop padel shop to help grow the game and he recalled: “Basically the idea behind iPadel was to provide an English-speaking outlet that provided quality content on padel as everything that was online was in Spanish and nothing really in English.
“I started the company in 2015 and was probably a bit early, really it was similar to what Game4Padel are doing now. At the time I was living in Norwich and tried to get some public courts set up but it didn’t really work.
“Then in 2018 I moved back to Surrey, which is the area I had stayed in and also coached tennis in and I reached out to my old tennis connections and I had another go to see what I could do and I had the website built and started trying to promote padel from there.
“So it started that way but now I am involved in different things. I have an interest in court construction with different suppliers and if anyone wants a padel court I can put them in touch with the right people.
“I was involved in construction myself and had done a lot of research into the best suppliers and the best courts, so that type of consultancy is part of what I do but I am not a salesman for anyone.
“So basically I give clients the options and the reasons for them but the final decision is theirs.”
Anyone wishing to contact Ian can find details on the iPadel website.
