Legends Padel Tour to give over-60s a platform to thrive

The new Legends Padel Tour will give UK padel players in their 60s and 70s a platform to be ‘seen, appreciated and respected,’ according to co-founder Sally Fisher.

The Legends Padel Tour is a calendar of tournaments and bespoke coaching camps for the over-60s hosted by coaches with sufficient experience to be able to adapt to the skill, speed and mobility level of an older cohort.

The Tour’s busy programme kicked off on 17 October in Middlesbrough with a men’s 60+ and 65+ training camp hosted by GB women’s coach Libby Fletcher. The next event is at Rocket Padel Ilford on 31 October for a women’s 60+ training camp in partnership with WIMX and the LTA, with coaching led by Jo Ward and Helen Crook.

The programme of activities is already planned up until January, when there will be a training camp in Graz, Austria. All confirmed events have already sold out (with a waiting list!). Further as-yet unconfirmed events for 2025 include a summer Legends Padel Festival, a men’s 65+ training camp at Rocks Lane in London and camps in Ibiza and mainland Spain.

All scheduled events cater for 60+ and 65+ but specific 70+ training camps will be added if there is sufficient demand. The oldest registered player so far is 86 and although some players are novices, others have already played in LTA Seniors tournaments.

To launch the Tour, Sally has partnered with her fellow GB Seniors team member Nicky Horn, who will host two Mixed Americano tournaments at Surge Padel in Harrogate in November and December.

The idea for the Tour was initially inspired by a match at last year’s FIP Senior European Padel Championships in Alicante between Great Britain and the Netherlands.

In midday temperatures of well over 30C, GB’s Sally Bickerton and Audrey Henderson played a Super Seniors (60+) match lasting over three hours (pictured above) which they won in heroic fashion 6-7, 7-6, 10-8. “To this day, it’s one of the most exciting padel matches I’ve ever seen,” remembers Sally. “That was my inspiration to create The Legends Padel Tour. To think that those ladies had no tournaments or competitive structure waiting for them when they returned to the Uk just wasn’t right. I had to do something.

“I want older athletes to be seen, appreciated and respected. We live in a society where there is still a lot of ageism. I don’t want to let this happen in padel. We want people to be looking forward to being 60 so they can become a padel legend.”

After returning from the European Seniors in Alicante last year, Sally lobbied the LTA to start holding 60+ tournaments for women. They were unconvinced that there was sufficient demand, so Sally teamed up with Sally Brown to stage the Legends Cup (60+) and Phoenix Cup (70+) last November at the Padel Hub in Slough, then a second editions of both tournaments in Harrogate in June this year.

That ‘proof of concept’ was enough to convince the LTA to add 60+ competitions and rankings for women to the age-group tournaments they already organised for men. The governing body has also taken over organisation of the GB Seniors national squads.

Having won that battle, Sally then came up with the idea of a separate Legends Padel Tour to plot a full calendar of events that would keep older padel fanatics of all standards active and competitive all year round.

“The atmosphere in the Legends and Phoenix Cups were fantastic and that proved to us that there was demand from this age group. I wanted to create something vibrant that secured a long-term future for over-60s who want to play padel and improve their game.”