By Jamie Morris
Home Of Padel’s Javi Serrats reckons this weekend’s Hop Tour event in London will leave padel fans rocking in Rocks Lane.
Serrats, a qualified coach, was also the number one ranked player on the LTA padel tour in 2019 and along with GB Men’s International Team coach John Leach the duo are responsible for founding Home of Padel, the organisers behind Saturday’s Hop Tour event, which provides competition at professional and amateur level.
The Rocks Lane tourney in Chiswick will kick-off at 10am on Saturday before reaching its climax at around 8pm and the former Spanish junior international believes this weekend’s competition is crucial for players who do not have a professional ranking, allowing them to get a taste of competitive action against those of a similar level.
Serrats said: “The Hop Tour that we run is for early advanced players so it’s more focused on players who haven’t started competing at a very high level yet and it gives them an introduction to the competition. This year we are running nine or ten of these events with Rocks Lane our focus this weekend.
“John and I are co-founders and directors of The Home of Padel and we do all the organisation of the events, the running of the tournaments and we referee them. As a company we are starting from scratch and at the moment we are doing everything.
“We have a restriction in this kind of tournament with nobody in the top 30 in the UK rankings playing.”
Serrats also highlighted the fact that every team will play at least two matches at the event, making it a worthwhile experience for all entrants.
He continued: “We are organising this tournament as an elimination draw; every team gets two matches.
“Teams losing in the first round also get a consolation match while the winners keep progressing until the finals, while the teams losing in the second round onwards go home. We are delighted to have 21 teams signed up.
“Rocks Lane is a great club and but the main thing is that there is a good atmosphere, with people watching each other’s matches, and hopefully enjoying the sunshine.
“We are really looking forward to organising the event and people enjoying it. It’s a new venue for us while we have moved up from six events last year to over 18 this year.”
The Spaniard feels the event caters for players who participate in the sport for satisfaction as well as the rewards on offer, and he senses that padel’s growth has enabled more competitions to be organised while also creating a need for enhanced playing opportunities.
He said: “People enjoyed our tournaments last year, the quality of the tournaments was very high, not necessarily in terms of playing levels but certainly in the organisation.
“The fun people get out of it, the prizes we give to our players, with an excellent welcome pack which includes a nice performance t-shirt and some other gifts from sponsors. So, we have decided to make it bigger this year.
“We have created this whole tour to grow the sport and give an accessible tournament for new players, because new players are sometimes reluctant as they think they are not good enough. When we organise the event we really see people enjoying the format and playing with different people.
“The plan would be to keep growing and developing and at the moment the sport is progressing massively so we are trying pull the growth in the right direction. The plan would be to keep growing as the sport does.”
Rocks Lane Padel website
