It was a heavy defeat to Dan Evans on the Futures tennis tour that led Max England on the path to The Apprentice and his quest to secure Lord Sugar’s investment in a chain of premium padel centres.
At the time of writing, we’re over halfway through the 2025 series of the long-running BBC show and Max has so far escaped Lord Sugar’s dreaded pointed finger. Although Max is forbidden from telling us whether he makes it all the way to the final, he says somewhat cryptically that “the wheels are in motion” on his padel empire.
The 31-year-old from Surrey is a former professional tennis player, but it was a rapid loss several years ago to Evans (who went on to become world no.21) that brought the realisation that he wasn’t going to make it.
A pivot into the corporate world followed, as well as a gradual drift from the tennis court into endurance sports and then padel. He discovered the joys of the 20×10 through friend and fellow ex-tennis player Nick Hatchett, who’s now no.6 on the GB padel rankings. They both play frequently at Rocks Lane in Chiswick, The Padel Hub in Slough and the National Tennis Centre in Roehampton.
Using his Masters degree in business management, Max founded his own padel racket brand, Max Padel, and then applied to The Apprentice in the hope of winning Lord Sugar’s backing for his suite of clubs.
“I have always loved the show, but my application was all about the investment and very little about being on TV,” he tells The Padel Paper. “We know how padel is snowballing in the UK but it’s right at the start of its journey, so the timing last year, when The Apprentice was filmed, was spot-on. If I was doing this next year, it would arguably be too late.”
He admits his application to The Apprentice was “a bit of fun” initially, but as he progressed through the interview stages with producers “it got real quite quickly!” It sharpened his focus and he began to scope out investors and business models. Now he’s on the show, it’s helping to bring padel even more into the mainstream.
“It’s glaringly obvious that supply is not keeping up with demand yet in the UK,” he states. “These centres are popping up and are at 80% capacity overnight. Whilst that’s great, that is a problem for avid padel players like me who want to be playing much more regularly.
“With my connections in tennis, it’s put me into a good position to chat to some of the people higher up in padel and understand the infrastructure and direction it’s going in. The investment I’m asking for from Lord Sugar is for a five- or six-court indoor centre, either in the warehouse model or under a semi-permanent structure like Rocket Padel Battersea.
“In the UK market right now, centres are able to charge really high prices on their ‘pay and play’ and keep high capacity and footfall. As more clubs come on board, that’s going to change. That’s when the strategy and long-term view becomes more important.”
This is where Max is seeking to create a point of difference by opting for a premium offering with emphasis on high-quality coaching, an area where Max feels the UK is falling short. “Tennis is quite a good scouting bed to where padel needs to be in years to come and what we’re currently lacking is padel expertise from a coaching standpoint,” he says. “That’s the direction it’ll go in and that’s where I can add most value because of my tennis connections and knowledge of the elite-level development environment.”
The profile Max is building through his appearance on The Apprentice will undoubtedly help fuel his padel ambitions. Whether he achieves them with the considerable clout of Lord Sugar behind him, we’ll have to wait to find out.
