Britain’s best young padel player Ollie Grantham has given up school to dedicate himself to the sport – but his development is being inhibited because he’s simply too good.
The 13-year-old from Chelmsford is a county tennis player and widely acknowledged by those within padel as Britain’s finest junior – but the lack of competitions, strength in depth, funding and infrastructure is proving to be a major obstacle to his dreams of becoming a professional.
Last year, Ollie was recipient of what was believed to the UK’s first ever padel scholarship – to New Hall Prep School in Essex – but he was spending so much time on court that he had to submit most of his work remotely.
Ollie’s parents switched him to a local comprehensive last summer, but staff told him they couldn’t teach him after he’d shown them his training and match schedule.
Ollie’s mum Jayne made the difficult decision to take him out of school and he now trains most days at Stratford Padel Club.
There are only a handful of junior padel competitions across the country and entry numbers in them tend to be low. Jayne has started submitting Ollie’s entry into tournaments at the last minute as she believes opponents are put off by seeing his name in the draw. Ollie does enter (and wins) adults’ LTA Grade 4 padel competitions but often finds it difficult to find a partner willing to play alongside him.
“He’s been thrown out of tournaments for being a kid, which is absolutely crazy because we’ve paid to be there just like everybody else,” says mum Jayne. “He doesn’t care if he’s knocked out in the first round – he just wants to play!
“We’ve got this awkward stage for the next few years until he becomes an adult. It’s a real struggle finding someone who doesn’t mind taking a day out of their life to spend a day with him in a tournament. They might find the result would be good if they just gave it a go!”
Jayne is a florist and mum of five children (three boys and two girls) of whom Ollie is the eldest. The family lacks the funds to support his tennis career, calling the junior tournament circuit “a bit of a money pit,” but Jayne says Ollie has a desperate desire to pursue a padel career.
Ollie is one of the most determined 13-year-olds you’ll ever meet. He says: “I want to be the youngest ever GB padel player – but it’s very frustrating because there isn’t enough for me to get involved in in the UK.
“I just have to keep pushing, keep training, doing my thing and hopefully when padel gets a bit better, I can get results.”
Jayne adds: “I’ve said to him, ‘Take the frustrations and anger and channel them into getting even better so people will partner you. Don’t get downtrodden when someone says you can’t play.’”
Ollie’s parents save up to send him to padel camps at the Andres Gimeno Tennis and Padel Club in Barcelona two or three times a year. He admits his first trip was “a reality check” about his standard compared to the best players of his age in Spain.
Joining coaching sessions in a foreign country on your own, and not speaking the language, must be incredibly daunting for a youngster? Not Ollie. “It’s something I just have to do if I want to get better at padel,” he says. “I’ve got to mix it with them and make the most of it.”
The support of Stratford Padel Club over the last two years and sponsorship from Head have been vital, but for Ollie’s parents the financial burden of underpinning his development full-time has been tough.
She admits: “Sometimes we have to decide – is it a week training in Spain or do we pay for some academic tutoring? It’s a difficult decision – and it’s potentially the wrong one. If he gets injured, he will have to quit the sport and won’t have an education to fall back on. I often think, ‘Help!’”
It’s hard for Ollie, too. “I don’t really have mates from school any more,” he says. “I’ve got tennis mates – but I can’t really have padel mates, as there’s no-one my age to play!”
But it’s not all doom and gloom. Ollie has already had some amazing experiences – playing at Westfield Shopping Centre with Andy and Jamie Murray and Andrew Castle, sharing a tennis court with Novak Djokovic in Nice and playing on the pop-up court with coach Sandy Farquharson at Battersea Power Station only last week.
He also has an ace up his sleeve – a Swedish passport courtesy of his father. This means – unlike Tia Norton, for example – he will not be subject to Brexit restrictions on living and working abroad. If his dreams of training and playing padel in Spain come true in a few years, this will be a huge advantage.
“He is mega serious about making it,” says Jayne. “I am very proud of him and how he picks himself up from the knocks he takes to pursue something everyone is telling him he can’t do yet.
“Tennis is a lonely sport at times and he sometimes gets down, but when you see him on a padel court, there’s laughing, joking and fist bumping. I’m proud of the fact he plays with 30, 40 or 50-year-olds. He’s doing very well within the restrictions he’s got.”
