Last month’s first-ever UK PADEL County Championships is being expanded into a series for 2024 following strong demand from players.
The inaugural event in Bristol in November was a huge success, with over 170 participants from 21 counties taking part in men’s, women’s and mixed draws – making it the largest padel tournament ever held in the UK. Yorkshire (women), East Scotland (men) and Sussex (mixed) were the inaugural winners.
Demand for entry places into next year’s event is already high, so organisers UK PADEL have expanded the format and devised a 2024 UK PADEL County Championships series, with separate O40s, O50s, O60s and open-age events.
The first of these will be the O50 competition which will be held at Rocket Padel in Bristol on 16-17 March across men’s, women’s and mixed. An initial group stage will be followed by a knockout format.
Entrants must be over 50 by 15 March 2024 and must have been either born in their chosen county, resident within the county for at least 12 months prior to 15 March or have lived in that county for five years at some point in their life.
County captains will be appointed by 15 January, counties must confirm entry by 22 January and player names submitted by 16 February.
Nick Baker, CEO and co-founder of UK PADEL, told The Padel Paper: “We’ve had great early signs of interest with 12 men’s county teams and seven women’s county teams already chomping at the bit – and we’re very hopeful of getting even more than the 21 county representation that we had back at the Open event in November.”
