Nicky Horn is a squash and padel player and coach who works at Surge Padel in Harrogate and at Rawdon Lawn Tennis & Golf Club in Leeds. She gives The Padel Paper a fascinating insight into the differences between coaching men and women – and why females are the fulcrum of the current padel boom.
There are many reasons behind padel’s awesome growth of the last few years – and my experience as a coach tells me that one often-overlooked factor is its strong appeal to women.
I have helped introduce hundreds of people aged between four and 82 to the game in recent years at venues in Yorkshire and – unlike its nearest rivals tennis and squash – there is a consistent 50/50 split between the genders of new padel participants.
It may not have escaped your notice that we women like to chat. We like groups where we can verbally express our feelings and quickly form supportive circles of friends.
Padel is an absolutely perfect vehicle for us to do this. The tight confines of a padel court and the sport’s doubles format brings us into close proximity with not just our playing partner but opponents too.
This differs slightly with the wider expanse of a tennis court and contrasts totally to squash, which has not promoted the doubles format to anywhere near its potential. This has contributed to a very uneven balance in numbers of men and women* playing the game, with the sport’s solo aspect being off-putting to many potential female newcomers.
Women discovering padel are simply loving this friendly, highly sociable form of exercise which won’t wreck their knees or leave them gasping for breath. Some of us will become very competitive but most are just loving it for the benefits it provides.
Despite these benefits, one potential barrier to women’s participation is confidence. Having coached men and women for years, what I continue to find fascinating is the differing behaviour between the sexes when it comes to picking up a bat or racket for the first time.
Stereotypically, a man will just go and play. A typical conversation might go along the lines of, ‘A cross between squash and tennis, you say? Great, give me the bat!’ They don’t want coaching, they just want to have a go straight away, and I love the men for having that confidence.
Women want to have a go too, but fear they might not be good enough or would need the confidence of a coaching session and/or the comfort of going along with friends.
What clubs need to overcome this, is a coach (ideally a female) who makes women feel welcome. The actual padel is almost incidental – at least initially. It’s about giving them that feeling of belonging and the confidence to have a go.
Some of the women I coach at Surge Padel in Harrogate come from as far away as Scarborough (a 142-mile round trip) to play. As they get more experienced they now go to our male coaches because they are confident and want to learn some of the more advanced techniques, but initially their priority is overcoming self-doubt.
A second difference is flexibility. A fellow female squash coach made me realise this; we females are not flexible. A man asked to play sport would say yes very quickly unless there was something in the diary. A female will check the diary, then think of the children’s needs, parents’ needs, family needs, house needs, work needs, friends’ needs and then, possibly, if everything aligned, say yes. It means women have to plan events well in advance – and even then may have to cancel at the last minute because of a family need. So plan ahead for women – six weeks – and base it on the children’s holidays.
Once they get over these barriers, they absolutely love it. Every day it’s predominantly women who I see keeping padel courts busy through the day – which as we know is so vital to clubs’ financial prosperity. All their friends are here, they have a drink and a chat and stay fit.
They are also often the family member who organises the children’s half term camps – so get them playing and their children will play too. What’s not to love? Let’s get everyone playing padel.
*Sport England’s Active Lives survey of November 2021 showed 83,600 men (over-16s) and just 21,900 women playing squash in England at least twice a month. The equivalent figures for tennis are 389,200 men and 250,900 women. Padel is not yet included in the survey.
