The view from the two new San Francisco padel courts is both glorious and kind of gross.
Look up and there is the historic, recently painted Ferry Building, a view that is postcard perfect in the late afternoon sun. Look down, literally right next to the court, and there’s the Vaillancourt Fountain with its green churning waters sloshing around like a massive auto coolant leak.
But I couldn’t let myself be too distracted by either of these only-in-SF vistas. Balls were rocketing at me in quick succession by my instructor Aitana as I tried to learn what this new addition to the local racket sport scene is all about.
Padel — which even padel fans aren’t entirely sure how to pronounce — itself is not a new sport, far from it. It was invented in Mexico in 1969. And, like pickleball, a sport to which it is invariably compared, padel has skyrocketed in popularity in recent years. Mostly booming overseas, padel — sort of a tennis-squash hybrid — calls itself “the fastest growing sport in the world.” Pickleball — more of a pingpong-badminton-with-a-splash-of-tennis mix — bills itself as “the fastest growing sport in the U.S.”
Scenes from Park Padel.Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATEScenes from Park Padel.Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE
Padel landed in SF just last October, courtesy of a group called Park Padel with the aim of introducing the sport to the city. But the city’s tennis purists, already traumatized by pickleball’s almost viral growth, can remain calm about this new arrival.
For starters, padel cannot possibly spread like wildfire. Unlike pickleball, where you can just take a portable net and colonize a nearby public tennis court, padel is played on a court that requires thick glass walls on the backs and corners of both sides.
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These courts require serious investors.
My first day visiting the Park Padel courts, it was bustling at the Embarcadero. I waded through hundreds of folks at a protest demonstration, passed a few people selling trinkets, dodged a bunch of commuters hustling to the ferry as well as various tourists just lolling about.
A private court in Presidio Heights it is not. But that’s the point, right?
“We thought this location was the best in terms of publicity,” Park Padel co-founder Katie Lampert said.
A passerby watches a padel training session on a court at Park Padel at Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco on Feb. 13, 2024.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE
Working in cooperation with SF Recreation & Park, Lampert and her business partners were offered a choice of spots to put up their courts, and they opted for the busier option. And for good reason: In July of this year, they are set to open a six-court indoor padel complex in South San Francisco. The more people that know about it the better.
Of course, with the Embarcadero exposure comes the full downtown experience. As I approach the courts, there is the grind of skateboarders in the background, drumming from a nearby street musician and a few folks sleeping on the banks of the Vaillancourt Fountain. And amid it all are these courts, a comfy outdoor couch, a small shack containing balls, paddles and a friendly young man named Darien Roeurth, who welcomes me to this clubby oasis.
Roeurth was recently laid off from Salesforce, and while he’s hoping to get back into tech some day, right now he’s an enthusiastic ambassador for padel. A big part of that job is explaining the difference between the racket sports — the back of all the Park Padel gear and T-shirts on display have the tagline “IT’S NOT PICKLEBALL.”
Does the long shadow of pickleball ever end?
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A Park Padel sweatshirt carries a notice that padel is not the same sport as pickleball at Park Padel at Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco on Feb. 13, 2024.
Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE
I soon got on the court and noticed a padel court is about 50% bigger than a pickleball court. You will have to move more while playing padel, and you may even get winded. This could be a plus or a minus, depending on how you feel about exertion.
And then there is the ball. The padel ball itself is like a small, less lively tennis ball. By contrast, a pickleball is a hard plastic Wiffle-like thing, which makes a well-documented popping noise that has been variously described as a gunshot and “a torture technique.” In this regard, padel is a refreshing change.
As far as playing the game, I found that for a beginner the first few rallies reminded me of the first time I played pickleball where you can have fun pretty quickly and don’t need refined strokes just to knock the ball around. But once you begin to play off the glass wall, the difference between the two sports grows.
My teacher, Aitana Comas, who hails from Spain, where padel is the second most popular sport, talks up how with the wall and the bigger court, the padel variation never ends. “You can keep doing a thousand tricks,” she tells me.
Pickleball, by contrast, she sees as “more of a game than a sport.” With pickleball, “everyone can start, but the ceiling is pretty low. Once you get good, OK, you’re good. Now what?”
Sure, Comas is probably biased, but a popular pickleball site agreed and put it fairly plainly: “Padel is a much more athletic sport.”
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That may be true, but getting to a more athletic level in padel requires using the wall. And, as my lesson partner, Betty, and I found out, that’s another matter.
Comas hit dozens of balls for the two of us to practice our wall shots. This may be something squash players do in their sleep, but Betty and I were kind of a mess. Betty tied herself in knots as she tried to catch the ball on the carom, and if she made contact, it went anywhere except over the net.
I fared slightly better, but maybe I was too eager to be a prize student because in facing forward, turning backward, then whipping around, over and over and over, I almost keeled over from dizziness. Nothing like the dream of a gold star to get you to almost pass out.
The wall isn’t even where the endless variation stops with padel — the truly wild aspect of the game is you can hit the ball out the door of the court. And then your opponent can run out the door and hit it back. Do people actually do this? Apparently, yes!
Scenes from Park Padel.Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATEScenes from Park Padel.Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE
Would I ever do this? No! Especially at the Embarcadero. Because, for one thing, the courts are built on a platform, so the doors are closed off. Also, if they weren’t closed, running out the side door of one of these courts would send you off of a ledge and into the green bile of the Vaillancourt Fountain. That is the kind of endless variation we can all do without.
Park Padel can be on the pricey side, costing $40 per hour per person to play. Yes, that’s a hefty $160 per hour for a friendly doubles game, and perhaps why padel has been called pickleball’s “posher, privileged cousin.” But various membership offers do make it more affordable. And, most affordable of all, there are community hours Monday through Thursday when court time and paddle rental are free between 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. To get a court during this time, you can reserve up to 24 hours in advance.
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After this initial taste, I’m ready to return and take my padel game to the next level, which shouldn’t be hard considering my current level. And the free “community hours” offer an ideal, no-cost way for anyone to sample this new “fastest growing” sport in our midst.
No matter how you may feel about certain public fountains.
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