Do you prefer senior padel or the modern style of padel? 🎾

I just got done watching a padel match in Youtube for the first time in my life. It looks fun. The players look kinda skinny. I'm primarily a strength athlete looking for a secondary hobby.

I'm just wondering how fit you'd need to be to compete well in padel and whether or not leg strength plays a big role. These elite guys don't have swole thighs. lol. This sport is way safer than martial arts. Plus, there's a padel club that's about to open in my local area. I'm thinking of checking it out.

Are the best padel players in need of high level fitness/leg strength? Or does that aspect of the sport peak early for athletes and it's all about skill and cunning the rest of the way?

Thank you. I'm extremely new.

I've been playing padel around Amsterdam for a while now, and I'd say I'm somewhere between beginner and intermediate. Good enough to have some decent rallies, but still bad enough to embarrass myself at least once every few games.

The other day, I went for what I thought was going to be a pretty easy shot and completely missed the ball. Not even a difficult smash or anything spectacular, just a normal ball that somehow went straight past my racket. Of course, my mates made sure I heard about it for the rest of the match. I'm still feeling it in my shoulder 😂

It's one of those sports where you can feel like a pro for five minutes and then immediately look like you've never held a racket before.

What's the most embarrassing thing that's happened to you on a padel court? Please tell me I'm not the only one with stories like this.

I’ll go first….. so I should say I don’t play here very often, (when you see the price you can probably understand why.) This is my closest club, probably about five minutes away yet I find myself driving atleast an hour in the opposite direction to go to a more reasonably priced club.

Because the weather where I am is starting to cool a little bit, it’s looking like courts I usually play at are starting to get booked up a lot. So I was looking for an alternate venue. It’s obviously not gonna be this place.

Edit for context : this is Los Angeles, California. There’s only two clubs within 100 miles, and this is 1 of them.