Padel is booming in the UK but figures show women and girls are in danger of being left behind.
The tennis-squash hybrid has exploded in popularity over the past few years and the growth shows no sign of slowing down.
The Lawn Tennis Association, which is the governing body for padel, will announce its latest figures for courts and participation next week but one stands out for the wrong reason – only 30 per cent of players are female.
Tennis is the leading global sport for women – the three top-earning female sports stars for 2025 and eight of the top 10 were tennis players – but so far padel has an equality problem.
It is something the LTA is aware of, with head of padel Tom Murray saying: “As the national governing body, the LTA is committed to opening up padel, breaking down barriers to create meaningful opportunities for women and girls to discover, play, and thrive in the sport.
“As part of our She Rallies plan to make tennis and padel truly gender-balanced sports, we continue to work closely with venues across the country to ensure they are fully inclusive spaces, including the introduction of dedicated women and girls-only sessions, which can help to create welcoming and supportive environments that build confidence and connection.”
Pepita Stonor recognised the demographic issues quickly after picking up the sport in 2020.
“It was social and fun but there were no women,” she tells the Press Association.
After running tournaments for friends and discovering a real appetite, Stonor set up Empower Padel in September 2024 to encourage women to take up and stay in the sport.
Stonor sees huge potential in padel as an activity for women to thrive, saying: “When I got to my late 40s and I was meeting women who had never played sport before, I realised quite quickly, when you’re at that age, to take up tennis or golf, because they’re very technical and hard, you need a lot of coaching.
“Whereas, with padel, it’s easy to take up – difficult to master – but I started seeing women, when we introduced them to the sport, really loving it and feeling so much more confident.”
Empower Padel now has a database of 2,500 women, runs numerous events and is aiming to be the world’s biggest community of female padel players.
Stonor believes the sport must tackle the gender imbalance quickly while padel is still in its relative infancy in the UK.
She says: “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Some of the ladies at Women in Football have said this to me, whereas in football they’re undoing things, padel has the chance to start fresh and that’s really, really amazing.
“In some of the established countries like Spain and Argentina, they do have good stats for men and women playing socially, but, when you get to the competitive level, in a recent report only 28 per cent of top players were women.
“So there’s an issue there, and certainly for the juniors there’s an issue, because many of the competitions in the UK have girls’ events that are cancelled. They’re getting 20 boys or whatever and no girls, or very few.
“And it’s also down to parents and aunts and uncles and anyone playing padel to think, ‘OK, does my sister play, does my niece play, does my goddaughter play’? Making a real effort to bring girls on to court.”
