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We heard recently that there are probably about 7 million padel players around the world at present. Its hard to verify the accuracy of this number but what we know for sure is that with more and more people discovering how easy the game is to pick up, and how much fun it can be, the number of padel players is growing every day.
So far however, the top tier of the sport seems to be dominated, not surprisingly, by players from just a handful of countries where the sport has been established for the longest amount of time.
The official rankings from the International Federation of Padel give a good indication of those countries in which the sport has the strongest base, and as you can see below, in the recent rankings of the top 10 men and women Argentina and Spain are clearly way out in front of all the rest at the moment:
Going further down the rankings tables, the other countries that feature, but with only a very small number of players each, are Brazil; Portugal; Chile; Uruguay; and Paraguay.
Surely the time has arrived to introduce a bit more diversity into these lists!! The UK Federation of Padel is seeking to recruit new talent to the game in Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and to select players that can represent the UK in the World Padel Championships in Murcia later this year. So, if you are interested in finding out more check out the UKFP website and maybe sometime soon we'll see a few Smiths and Joneses in these lists!!
