'This is fun': Tommy Haas sees the racket sport padel exploding in popularity in the U.S.

Another racket sport is exploding in popularity around the globe, and BNP Paribas Open tournament director Tommy Haas expects it to soon be played in the Olympics and perhaps even play a small part in the world famous Indian Wells tennis tournament.

The sport is called padel, it’s a cross between tennis and squash and it is played primarily as doubles. The number of people playing pickleball in the United States grew exponentially to 36.5 million in recent years, and Haas, the former tennis player who reached as high as No. 2 in the ATP rankings, is among those who believe padel could have a similar effect in the U.S.

“I’ve seldom met people who don’t like it,” said Haas, who has been the Indian Wells tournament director since 2016. “It’s more the opposite. They’re kind of not sure about it in the beginning, then they play a couple times and then they’re like, ‘OK, I’ve got to continue playing this. This is fun.’”

In March, Haas, a native of Hamburg, Germany who has lived in Southern California for much of his adult life, joined the San Diego Stingrays to participate in professional padel tournaments and serve as a brand ambassador for the sport. The Stingrays will participate in the Pro Padel League championships starting May 13 in Tampa.

Former No. 1 doubles player Jared Palmer is also a part of the Stingrays, and several other former tennis players, such as Argentina tennis star Juan Martin del Potro, are also participating in the league. Del Potro is a part of the Miami Padel Club.

Even tennis icon Roger Federer, who retired from the ATP Tour last year, has picked up the game. He tweeted a photo of himself playing in January.

Roberta Vinci and Lara Arruabarrena are among the former WTA players who have played in international padel tournaments.

Tennis players tend to be strong padel players. All courts are standardized at 33 by 66 feet, which is about a third the size of a tennis court, but the game is scored the same as tennis and many of the same movements and shots in tennis translate naturally to the padel courts.

The squash aspect of the game comes from the walls on each side of the court, which allows players to play the ball off the wall inside of having the option to let it go out of bounds. The sport is typically played outdoors but there are some indoor padel courts as well.

Haas said that those who have played a fair amount of squash tend to be pretty good at padel because it incorporates many of the same movements. Like in squash, in padel the ball comes off the wall and you have to move and react very quickly. You can take it as a volley, or you can let the ball go by you. You also need to think about the best defense and return to keep your opponents on their toes.

Lee Sponaugle, the president of All Racquet Sports, a company aimed at growing racket sports in the United States, describes padel as “a thinking person’s sport.” Sponaugle said that padel is easy to learn but difficult to master, which is part of what makes it fun.

Haas said that he often saw the game being played in Europe while traveling on the World Tour during his tennis playing career. But tennis players are often admonished not to engage in other racket sports out of caution that they could either injure their wrists or mess with their rhythm and flow on the tennis court.

After he retired from tennis in 2018, friends in Los Angeles re-introduced Haas to padel as they had more down time during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“When I started playing, through the pandemic,” Haas said, “I felt like it’s one of those games that is really intriguing to me. It challenged me, in many ways, way differently than other things that I’ve played before.”

The challenge to improve was addictive, Haas said. It made him want to get back out onto the court often to work on different aspects of his game, much like he did during his tennis playing career.

Haas added that although he still plays tennis on the ATP Champions Tour against other former pro tennis players, he missed the almost daily competition that he encountered for two decades in tennis. Padel helped bring that back into his life, he said.

“Overall, it’s one of those games that I truly enjoy playing,” Haas said. “I’m curious and I’m trying to get better. I don’t have that much time on my hands to play all the time, but if I do make time, it’s usually the game that I want to play. It’s not as long as golf, where you go out there for 4-5 hours.”

The sport has become big in Spain, Sweden and Mexico, Haas said. Organizers in the PPL have arranged to play some of the big international padel events at big tennis sites around the globe. The Australian Open in Melbourne hosted a recent event and so has Dubai.

Haas said that he sees padel being played at the Olympics as early as 2028, when it will be played in Los Angeles. He even said that he could envision a padel event perhaps having a minor role in the future at the BNP Paribas Open.

Those are just thoughts for now. Whether or not they come to fruition, it's anyone’s guess, but Haas said that he’s just happy that he’s found a sport that he knows he’ll be playing for a while.

“I really, truly enjoy playing it myself,” Haas said. “So, no matter what happens with it, I’m going to continue playing it for hopefully the rest of my life.”

Andrew John covers sports in the Coachella Valley for The Desert Sun. Email him at andrew.john@desertsun.com.

This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Is padel the next pickleball? BNP Paribas Open's Tommy Haas expects padel to explode