First came the America’s Cup in sailing, then golf’s Ryder and Solheim Cups, and more recently the Laver Cup in tennis – now padel has its own transatlantic team competition, the Anglo American Padel Cup, and its inaugural edition begins in London this week.
The competition features some of the leading players from two emerging nations in the fast-growing racquet sport. Taking place at the Padel Hub club in North London on Friday and Saturday, its organisers hope it conjures some of the magic of its sporting predecessors.
“We wanted to create something that could become an annual competition, that can play on much deeper trans-Atlantic friendships, build on what people know from other sports and do it in padel,” co-founder Ben Nichols tells City AM.
“I always say that the US is probably a couple of years behind the UK with padel. It’s well on its way now and growing very fast. We wanted to be first in creating this event and something that can cross the pond each year.”
The Anglo American Padel Cup will see British pros including Rafa Vega and Eloise Tait do battle with their American counterparts in different age groups, with the first team to reach 49 points set to go down in history as the competition’s first ever champions.
Entry for spectators is free – it is hoped some attending an international tour event this week in east London may be tempted – and footage will be shown on YouTube, while the event has support from padel brands such as Playtomic, Babolat and Pulco.
Could it expand to South America and Europe?
While the America’s Cup and Ryder Cup have expanded to include other nationalities and the Solheim Cup and Laver Cup were conceived as such, the Anglo American Padel Cup is resisting the temptation to cast the net wider, for now at least.
“We wanted to start between these two countries because they’re at similar levels in terms of how advanced they are with the sport,” says Nichols, who devised the idea with US Padel Association chief Bill Ullman and marketing expert Joelle Quinn.
“That’s not to say it can’t go wider. Obviously, the Ryder Cup’s gone wider, other competitions have evolved – they’ve got wider concepts of continents against the world. So it could well go that way but I think we wanted to make it manageable in year one.”
Padel’s international federation, the FIP, has its own ideas but its proposed Intercontinental Cup between the Americas and Europe – tapping into the hotbeds of South America and southern Europe – has been pushed back to next year.
“There’s definitely room for a discussion of how we can work together. I think the Britain against America thing has legs because of where the countries are in the sport now,” says Nichols.
“But a wider continental cup, there’s going to be a lot of top players from different countries that can compete in that, so could there be space for both? Definitely. Could it morph into one? That’s also a possibility.
“I think, for now, we want to grow this, and we’re fully collaborative in terms of others that want to work with us and pull together.”