The 2nd day of World Padel League marked the presence of team owners and a host of celebrities. Noted among them was the Indian tennis champion Mahesh Bhupathi who marked, "Padel is growing quickly in India and it is great to bring such High Ranking Padel players to our country. This should give a boost to all sports fans and Padel fans."
Mahesh explained in simple terms about this new game stating that the scoring is exactly the similar to Tennis, but the sport is a hybrid between Tennis and Squash having to play off the glass at lot of angles and that requires a lot of strategy.
"For the layperson, it looks very physical and demanding, but seeing a lot of best players in the world playing in India should inspire many kids which shall fuel the growth of this game in India. With a 400 % growth of Padel courts in the country and the sport will continue to grow. In fact they could have Padel at the Olympics in LA," the tennis superstar narrated to Paresh B Mehta. When asked whom is he pitching for … he replied with a smile - Cheetahs. Looking forward for a packed final on Saturday.
Amrinder Cogi, Sponsorships and Marketing for SG Pipers Cheetahs had to say, "Today was really a great day though we lost yesterday with slim margin, but today we won with a big margin. We are a pretty solid team, and if we keep today's momentum, we could make it to the finals."
When asked about their blue-print to take the Padel Game to the Indian masses he had to say, "The World Padel League has come for the first time to India, the growth is massive as we started with 67 courts and now we have 137 Padel courts across India. We have plans to have tournaments in India which shall nurture more Indian players at junior levels and corporate levels to get into the World Padel League."
"There is a big gap of Indian Padel players compared to these World Rankers, but with a lot of Brands getting associated with this game, we could come up with big infrastructure so that we can have more domestic tournaments. I am certain our Indian would soon reach that level. We would love to explore in terms of getting celebrities and try to engage with the youngsters looking to compete in Padel and play in skillfully. We are shooting a documentary on Padel to let the people know what Padel is and they can watch it on our YouTube Channel SGSC," he said.
Darshana Jagtap (DJ) of Vernost Jaguars was ecstatic, "Yesterday was brilliant for Jaguars as we won yesterday, and hoping to do better today and hopefully we could reach the finals. We are associated with Padel since the last year, and are repeating the last year's winning combination and so far we are well placed."
Speaking about Padel, Darshana is quite hopeful that we could see an IPL like tournament in India very soon, indirectly hinting towards Naghma Khan of Shaaz Media Events, Dubai to roll out a blueprint for the same..
