Padel Playing Foreigner

As was mentioned in my first post , Padel is growing at a crazy rate across the world - and Singapore is no exception. It feels like there are clubs opening up every few months which is an exciting prospect for current players, as well as becoming more accessible for those interested in trying the sport.  So when the newest club in Singapore launched a mere 8 minutes bike ride from my house - I made sure I was one of the first to try it out. Prime Padel opened it doors to players on 3 May and I booked my first match for 8:00pm that evening. The club is situated on the 6th Floor of the Grand Copthorne Hotel and offers 3 open air courts of the highest quality. Besides the proximity to my house, another benefit was that during play it felt cooler than most outdoor clubs I have played given how breezy it was on the night, it's location on the river and being so high up.  A few pics of the club, and their iconic club logo featuring the Calao bird The club boasts 2 of it's 3 courts

One of the benefits of living in Singapore, is it's proximity to all that Southeast Asia has to offer. You can hop on a plane and after a ~2 hour flight, you can find yourself in exotic destinations like Bali, Cambodia, Borneo, Vietnam and the OG of tropical destinations, Thailand.  I've been fortunate enough to have visited Thailand a number of times since 2006 when I first holidayed there, and to this day - it still offers so much in terms of it's beauty, things to do and delicious food! So when a close friend in Hong Kong suggested we meet in Thailand for a Padel weekend - I was all in! Thailand, like so many other countries in the last 2 years - has seen Padel explode and this has led to increased investment to build world class facilities to attract players. To this end,  I had heard of a mythical Padel Club that neighbored a water theme park in Bang Tao (a district in Phuket) so naturally - I was super keen to try it out! I'm of course referring to  Padel Phuket a

Back in July 2023 - I woke early on a Thursday morning to an email with the subject title " Marco, Your Role at   XXX Company ". After opening the email  the body went on to inform me that my role had been impacted and I was being laid off . Naturally this   sucked , but once the dust had settled and I had a few days to process the news - I did what any normal, sane and addicted Padel player would do. I booked a week in Bali to go play Padel.  A somewhat of an " Eat, Play, Love (Padel) " trip for me if you will. While in Bali, and not having to worry about emails piling up in my inbox, deadlines and the usual stresses of having a job - I really wanted to take the opportunity to refine my game. So alongside joining a few matches each day, I thought of no better way to do this than to book private lessons with a coach. So I did. That was the day I met  Jesús  - one of the resident coaches at  Jungle Padel  in Canggu, and the person that helped me significantly improve