The dream of playing at the foot of the Eiffel Tower came true with this first edition of the Betclic Remontada Padel. Babolat, who accompanies 4PADEL in this exceptional event, gives us an interview behind the scenes of the project, the 2025 news with a passage on Juan Lebron, the state of the market…
La Remontada Betclic Padel, a celebration of padel
This collaboration was born from the desire to create a real celebration of padel. After all the qualifying stages held in the regions, we wanted to have the final stage in Paris in front of the Eiffel Tower for all the stage winners. And this will continue next year.
For the second edition the goal will be to return here, to do something crazy again. The remontada is a recreational, unauthorized and ultra-fun tournament, with jokers and bets.
4PADEL Babolat Academy
In France there are still very few young people, juniors who play padel. It’s starting to grow, but slowly. And to get young people to play padel, the centers must offer them training. And that’s what 4PADEL does in all its centers and we Babolat as padel experts, provide products and training with our entire network of coaches and players. We will accompany 4PADEL in the creation of this program and this academy to offer all young people from all centers adequate equipment but also adequate training. It’s under construction.
Be present at the practice sites
We really experienced a lot of activity in the first half of the year with a lot of things, especially with the Remontada. We have many strong partnerships such as ALL IN PADEL, PadelSparo. Our strategy is to be present in the practice venues, with these three partnerships, but also in the partner tennis clubs which equip padels, we are very present at the player level. And then we have the release of the new Lebron range which is great news. It comes out at the end of the year.
Lebron’s Pala, a racket that makes Par 3s on its own!
It takes two or three years of work to launch a collection, and the 2025 collection is finished, it has already been presented to our stores. The products will be released in January 2025. With the Lebron Viper: you touch the ball and it makes a straight par 3, the racket does it for you (laughs)! It is not a racket for everyone, rather the profile of expert players who can handle a very demanding racket.
If there really is a padel player, he is the one who makes everyone feel emotions. He brings his sport to life like no other player, sometimes with his courtside meltdowns, sometimes with his extraordinary shots, but Juan LeBron is exceptional. In his emotions and reactions he is intact, something is always happening and that is great for him. padel, because that’s what fans are interested in.
Padel surpasses badminton
Padel is growing enormously: at the end of 2023 it represented 17% of our turnover. This is the first time that padel precedes badminton (13%)!
For tennis we are still at 70%, it is essentially linked to the practice locations, with many more tennis courts. It is estimated that padel will earn and rise around 30%, this sport surprises. 20/25% will arrive shortly but will obviously depend on the practice locations.
We arrived on the Spanish market very strong on shoes, a little less on rackets. Even players not sponsored by Babolat played with the Jets. We are shoe experts, and we took players on shoe contracts without rackets, it was also a way to penetrate the market, which was much less saturated with shoes than rackets.
Belgium a little faster than France
There isn’t a big difference in the approach; but Belgium was faster in terms of infrastructure. There are many private clubs in Belgium, padel courts in tennis clubs. The development is quite similar. In France things are going a little slower but surely. Belgium is a very popular country for racket sports. Padel has a great future, whatever the country!
Watch the interview in its entirety below:
Passionate about Padel since 2018 with numerous experiences in communication and content creation, I want to share my passion with you through my writings.