Should Galan and Lebron split?

With the shaky year that they’ve had, there are lots of rumors regarding Galan and Lebron’s partnership.

🗓️ 2024 Premier Padel Calendar

The World Padel Tour is over, and Premier Padel has released their schedule for 2024.

A few notes:

• 25 tournaments: 9 P2, 11 P1, 4 Major and a year-ending Tour Final in Barcelona (like previous WPTs)

• A very global tour: only 4 stops in Spain

• No tournaments in Portugal or the USA.

• 2 stops in France: Paris and Bordeaux.

• 2 stops in Mexico: Acapulco and CDMX.

• 4 Middle East stops: Riyadh, Qatar, Dubai, Kuwait.

I’ll add the 2024 dates into this shared Google Calendar.

Results of the WPT Race for 2023

2023 Padel Gift Guide

We’ve updated our gift guide for padel players just in time for the holidays. This year we’ve sorted by increasing value.

€10 Gift card

€12 Sweatbands

Get your sweaty loved one, some sleek black wrist bands from the Portuguese-based Volt Padel.

€20 Padel socks

€40 Padel Ball Pressurizer

A ball pressurizer helps maintain the pressure of your padel balls between matches, so you can reduce the amount of balls you throw away and save money.

We like the Ball Rescuer because it’s slim profile allows you to keep it in your bag without taking up too much space.

Please note that while pressurized balls will maintain their bounciness, they will continue to become "deformed" during additional matches. As a result, their play will become increasingly unpredictable. In our tests, they were still fine for 3 friendly matches.

€75 Padel lessons

€80 Racket case

The slim, convenient Two Two racket case is our favorite racket case. Read our full review of the Best Padel Bags here.

€99 Online course

Give your loved one, the gift of great padel fundamentals. This is a great gift for someone who is transitioning from another racket sport, such as tennis, to padel. Read our full review here.

€110 a Carton of balls

Choose the balls they usually play with, and they'll think of you every match. We’re in the process of writing a ball testing article, but the short version is: if you live in a cold, damp place, at sea level, choose a bouncier ball, such as Head Padel Pro S or Bullpadel Gold. If you live in a hot, dry environment at elevation, choose a less bouncy option, such as Head Padel Pro.

€115 a Bucket of Overgrips

The most popular padel overgrips are the Wilson Pros and the Wilson Pro Perforated. The unperforated version is slightly better for players with sweaty hands. If you like the Wilson Pro Perforated, I recommend giving the Varlion Summum Overgrips a try. I find them stickier and spongier than the Wilsons.

In case you’re thinking 60 grips is excessive, it’s really not - it’s about a year’s worth for a player who is playing twice a week and replacing their grips every other match.

€2,200 Ball Machine

This is quite an indulgent gift, so we’d only recommend this for your closest friends and family.

The Spinfire team, famous for making what is widely-considered the best tennis machine, has modified their Spinfire Pro 2 for padel. For the following reasons, we think this is the best padel ball machine on the market. We will publish our full review soon.

• 150 ball capacity: 7.5 minutes of play time with a 3 second interval

• Internal oscillation - throwing wheels move inside the machine, so in “random” mode, the player can’t see where the ball is going.

• Great routines - including “random” routines, which includes random horizontal and random vertical, so the machine can throw balls all over the court.

• Variable spin settings - many ball machines, such as the less expensive Slinger, only have one throwing wheel, which prevents spin customization.

• Easy to use - easy and fast to turn on and off with its slim, lightweight remote control.

• High lobs - 60° angle lobs are realistic

Highlights

• Puntazos from the World Padel Tour Master Final

• Highlights from the Final Round in the World Padel Tour Master Final

Next steps

• Join the @padelfyi community on Youtube

• Check out our new Racket Comparator

• Check out our Padel Glossary