Padel Power: Bob Brose wants to bring padel to the masses
From racquetball to pickleball, platform tennis to squash, Bob Brose has played almost every racquet sport in existence. Three years ago, Bob heard about another racquet sport that was quickly gaining popularity around the world: padel.
Typically played in a doubles format and with similar rules to tennis, padel is a fast-paced sport played on courts surrounded by glass walls. The newfound passion for padel brought Bob out of retirement and today, he works for custom padel court supplier Padel Lux. We recently caught up with Bob to talk about the sport and its growth worldwide.
When did you develop a passion for racquet sports?
I started in 1971, with a little bit of handball at Winona State in college. I played college basketball and then I tried out for the tennis team. I made the tennis team, but I’d never played tennis.
During the seventies I played a lot of racquetball, and then in the early eighties, I started playing squash. I got up to like number 17 in the Midwest in squash — I was playing all people from Australia and England, Pakistan and Egypt.
Then about 12 years ago I started playing tennis every day — wherever I was, I played tennis. So I really made a big commitment to it.
How did you first learn about padel?
About three years ago, I heard about padel. My son was in Thailand and he called me up at like two o'clock in the morning and said, “Dad you're gonna love this sport. It's called padel and you play it off the glass wall.” And he said I'd be good at it because of my squash and racquetball and tennis skills. Then I got involved in the padel business. I studied padel and pickleball around the world. I went to work for a company — there's about eight manufacturers of padel courts. And then I researched to find the best company, what I thought was the best installer, the best quality. And it was a company from New Jersey called Padel Lux.
The two hot markets for padel are Miami and New York. Right now there's about 540 courts in the United States, but 80% of those courts are in Miami and New York.
The big countries are Spain, Argentina, Brazil, Sweden, Kuwait, Mexico, that are really growing at leaps and bounds.
Why do you think racquet sports like pickleball and now padel have become so popular?
During COVID, people really tried a lot of new things. And the research shows that tennis is just so healthy for you. And then the good athletes want a challenge — like playing padel is really a workout. If you google padel images playing and you watch these guys play for an hour, it is intensive. It's wild.
I think that what's really important is that pickleball and tennis and padel are all going to continue to grow and they're going to be healthy choices for people. I think you're going to see a lot of evolution.
How long have you known Michael Lynne?
Years ago I started going in and buying different tennis racquets at Michael Lynne's. I became friends with him and loved how he started the business. And then I was always excited to tell him about new information about pickleball and padel, what I learn from my travels, and what I learned all the time. So he is just a wonderful human being and was always kind and nice to me.
