{"id":738001,"date":"2026-06-15T09:43:20","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T09:43:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/738001\/"},"modified":"2026-06-15T09:43:20","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T09:43:20","slug":"tennis-padel-or-pickleball-how-to-find-the-best-racquet-sport-for-you-the-irish-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/738001\/","title":{"rendered":"Tennis, padel or pickleball? How to find the best racquet sport for you \u2013 The Irish News"},"content":{"rendered":"

As Wimbledon draws closer, local tennis courts across the UK are ready to welcome the annual influx of newcomers who will inevitably become inspired to pick up a racquet after watching thrilling professional rallies unfold on TV.<\/p>\n

While major tournaments like The Wimbledon Championships play an important role in attracting new players to the sport, Declan Minns, racquets manager at Virgin Active Chiswick Riverside Club<\/a>, thinks that the social element of racquet sports is what actually keeps people playing for years.<\/p>\n

\u201cRacquet sports are typically very sociable sports,\u201d says Minns. \u201cLots of people will train with us and then will go through to the caf\u00e9 together to chat over a coffee.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"DeclanDeclan Minns Headshot <\/p>\n

Racquet sports also offer an array of mental and physical benefits.<\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/a>\"Review:<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cRacquet sports tend to involves a lot of short, sharp sprints and explosive movements, but there\u2019s also a lot of recovery time within a game too, so it\u2019s really great for both your heart health and muscular health,\u201d says Minns.<\/p>\n

\u201cPlayers also develop great hand-eye and foot-eye coordination.\u201d<\/p>\n

The world of racquet sports offers plenty of variety, and in recent years newer formats such as padel and pickleball has exploded in popularity across the UK.<\/p>\n

But what exactly sets tennis, padel and pickleball apart? Here are some the key differences to help you choose the best racquet sport for you\u2026<\/p>\n

Tennis<\/p>\n

\"MaleMale tennis player holding tennis racket in a ready position (Alamy Stock Photo) <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are tennis courts, coaches and clubs in every corner of the UK, so it\u2019s\u00a0 easy to find somewhere to get started,\u201d says Minns.<\/p>\n

To play all you need is a tennis racquet, some tennis balls and a pair of tennis shoes.<\/p>\n

\u201cI always recommend tennis shoes rather than running shoes to beginners, because you turn so quickly in racquet sports and tennis shoes offer more ankle support,\u201d says Minns.<\/p>\n

He highlights how tennis is a skill that always has room for development.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s so many community clubs that offer beginner classes where you can learn and pick tennis up quickly, but tennis is also a skill where you\u2019ll just keep learning for life,\u201d says Minns. \u201cI teach people that have been playing for 40\/50 years, and they\u2019re still learning and improving.\u201d<\/p>\n

Beginner classes usually start with rallies and later progress onto match play.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first session tends to focus on rallying, which is hitting the ball to and from each other, which helps people start to feel the buzz of tennis,\u201d says Minns. \u201cThe next session would be on backhands to hopefully round out what we call your \u2018ground strokes\u2019, which is when you\u2019re at the baseline, the ball bounces once, and you hit it to and from each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ManMan throwing a tennis ball in the air during his serve (Alamy Stock Photo) <\/p>\n

Serves are another important foundational skill.<\/p>\n

\u201cLearning how to serve is super-important because that\u2019s how every single point in tennis starts,\u201d says Minns. \u201cThen we look at vollying, which is when the ball doesn\u2019t bounce and you\u2019re nice and close to the net and take it early.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter that sessions tend to focus on singles and doubles match play.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pickleball<\/p>\n

\"RearRear view of young woman playing pickleball doubles on indoor court (Alamy Stock Photo) <\/p>\n

\u201cPickleball, at entry level, is much more accessible if you\u2019d like to just jump on the court and play a match straight away,\u201d says Minns.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can play indoors or outdoors, but I would say there are a lot less pickleball courts in the UK compared to tennis courts because tennis has a much wider history and heritage in the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n

The racquets manager adds that pickleball, compared to tennis, is much gentler and easy to learn.<\/p>\n

\u201cPickleball is much more gentle on your body because the court is a lot smaller,\u201d explains Minns.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, the main difference is that pickleball involves a lot less movement, but it has a really fun and friendly doubles-led culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cAlso, the balls you use in pickleball have little holes in so are a lot slower. Therefore, you have a lot more time to see the ball, to wait for it to bounce, and to hit it, which makes it a great entry-level sport.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"(Alamy Stock Photo) <\/p>\n

Beginners also don\u2019t need to learn how to spin in pickleball.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn tennis we have racquets with strings, and those strings complicate how we hit the ball which means we have to think about different types of spins. Whereas in pickleball the bat is nice and flat so you don\u2019t have to develop the same understanding of spins. You can just knock the ball straight over the net,\u201d says Minns.<\/p>\n

He adds that pickleball is one of the cheapest sports to pick up.<\/p>\n

\u201cMost centres will provide bats, but if you\u2019re really keen and you want to play a lot, you can get bats in stores like Decathlon very cheap,\u201d says Minns.<\/p>\n

Padel<\/p>\n

\"\"(Alamy Stock Photo) <\/p>\n

\u201cOne of the biggest difference between padel and pickleball is the walls,\u201d says Minns. \u201cThe walls keep the rallies alive because the ball is allowed to bounce off them, which means you have really long rallies.\u201d<\/p>\n

He highlights that padel tends to be more dynamic and fast-paced than pickleball.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe balls are more akin to tennis balls and are little bit faster around the court,\u201d says Minns. \u201cPadel players can hit the ball harder [compared to pickleball] because the bats are a lot bigger and heavier than pickleball bats, so have a little bit more punch to them.\u201d<\/p>\n

Padel is predominantly played in doubles, like pickleball.<\/p>\n

\u201cPadel is probably a bit more accessible in terms of courts around the UK than pickleball at the moment,\u201d says Minns. \u201cThis is because pickleball has only just made it over here from the US, whereas padel has been around in the UK for a few years now and has become really popular.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"(Alamy Stock Photo) <\/p>\n

Most people hire padel racquets, and you can get padel-specific shoes too.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d recommend playing padel in tennis shoes or padel shoes and you can usually just hire padel racquets from the club or court that you are playing at,\u201d says Minns.<\/p>\n

\u201cPadel is a really addictive sport; I played it once and fell in love. So, if you are going regularly you might want get yourself a nice racquet which can range in price. You can get balls for very cheap at various outlets.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As Wimbledon draws closer, local tennis courts across the UK are ready to welcome the annual influx of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":738002,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[442],"tags":[49,48,84,143800,49127,15967,26018,9005,82,593,3585,97459,614],"class_list":["post-738001","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-health","tag-health-and-wellbeing","tag-health-lifestyle","tag-padel","tag-pickleball","tag-racquet-sports","tag-sports","tag-tennis","tag-uk","tag-virgin-active","tag-wimbledon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738001","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=738001"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/738001\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/738002"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=738001"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=738001"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=738001"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}