‘You don’t feel intimidated walking into a padel club’: can British tennis embrace its upstart cousin?

Padel, usually played in doubles, was invented in Mexico in the 1960s. Photograph: Blake Sharp-Wiggins/The Guardian

Wimbledon, a fortnight of tennis, all-white dress codes, strawberries, Pimm’s, royals and its famous queue all awaits. What will probably be absent at the All England Lawn Tennis Club, however, is any mention of tennis’s upstart cousin, padel.

Unlike Roland Garros in Paris, which set aside a court for this cross between tennis and squash, there is no planned promotion of padel in SW19, something which may seem curious given that the racket sport is one of the fastest growing in the world.