hi, my name is Katrina....

....and I'm Addicted to Padel

A few years ago, I decided I needed a hobby.

My evenings mainly consisted of watching TV and thinking I should probably be doing something slightly more productive with my life. Something outdoors. Something social. Something that involved moving my body occasionally.

I’ve always loved tennis. Obsessed with it, really. But as a watcher, not a player.

I’m such a committed Andy Murray fan that there’s a life-size cardboard cut-out of him in my kitchen. I wish I was joking.

Then one day somebody asked me a question that completely floored me:

“Why don’t you play?”

And honestly? It had genuinely never occurred to me that I could.

So I started.

Fast forward three years and I was playing whenever the glorious Manchester weather allowed it. Summer leagues. Winter leagues. Weekly coaching sessions. Going to sleep mentally replaying points and trying to perfect my technique in my head.

Then came my first brush with padel.

In 2024, we went on a girls trip to Billund. Home of Lego, which by the way is absolutely worth visiting. We stayed at Lalandia which was equally elite, and they had padel courts there.

That was my first dabble into this strange little world.

I resisted.

Firmly convinced I already had enough going on with tennis.

Then, during my “I’m turning 40 and disappearing to Africa for three weeks” era, I played properly for the first time.

Because obviously, if you’re going to try padel, why not do it in Zanzibar?

I should mention at this point that I was extraordinarily hungover. I’d been to a full moon party the night before and had quite literally fallen asleep while getting a hot air balloon tattoo immediately beforehand.

But none of this deterred me.

So I gave it a go.

It’s probably a good job I was several thousand miles from home because let me tell you now, it was not pretty.

At all.

But it stayed with me.

At the time, I thought of it as one of those fun little things you do while travelling. A nice memory. A good story.

Then towards the end of 2025, one of my closest friends and I had a conversation. She was looking for a hobby too and we almost simultaneously said we wanted to try padel.

At this point Jen and I are basically sisters, so accidental mind reading is fairly standard behaviour.

In December 2025 we booked ourselves onto a Beginners Match Play session.

Which in hindsight was probably slightly ambitious considering neither of us properly knew the rules.

So in January 2026, I went to an Intro to Padel class with Zeb at Soul Padel Stockport.

And honestly?

The rest is history.

It’s only May and tonight I’ll be playing my 87th match.

Eighty seven.

Somewhere along the way, this slightly random thing I tried in Zanzibar turned into a full blown lifestyle.

And regrets?

Absolutely none.

Padel addict for life x