New Racquet Sport Pop Up Courts Come To Manayunk

MANAYUNK, PHILADELPHIA — Manayunk is now home to the first ever pop-up padel club in the nation, as it has teamed up with All Racquet Sports for the summer-long pop up.

Located on Venice Island, PADELphia features two state-of-the-art padel courts, complete with a pro-shop and a social viewing area. Visitors of all abilities are welcome to come to PADELphia and try the sport of padel.

The Pop-up club will be open with events and activities through October 2019.

Padel is the fastest growing sport in the world with over 12 million players in 78 countries, 30,000 courts and 35 International Federations. Padel combines elements of tennis, squash, racquetball and platform tennis. A padel court is about one third the size of a tennis court and is played on artificial turf enclosed by glass walls and steel mesh.

"Social, fun, competitive and additive are words used to describe the sport that is easy to learn and hard to master," described Lee Sponaugle, President of All Racquet Sports. "Padel is truly the Swiss Army knife of racquet sports and it has been said that if tennis is checkers, padel is chess. We look forward to unleashing the worldwide excitement of padel at PADELphia this summer."

Visitors will be able to experience on-court games and skill clinics developed specifically for PADELphia hosted by Marcos del Pilar, the first USA Master teaching professional certified by All Racquet Sports/AFP Academy powered by adidas padel.

"There are just over 65 padel courts in the US and over 16,000 in Spain alone. We look forward to introducing padel here in Philadelphia as a sport that is played in America and built in America," said Scott Grote, President of All Racquet Courts USA. "Reliability, dependability and a U.S.-based construction and support team will help the sport grow quickly here in the states."

All Racquet Sports. Del Pilar and other local teaching professionals will be offering private lessons, group lessons, workouts and special teaching certifications at the pop-up club. All Racquet Sports will provide demo racquets and balls for all who want to play or sign up for court time.

The Venice Island Recreation Center is located at 7 Lock St., next to performing arts center.