Born almost by accident in an Acapulco garden, padel has in fifty years become a global phenomenon that both fascinates and worries tennis. Its meteoric rise is already reshaping the landscape of racket sports.
As federations struggle to reinvent themselves, private academies are capturing talent… but also families able to invest tens of thousands of euros a year. A system that is increasingly effective, but also increasingly unequal.
Exhausted but omnipresent stars, ever-longer tournaments and exhibitions that have become a business in their own right: tennis is revealing its deepest contradictions, torn between spectacle and physical survival.
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