London to host first Clash of the Coaches padel event

More than 40 padel coaches will compete in mixed teams at Racketeer in London when Clash of the Coaches makes its debut on Friday 7 August at 12pm BST. The one-day event has been built as part competition, part networking session and part recognition platform for the people who introduce new players to the sport and keep clubs moving.

World Padel Network is staging the tournament in partnership with Nico Benitez, co-owner of Fast4Padel, and Jamie Rowe, the organisation’s founder, said the idea came from a networking event in Barcelona during the Padel World Summit in May. Rowe said he could not think of another event built specifically to celebrate coaches, a point that captures the gap this gathering is trying to fill: padel has plenty of matchplay, but little that formally connects the coaching workforce behind its growth.

That matters because coaching is becoming one of the clearest pressure points in British padel’s rapid expansion. The Lawn Tennis Association said Britain had 860,000 padel players by 25 March 2026, while industry coverage put Great Britain at 1,000 courts across 325 venues in July 2025, a milestone reached a year earlier than expected. As participation rises, the sport needs more than new courts and headline tournaments. It needs coaches with a shared identity, a stronger network and a clearer pathway into a profession that is still taking shape.

The timing is deliberate. Clash of the Coaches will run alongside London Premier Padel P1, which is scheduled for 3 to 9 August 2026 at Olympia. Premier Padel describes the London stop as Great Britain’s first elite professional padel tournament and a P1-level event, the second-highest tier on the tour. Placing a coach-focused event in the same week gives the sport a full-scale London showcase, from elite competition at Olympia to the support staff and teaching community working in the background.

World Padel Network says it now spans more than 30 countries, and the London debut adds another layer to that reach by bringing coaches from across the UK and Europe into one mixed-team format. Benitez said the coaching community deserves an event built around it, reflecting a wider shift in padel from informal growth to a more organised ecosystem. In a sport that still relies heavily on word of mouth, the people teaching the game are starting to organise themselves as visibly as the players they develop.