Sports, Media and Entertainment group R3 Sport is bidding to transform padel tennis in the UK with the launch of its premium professional padel tennis cup offering the most prize money ever paid for a padel tennis tournament in Great Britain.
Its R3 Bullpadel Cup 2025, launched with Bullpadel Spain, will promote the sport across Men, Women and Juniors with the ambition of creating padel tennis stars for the future and helping to build a GB team to potentially compete in the 2032 Olympics in Brisbane.
The aim is to rival the global padel powerhouses of Spain, Sweden and Italy with a target of establishing GB players in the padel world top 20 within five years.
Launching the Cup will help further boost the profile of sport in the UK and enable padel tennis players to compete more regularly at home and become better known.
R3 Sport is already seeing success with players it sponsors – Catherine Rose has seen her world ranking soar from outside the top 300 to 116 in the past 12 months after a series of wins against players ranked 69th, 100th and the U18 World No.1 at tournaments in Doha, Sydney and Melbourne as well as wins in 2024 on the FIP Circuit for Christian Medina Murphy the UK No1 and R3 player.
The Cup will be played over a maximum of six events, delivered in conjunction with the Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) and International Padel Federation (FIP), this year hosted at some of the highest quality padel venues in the UK. The events will be open to the public to experience the sport along with food and entertainment, padel merchandise stands and opportunities to get close to the professional players.
The first event is expected to be held in April 2025, culminating with the Cup Finals in December 2025 and the launch of the R3 Bullpadel Super League for 2026. R3 will be announcing a number of high profile partners of the tour in the coming weeks and months.
Jonathan Rowland, co-founder and chairman of R3 Sport said:
“Padel tennis is surging in popularity but needs an event to take it to the next level which the R3 Bullpadel Cup will do. All sports need role models for young players to aspire to be and the Cup is designed to achieve by providing current players with the platform and finances to be the best they can be."
“We want to help the sport meet its potential as well as getting British players into the world top 20 and helping to build a strong GB team so that the country can be competitive when padel is as expected included in the 2032 Brisbane Olympics.”
The number of active padel players in the UK has grown significantly. As of 2023, there were around 129,000 regular players up from just 6,000 in 2019. The number of padel courts in the UK has increased from around just 50 in 2019 to over 350 by 2023, with plans to reach 1,000 by 2029.
Sam Kemp, Managing Director of Operations, Tournaments and Events of R3 Sport said:
“We will be the first to offer regular, competitive opportunities for junior padel players in the UK - a vitally important step for the development of our future professional players and of the sport more broadly."
“With such strong growth of padel tennis in the country, now is the right time to launch the Cup.”
Tom Murray, Head of Padel at LTA said:
“Through more regular top-level domestic competition, we want to give British players more chances to showcase their skills, and for those looking to pursue careers playing padel, more regular opportunities to compete against the country's best on home soil."
"This stronger domestic tour offering, combined with a more developed junior competition structure, will help to boost not only our current crop of British performance padel players, but also the next generation, looking to follow in the footsteps of current British number ones Aimee Gibson and Christian Medina Murphy.”
Fernando Manzanares, Head of Sponsorship at Bullpadel said:
“We’re delighted to support R3 Sport in the delivery of a series of premium tournaments for top British padel players. Bullpadel has a background of supporting elite competition and players and we are excited to bring this support to padel in the UK.”
