When the third padel court in Ireland opened in Bushy Park in Dublin’s Terenure in 2017, a few passersby assumed it was some sort of water sport. “At that time, padel wasn’t as widely known,” says president of the Padel Federation of Ireland Naomi Nicholl. “I would invite people in the park to come and try out padel and I remember one group came in and they were walking around asking where the water was.”