feature: Oliver GranthamPadel boyOliver Grantham is one of the UK’s promising young padelplayers. Here he tells Hazel Davis what he loves about thegame - and his frustration at the lack of junior opportunities.48 thebandeja.com
feature: Oliver GranthamIf you’re friends with 12-year-old Oliver Grantham, you already know you’re likely to play secondfiddle (or perhaps second bat) to his padel passion. So when his school friends are out having akick-about or off to the cinema, Oliver can usually be seen skipping or training at home. “They don’tmind,” he laughed. “They just know that’s what I do.”Watching him play is a thing tobehold. He’s secure, focusedand attentive. Not to mentionstrong. One gets the impression hisfriends couldn’t come between him andthe ball, even if they wanted to.One of five siblings, Essex-born Oliver hasbeen a keen tennis player since the ageof five and was representing his countyby the age of eight. When his tennisacademy moved to Brentwood he wasoffered the opportunity to try padel at anopen day and was immediately hooked.When he first picked up that bat,back in 2020, it was love at first hit.The skills he’d acquired at tennis madeit very easy for him to progress andsoon he was having weekly one-to-onesessions. Not long after that Oliver wasawarded what is believed to be thefirst padel scholarship to attendNew Hall School in Essex, whichspecialises in sports.“Tennis can be a solitary sport,” hismum Jayne said. “But padel is muchmore of a team effort and there’s lotsof camaraderie off the court. Oliver hasfound the transition to padel relativelyeasy. There’s a different spin, a differentpower shift and being a ‘right-handedlefty’ makes his backhand strongerthan expected.”When he’s on the court Oliver sayshe feels at ease: “I’m focused andcompetitive. I just love it.” These days, hetrains at Stratford Padel Club, London,with Diego Sterpetti, Jose Alvarez, RichardPratt and Javi Aguirre.“Oliver is, above all, a humble and hardworkingboy, with admirable values,”said Diego. “In my opinion, if he workshard – as he has been doing so far –he will be an excellent padel player.I feel proud to be able to see himimprove and grow on court and aboveall to see how much he enjoys the sport,which for us is our main objective.”Due to the lack of available playershis age, Oliver doesn’t have a regularpartner but teams up with, in Jayne’swords, ‘whoever’s nice enough to partnerwith him’.Junior challengeBut, increasingly, UK padel is not enoughfor Oliver. Even though one of his biggoals is to represent the UK and ‘wearthe shirt’, he has his eyes on the worldtour, despite his irritation that the UKdoesn’t have an active youth team.“Watching the junior European PadelChampionships was so frustratingknowing I could have been there,”he said. In the absence of juniortournaments Oliver contents himself bythrashing adults at the club. “I don’t feelpatronised. They’re happy enough toplay me as an equal and they’re niceenough to not mind being beaten bya kid,” he laughed. One of his brothershas started to play regularly, so he doesat least have someone to play with.“Though I might not like that so muchif he starts getting better than me,”he said cheerfully.Mum Jayne feels there’s not enoughattention on the sport at junior level inthe UK. “It’s expensive. Richard Brooks[the first Brit to make the World PadelTour top 100 rankings] who is makinga professional comeback, has offeredsome good supportive advice butwe need more sport-relatedcharities to get involved and morecelebrity endorsements.”Oliver agrees: “Padel is definitely goingto be huge in the UK but we need morepeople to realise that.”Of course, in Spain, where Oliver’sjust been training, padel is already huge.“I looked out of our apartment windowand just saw loads of courts,” Oliversighed, happily, “I’d love tospend more time out there and doregular coaching.”Oliver, who’s sponsored by Head,recently jumped on court with WorldPadel Tour legend Roby Gattiker, which,he said, ‘was one of the most amazingexperiences. He hit the ball really flat andhard and made the court feel really big’.And, though there might not be anactive junior UK team to be part of yet,Oliver isn’t resting on his laurels. It’shard not to see how this drivenyoungster won’t make it far in the sport.He recently won the Stratford PadelTournament with his (adult) partnerSanti Barcariza Perez and is ready forthe next challenge. •WINTER 202349
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