Padel on Nantucket: Two New Courts Open at the NRSA

Padel lands on Nantucket

Two padel courts are open at the Nantucket Racquet Sports Association on Hinsdale Road. They are the first padel courts on the island, and the only ones in Massachusetts you need a ferry or a plane to reach.

The club is not being subtle about it. Its homepage carries one line in bold — "ALL 8 PICKLEBALL COURTS and 2 NEW PADEL COURTS are OPEN!" — and its membership page describes the NRSA as "open to all players and levels for Pickleball, Platform Tennis (Paddle) and now Padel."

That framing is the interesting part. Padel's growth in the US has mostly been a big-metro, commercial story: warehouse conversions, members' clubs, monthly dues. Nantucket is the opposite. Here the sport arrived at a community racquet association on conservation land, where two padel courts sit beside eight pickleball courts, four platform tennis courts, and a warming hut with a kitchen and two bathrooms.

The island's racquet hub

The courts came out of a public bid

These courts were not a private build. The expansion went out to open public bid through the Nantucket Islands Land Bank as NILB Bid No. 2025-LB-01, "NRSA Facility Expansion," with construction documents issued for bid on January 30, 2025.

Padel was in the design from the start, not bolted on afterwards. Addendum No. 4 to that bid, dated March 26, 2025, references the padel court directly — specifying where the stone dust terminates at the court's south end, and calling for post-tensioned concrete. That last detail is a quiet sign of ambition: post-tensioned slabs are the premium spec for outdoor courts, chosen specifically because they resist the cracking that a salt-air freeze-thaw climate inflicts on ordinary concrete.

One housekeeping note. A figure of roughly $1.7 million for the expansion circulates through a meeting-summary aggregator, and you will likely run into it. We could not confirm that number against the Land Bank's own posting, so we are not repeating it as fact here.

What it costs, and how guests get on court

This is the part that matters if you are reading from the mainland, and it runs opposite to what you would expect from a members' club.

The NRSA is not currently accepting new memberships. Its own site states it plainly: "The NRSA is not accepting new memberships at this time," with existing members directed to renew.

Guests can still play. The club's pricing page is explicit that "Guest Play is always welcomed," and lists padel at $100 for 90 minutes, or $20 per guest. For comparison, pickleball guest play runs $15 per person for an open-play session and $60 to reserve a court for 90 minutes.

Two practical things to know. Guests can book only three days in advance of the intended date, so this is not a trip you plan around a court reserved in June. And booking runs through the USTA's platform — ackrsa.org redirects to the club's playtennis.usta.com page, and you will need a free USTA account to reserve. Set that up before you get on the boat.

Because the padel pricing is written two ways, it is worth emailing the club to confirm which applies to your group before you book.

Island padel, season by season

Nantucket's population swings hard between summer and the off-season, and every racquet facility on the island feels it. The practical read: expect competition for the two courts in July and August, and expect a much quieter court — with a warming hut attached — from late fall onward. The NRSA has published no seasonal closure for padel, and its drop-in culture is built around winter platform tennis, so off-season play is the club's normal mode rather than an exception. If you are new to cold-weather racquet sports, our guide to playing padel in cold weather covers what actually changes.

Massachusetts padel beyond the island

Nantucket is now the eighth Massachusetts community with padel courts, and the rest of the map is clustered around Boston:

• PADELHUB - BOSTON — six indoor courts under 35-foot ceilings in the Seaport, the largest facility in New England
• Bosse Sports (formerly Sensa Padel) — four indoor courts in Hyde Park with 40-foot ceilings, among the highest in the country
• Ballers Boston Seaport — three outdoor courts in a 30,000 sq ft complex with a bar and café
• Padel Boston — the state's first dedicated padel club, in Dedham

Two more are on the way: Open Play Pickleball & Padel in Hopkinton and M Padel Malden, Mouratoglou's Boston-area project, are both listed as opening soon.

For the full picture, see our guides to where to play padel in Boston and the Dedham, Malden and Hopkinton suburbs, or the wider growth of padel in the Northeast. And if the NRSA's closed membership list is a dealbreaker, our roundup of public padel courts you can play without a membership is the better starting point.