Last summer we vacationed in Spain, nice hotel in the mountains close to Benidorm, felt pretty middle of nowhere. To my surprise there was a padel park with 8 courts and a small padel academy.
After checking if there were some trainings available I was watching a match between some seriously good players, like the best I've ever seen live. With my broken Spanish I asked a guy standing around what level he thinks they are playing, and he said something like "53, 78, 124 and 140".
Thinking there must be a language barrier I tried to ask what system this rating was based on, and he just looked at me like I'm an idiot and replied **"del mundo!"**
Right, so those were in fact their FIP rankings, and I had actually been watching some world class padel 🤣
That also explained why one hour of training cost 90€, and the only slot available all week would have been 7am...
In Spain anything is possible. I've definitely been absolutely destroyed by some <1.5s before.
But yeah, I googled the FIP #53 at the time, and he had a striking resemblance 😉
