Guernsey Padel eyes possible swing at UK County Champs
An unpredictable home inter-insular and possibly a swing at UK County Championships success are among the focuses of Guernsey’s top padel players in 2025.
Guernsey Padel’s 2025 calendar has just been released and it also includes several of the annual highlights staged at Longcamps, such as the LTA Grade Three and One tournaments, plus the Island Championships.
But Sara Woolland, a stalwart of the racquet sport in the island, knows that the inter-insular on 13 and 14 September could be ‘really interesting’.
‘It’s going to be the fifth one and it’s 2-2,’ she said.
‘Everyone has won at home.
‘It’s a massive advantage to be at home – our courts are very different to theirs.’
Guernsey went into last year’s away ‘inters’ missing several big guns and lost 36-28, but even that scoreline was deceptive as 18 matches went to champions tie-breaks.
‘We thought we might get annihilated,’ she added in respect to last year.
‘They are getting better fast.
‘I think it’s going to be really interesting this year. It does come down a lot to who can field a full team.’
She also thinks that, if they can work around funding problems, the CI team have the capability of getting a result at the UK County Padel Championships on 15 and 16 November.
There are also over-40, over-50 and over-60 events in the build-up, with the CI men being champions in the former, courtesy of their victory last June.
‘If we can field a full side, we have a good chance.
‘Last year, no one went because of the financial commitment.
‘We are the champions at over-40s – that was a big surprise. We do punch above our weight for padel in the UK.
‘If we can try to get our best team out there, I think we could have a good chance to do well at that.’
The first of the big domestic tournaments this year is the Langham Hall LTA Grade Three event, over the weekend of 21-23 March.
On 12-13 July, during the Island Games week – for which there is no official tennis tournament – the NSM and SPF LTA Grade One will take place, and it is hoped that it may draw in many of the finest players in the British Isles .
‘That’s a big one,’ Woolland added in reference to an event that featured seven of the UK’s top 10 men on LTA rankings last year.
The Rocq Capital Island Championships are another major summer target for the leading Guernsey players, unfolding from 1-3 August.
Meanwhile, there will be plentiful opportunities for fresh blood to get into padel, including an after-school club at The Ladies’ College and the sport’s second appearance in the Specsavers Youth Games.
