Padel: Hilton Hotels and Resorts and Ministry of Education competition |05 July 2023

The Unknown Truth, winner of the tournament (Photo: Neil Sirame)

Padel set to feature on Ministry of Education’s sports agenda

After its official launch locally last year, padel, the racket sport typically played in doubles on an enclosed court slightly smaller than a doubles tennis court is now being promoted at school level, with an inaugural tournament hosted for all secondary schools last Saturday.

Jointly hosted by the Hilton Hotels and Resorts and the Ministry of Education, the padel competition held at the court of the Hilton Labriz Gastrolounge at Bel Ombre gathered a total of 16 players from seven schools, namely Plaisance, Anse Boileau, Anse Royale, International School Seychelles, Ecole Française, Pointe Larue and the School of Advanced-Level Studies (Sals).

The winners of the first padel tournament were the Unknown Truth made up of Lea Ah-Time and Emma Jesic from International School Seychelles, while the runners-up were The Royals made up of Simphiwe Lekloane and Trevor Uranie from Anse Royale secondary.

The third overall spot went to the Lakers, made up of Daniel Bedier from Sals and Caleb Valentine from Ecole Française.

There were also individual awards where the prize for promising player went to Ashaelle Bastienne, while Kiana Kate was awarded for being the most improved player.

In attendance on Saturday, Minister for Education Dr Justin Valentin said the competition has been materialised following constant discussion between his ministry and Hilton Hotels and Resorts.

He explained that the tournament was scheduled for April but was postponed due to unforeseen circumstances.

Minister Valentin said it is on the ministry’s agenda to bring padel to primary and secondary schools, giving the students the chance to learn and enjoy the sport.

He added to ensure that, they needed to host the tournament, bringing students together in a fun and sportive environment.

He further added that they had to improvise the format of the tournament due to low participation.

“We were expecting more schools, but however, the tournament went very well and i would like to express my gratitude towards those who participated and Hilton Hotels and Resorts for making the event happened,” said the education minister who also thanked Dorothy Felix for coordinating the event, along with training sessions.

On his part, area general manager for Hilton Seychelles Andre Borg said the best way to interact with the community was to partner with the Ministry of Education and share the padel court with every child who wanted to learn the sport.

“Since we opened the padel court last December, we thought of ways to interact with the community and collaborating with the Ministry of Education was a good move to engage the young ones into joining padel,” said Mr Borg.

He said they were very happy with the behaviour of the children, showing great sportsmanship at a young age, while showing the desire to learn.

“I hope our collaboration with the ministry will grow bigger and we are in the effort to partner with other hotels in the south that have padel  courts to extend the tours in the southern region as we are aware it is not always easy for the kids to come to Bel Ombre,” added Mr Borg.

Teaching the kids the rules of the game since March,  Hilton’s padel coach Raven Rudolf said the competition was a success as he saw the contestants applied what they have learned from the training during the tournament.

“Improvement is the best word to describe the children’s performance,” said coach Rudolf who added that those who attended training showed significant improvement.

The padel facility based at the Hilton Labriz Gastrolounge at Bel Ombre, inaugurated last year, is an initiative of the Seychelles Padel Society, a local body with the desire to introduce the rising discipline in Seychelles and engage the local community around the values of sport.

The court is the second to be inaugurated in the country, following the opening of the very first Padel court on Silhouette Island in February 2022 at the Hilton Seychelles Labriz.

Neil Sirame