The Joy of Padel podcast – Special Edition (JOPS04E01)

In this episode, I wish to celebrate the launch of the British Padel Awards 2026. In its inaugural session, the BPA will cover 21 categories, from the best British female and male players, to clubs, coaches, innovators, and legends who are shaping British padel as the fastest growing sport in the nation. Run by Anthony Daulphin and featuring a world-class MC duo in the form of Sky journalists, Gail Davis and Jo Wilson, the awards are positioned as a true highlight for everyone passionate about the game.

I’m also delighted to announce that I’m involved (i.e. been nominated) in four categories:

Padel Ambassador
Padel Influencer of the Year
Innovation and Technology with Pango Sports
and for JOY OF PADEL as Podcast of the Year

I’m inviting everyone to get involved and to check out the British padel scene! Whether or not I win, the focus remains firmly on elevating the padel sport and its community.

To vote: go to britishpadelawards.co.uk/vote, to support your favorites, and spread the word.

To listen to the show:

To listen to The Joy of Padel podcast, you can use the embedded player above, or go find it on Spotify, Apple Podcasts or any number of other podcasting services listed here.

Send in your questions or reactions:

Please send me your questions — as an audio file if you’d like — to nminterdial@gmail.com. Otherwise, below, you’ll find the show notes and, of course, you are invited to comment. If you liked the podcast, please take a moment to review and/or rate it! ¡VAMOS!

Further resources for The Joy of Padel:

The Joy of Padel podcast, hosted by Minter Dial, a padel tennis player since 1974, and powered by Pango Sports, the app that is transforming the padel players' experience, is an exhilarating show that delves into the captivating stories of notable padel personalities worldwide.

Meanwhile, you can find Minter's other Evergreen podcasts, entitled The Minter Dialogue Show (in English and French) in this podcast tab, on Spotify, Megaphone or via Apple Podcasts.

About the host: Minter Dial

Minter Dial is an international professional speaker, author & consultant on Leadership, Branding and Transformation. His involvement in sports has been a lifetime passion. Besides playing 18 years of rugby, captaining athletics teams, coaching tennis and playing squash for his university, he’s been a lifelong player of padel tennis, starting at the age of 10, from the time of its very first public courts at the Marbella Club in 1974.

Then, after a successful international career at L’Oréal, Minter Dial returned to his entrepreneurial roots and has spent the last twelve years helping senior management teams and Boards to adapt to the new exigencies of the digitally enhanced marketplace. He has worked with world-class organisations to help activate their brand strategies, and figure out how best to integrate new technologies, digital tools, devices and platforms. Above all, Minter works to catalyse a change in mindset and dial up transformation. Minter received his BA in Trilingual Literature from Yale University (1987) and gained his MBA at INSEAD, Fontainebleau (1993). He’s author of four award-winning books, including Heartificial Empathy 2nd edition (2023), You Lead (Kogan Page 2021), co-author of Futureproof (Pearson 2017); and author of The Last Ring Home (Myndset Press 2016), a book and documentary film, both of which have won awards and critical acclaim.

It’s easy to inquire about booking Minter Dial here.

View all posts on padel tennis by Minter Dial

Full transcript of interview via Castmagic.io

This transcription comes courtesy of Castmagic.io, an AI service for podcasters.

Hola Chicos and Chicas. Many thanks for joining me on the Joy of Padel podcast, spreading and sharing the supreme delight of this wonderful and fast-growing game. I’m your host, Minter Dial and I’m delighted to announce that the Joy of Padel is part of the Evergreen Podcast Network. For more information about this network, please go Visit their site evergreenpodcast.com the Joy of Padel Podcast is also sponsored by Pango, an app containing the first global community of Padel players. Your style, your level, your padel at PangoSports.com/get.

Hey, hey, hey. Welcome back to the Joy of Padel for the beginning of the fourth season. I’ve got something massive to share with you today. Something that’s going to get the entire UK padel community buzzing.

The British Padel Awards 2026 are here. And this is the celebration of Padel in Britain right now. 21 awards. Can you believe it? Honoring the players, the clubs, the coaches, the innovators, the legends who are making Padel the fastest growing sport in the country. It’s all being run by the incredible Anthony Daulphin and the event will be MC’d by the smashing Padel duo of Gail Davis and Jo Wilson. So, you know it’s going to be world class. Huge kudos to Anthony putting this together. Anyway, listen, I’m personally involved in four of these categories.

I’ve been nominated for Padel Ambassador, Influencer of the Year, Innovation and Technology with my startup Pango Sports. You can listen to the last episode of season three with my co-founder Camille Huyghues Despointes for more. And this is the one I’m really excited about, the Padel Podcast of the Year. And you can imagine Joy of Padel is in the running. But here’s the thing. This isn’t about me. This is about all of us in Padel. This is about spreading the word about a sport we absolutely love.

So here’s what you’re going to do right now. Head over to britishpadelawards.co.uk/vote. That’s britishpadelawards dot co dot UK/vote and cast your votes. Check out the finalists across all 21 categories. See who you think deserves to win. And then, and this is important, share it. Tell your mates, tag them on social media, get your club involved, get your friends involved. Because every vote, every nomination, every bit of noise we make together is spreading the message.

Padel is here. Padel is growing. Padel is for everyone. This is our moment to celebrate what we built and show the world what British Padel is all about. So, get voting. Britishpaddleawards.co.uk vote let’s make some noise. And of course, don’t forget to tune in next week for the next episode of the Joy of Padel. So, I hope you’ve enjoyed this Joy of Padel episode.

Please don’t forget to subscribe to be the first in queue for the next episode. And if you like what you hear, please do share around with other Padel aficionados. This is a sport that deserves to be played by absolutely everyone, and if you’ve got a story that you’d like to share, please send me an email or a better yet, a voice note at N mintadial gmail com. With that, thanks for listening and see you on the next episode of the Joy of Padel podcast. Vamos.