As a nation that loves their racket sports, Malaysia has a new racket game in town – Padel! When we heard about this new sport being brought in by ASCARO Padel & Social Club from Stockholm, we booked a court, eager to try this new game out at 1 Utama Shopping Mall, Kuala Lumpur.
Here’s our thoughts and review of Padel at ASCARO Padel & Social Club.
Table of Content
What is Padel?
Imagine a tennis game but in a smaller court, and instead of letting the ball go out of play, the court is surrounded with glass walls just like squash! This allows the bouncing of balls to be part of the gameplay. So it is a racket sport but with more dynamic game mechanics. Here’s a video detailing padel rules:
Padel originated in Mexico, but is growing widely popular around the world. According to ASCARO’s founder Oscar Arrsjö, Padel is the second most popular sport after football in Spain, with over 6 million players! It is also quite a social sport as games are usually played in doubles.
Review
Founded in Stockholm, ASCARO brands themselves not just as an ordinary padel club, but also a sports fashion brand and a social club. They have their own clothing brand, and they pride themselves on playing padel with style.
First impressions
“They do live up to their brand!” Was our first thought when we walked in early morning. We were immediately wowed by their sleek, minimalistic, and mainly black and white design, with patches of green popping out of the surrounding architecture. There were 4 padel courts with stylish black flooring accompanied by benches, an outdoor gym, a restaurant/bar that has plenty of comfy seating.
Playing experience
As we have already booked our courts in advance through their website, the staff was ready to receive us. As first timers, we didn’t have any equipment so we rented the rackets and bought a set of padel balls and were ready to get going. To our surprise, as a sport that was rarely heard of in Malaysia, the crowd started to pile up and we could tell this was a popular weekend spot.
Non-expert advice: This was a relatively easy sport to pick up, but as it is with most things, takes more time to be good at. If you regularly engage with racket sports, you should be able to familiarise yourself with the game quickly. We can see why it can be a big hit: It’s easy to pick up, it’s less physical compared to tennis (although it moves faster), and if you have a couple friends it’s easy to swap in and out to get some rest.
One downside? The price. ASCARO offers padel courts at a premium price of RM120 per hour, and the rackets were rented to us at RM20 each. You’ll also have to purchase a set of (3) balls at RM50. It is not the cheapest weekend activity, so it is targeted towards the affluent market. The facilities though are excellent, but that is to be expected with what you pay.
Our verdict
Overall, it’s an activity that has a good balance between sport and social but at a high price. We’ll leave it to you to decide whether it is worth it if you do end up trying. Nevertheless, we think it’s worth a try, especially that it’s a refreshing sport to what’s available in Malaysia. However, we hope to see more affordable padel courts if the nation were to grow into this sport.
If you still want to see more, check out this video by BURO Malaysia:
Getting there
Let’s be honest, 1 Utama is HUGE. We were lucky to come across a review that saved us a lot of time on how to get to ASCARO:
First, head to the New Wing and walk towards the end where you’ll find Parkson. Then, enter the walkway on the right side of Parkson’s entrance. You’ll find an elevator at the end, go all the way up to Floor UR (The rooftop). Once you come out from the lift, exit the glass door and you should see ASCARO within a couple steps away.
Operating Hours
ASCARO is open from 8am to 12am daily.
