SHANE STONE struck gold two weeks ago in the first major padel tournament in the United States.
The Trinidadian and American Nick Frank won four matches in the knockout draw to capture the title in the California Padel Championships in San Diego.
The racquet sport, which first surfaced in Mexico in 1968, is a doubles game on an enclosed court 25 per cent smaller than a tennis court, but with the same scoring system and using tennis balls with a little less pressure.
The United States Padel Association (USPA) only this year decided to rank tournaments in order of importance and this was the first of four major competitions on their calendar.
Stone, a medical doctor with a practice in Texas for over a decade, only started playing the game two years ago, but has already reached No. 1 in the United States rankings and currently sits at No. 3.
The 44-year-old is eligible to play for the red, white and blue as he is married to an American and he was on their eight-member team in the World Championships in Qatar in November, and also competed in the Masters (Over-35) World Championships in Nevada, USA, two months ago.
Stone is the most successful tennis player to emerge from Trinidad and Tobago in at least the last three decades.
The former Caribbean junior champion was the fourth youngest player to ever compete in Davis Cup when he made the national team at age 15 in 1993 and he went on to represent the country a record nine times in the world’s premier male team competition.
Stone, based in the United States since age 16, had a brief professional career because of financial constraints but he did manage to reach a career-high ranking of #1,043 in singles and #808 in doubles about 20 years ago. The nephew of former West Indies cricket vice-captain Deryck Murray stated that “my goal is to bring the sport of padel to Trinidad.”
“It is a rapidly growing sport” all over the world, he noted. “They already have seven courts in Bahamas, four in St Lucia and two each in St Maarten and Puerto Rico.”
Stone also pointed out plans are underway to get padel into the Olympic Games by 2028.
The former student of Rice University, Texas, comes home today and plans to speak to prominent people in tennis and squash (which is similar to padel) during his one-week stay about introducing the sport here.
