{"id":33904,"date":"2026-05-06T17:39:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T15:39:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/?post_type=news&#038;p=33904"},"modified":"2026-05-06T17:39:00","modified_gmt":"2026-05-06T15:39:00","slug":"sa-to-host-first-premier-padel-tournament-as-sport-surges-in-popularity","status":"publish","type":"news","link":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/news\/sa-to-host-first-premier-padel-tournament-as-sport-surges-in-popularity\/","title":{"rendered":"SA to host first Premier Padel tournament as sport surges in popularity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>South Africa (SA) is set to host its first-ever Premier Padel tournament next year, marking another step in the country\u2019s push to attract major international sporting events.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The Pretoria Premier Padel P2 tournament will take place in July at the SunBet Arena in Time Square, bringing some of the world\u2019s top padel players to the country as the global tour expands to 26 events across 18 countries.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>The move comes as padel continues to grow rapidly in SA, with more than 1 400 courts, around 450 clubs and an estimated 500 000 amateur players now taking part in the sport nationwide.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Organisers say the sport\u2019s rising popularity, along with SA\u2019s recent success in hosting international events, positions the country as an emerging hub in the global sports economy.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;ChannelAfrica&#8211;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":33905,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[20],"class_list":["post-33904","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"SA is set to host its first-ever Premier Padel tournament next year","published_date":"2026-05-06 17:36:03","news_description":"SA is set to host its first-ever Premier Padel tournament next year","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33904","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33904\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33906,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/33904\/revisions\/33906"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33905"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33904"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=33904"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}