UAE: New Emirati-made app to connect growing padel tennis community

Technology includes dedicated feature to help women find female-only session

by

Nandini Sircar

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Published: Wed 22 Dec 2021, 4:44 PM

Last updated: Wed 22 Dec 2021, 4:45 PM

A new platform, created by two Emirati entrepreneurs AbdulAziz AlZarooni and Saeed Ahli, is set to connect the growing community of padel enthusiasts taking up the trending racket sport across the UAE.

The technology includes a dedicated feature for female participants looking to practice the sport at women-only sessions.


Go Padel is an innovative mobile application that provides an integrated scheduling and booking system, allowing padel players to search for available courts and reserve their preferred time and location, all in a few seconds.

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The technology was developed in response to the game's growing popularity throughout the Emirates. The system is the first of its kind in the world to cater to female players through a women-only filter.

Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) graduate AbdulAziz explains, "Padel is a fast-growing sport that merges tennis and squash. With its growing popularity, particularly since the end of lockdown, it became increasingly difficult to secure court bookings and we found the only way to check availability was by calling each club, which was a lengthy process. We realized then that there was a gap in the market, and we decided to start conducting some research to gather different views on how to tackle this."

Building on their market research, AbdulAziz and his co-creator, Saeed Ahli, started development work on the new platform in January 2021.

He further says, "The technology to support the system was built entirely in-house, and the interface is purpose-designed to be quick and easy to use. We knew that it would be particularly difficult for ladies looking to access courts for women-only sessions, so we added that filter as a feature from the outset. The app also includes the option to add friends to your game, allowing each player to pay their own share of the cost."

Business graduate AbdulAziz began his degree at RIT in New York before returning to the UAE to complete his studies when the university opened its campus in Dubai.

He is well established in the world of technology through his day job as the manager of ICT Business Development for du, and he believes his university education and the encouragement of the UAE Government are the inspiration for his venture into entrepreneurship.

"RIT offers a different kind of education based on real-life scenarios and learning by doing, which certainly hones the entrepreneurial bent of mind," AbdulAziz says.

"The UAE is the best place for me to build on this. With all the support and resources the Government offer us as citizens and the global marketplace that the country has established, we have the opportunity to build locally developed products like this to reach a global scale."

As Dubai recently hosted its inaugural Padel Cup, AbdulAziz hopes that the Go Padel application will contribute to growing the sport's community even further in the UAE.

"It's a sport for people of any age and it's great for bringing together people from different nationalities and breaking down barriers between cultures," he says.

"I hope that our platform encourages more people to join the game in the UAE, to experience this sense of community through sport."


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