Three weeks after the inaugural British Padel Awards ceremony at Victoria Warehouse, the party moves from black tie to padel court. The BPA CUPRA Cup takes place on Saturday 27 June at Racketeer in London – a recreational player tournament that gives the community a chance to compete in the same spirit that produced those 21 categories and 700 guests in Manchester in May.

This is not a professional event. It is the official tournament of the British Padel Awards, and it is aimed squarely at the players who make up the backbone of British padel: the social players, the club regulars, the people who have been playing for a year or two and want something to enter that feels like a proper occasion.

What the CUPRA Cup is

The BPA CUPRA Cup is the competitive follow-up to the inaugural British Padel Awards. After the ceremony recognised the coaches, clubs, players, and creators shaping the sport in the UK, the CUPRA Cup is the event that puts those community members back on a court together.

It is run in partnership with Fast4Padel, a platform that has been building an amateur padel circuit across the UK over the past year. The format is designed for club-level players – accessible, competitive, and structured to give everyone multiple matches on the day.

CUPRA, the headline sponsor of the British Padel Awards, is also the title sponsor here. The brand’s investment in both the ceremony and the court event reflects the commercial seriousness now attached to the British padel scene – a major automotive sponsor committing across the full calendar, not a one-night association.

The venue: Racketeer, London

Racketeer is Europe’s largest indoor racket sports venue. Located at 55-61 North Acton Road, Park Royal, London NW10 6PH, the club opened with 11 indoor courts and a clubhouse that includes a restaurant, café-bar, pro shop, and changing rooms.

The venue was the brainchild of CEO Stephanie McCaffrey, a former USA international footballer, and co-founder Patrick Lafuente-Gray. It has positioned itself at the premium end of London’s padel market: purpose-built, well-equipped, and capable of handling a full-day competitive event without the constraints of a venue where padel is an afterthought.

For a community tournament that needs to feel like a proper occasion, Racketeer is a considered choice. The infrastructure – courts, food, changing, post-match space – is all there.

The Fast4Padel format

The tournament uses Fast4Padel’s shortened match format, which is worth understanding if you have not encountered it before.

In standard padel scoring, sets run to six games. Fast4Padel cuts that to four: the first pair to win four games wins the set. If the score reaches 3–3, a tie-break decides it. The no-ad rule (decisive points, no deuce) keeps matches moving. Most Fast4Padel matches run around 30 to 45 minutes.

The group stage is a timed round-robin. Groups of four teams play each other in 45-minute blocks, with every team guaranteed at least three matches before the knockout rounds begin. Top pairs advance to the semi-finals and final.

For recreational players, this format works particularly well. You get more court time per event, you are less likely to spend a whole session watching one lopsided match play out, and the pace keeps the energy up across a long day.

Who can enter

The tournament is open to players outside the LTA top rankings – Fast4Padel circuits exclude the LTA men’s top 100 and women’s top 50, keeping the field firmly amateur. Below that threshold, anyone can enter.

Registration interest opens via britishpadelawards.co.uk – the page invites players, partners, and sponsors to register. Specific categories, pricing, and entry details are released through the BPA channels as the event approaches, so the best move is to register your interest now to receive updates.

If you have a regular partner, this is the kind of event that suits a pair who want to test themselves in a structured competition without signing up for a full-season circuit. If you are a solo player, the Fast4Padel format is social enough that entering alone is not unusual.

Why this matters for casual UK players

The British Padel Awards created something that British padel had been missing: a moment of community recognition, an occasion that gathered the people building the sport under one roof. The CUPRA Cup extends that into something participatory.

Most competitive padel in the UK currently sits in two places: the grassroots end (club leagues, social Americanos, local open tournaments) and the elite end (LTA rankings events, Premier Padel, FIP circuits). The space between them – organised, branded, multi-venue recreational competition – has been developing slowly. Fast4Padel’s UK circuit is one of the main efforts to fill that gap, and the BPA CUPRA Cup gives that format a flagship date in the calendar.

For players at 12 to 24 months into the sport, structured competitive play is where you find out what you need to work on. Social sessions and club nights are great for court time, but they do not replicate the pressure of knockout competition. The CUPRA Cup offers that pressure within a format built to be fun and competitive in equal measure.

The BPA connection also matters for the occasion itself. The British Padel Awards ceremony drew sponsors including CUPRA, Slazenger Padel Clubs, Este Medical Group, and LED Projects. That commercial ecosystem sitting around a community player event signals something about where British padel is heading: towards the kind of infrastructure that has made padel in Spain and Argentina feel like an embedded sporting culture, a growth market that has found its identity.

The broader BPA calendar

The CUPRA Cup sits in a busy stretch of the British padel calendar. Premier Padel London P1 follows in August – the elite international circuit’s first UK event, at Olympia from 4 to 9 August. Between now and then, the recreational scene has the CUPRA Cup as its centrepiece.

If you have been meaning to enter something but found most UK tournaments too serious for where you are in the game, 27 June is worth marking. The format suits players at club level, the venue is well set up for a day out, and the event connects directly to the community that produced the BPA’s first ceremony.

Register your interest at britishpadelawards.co.uk. Full entry details will follow through the BPA’s official channels.