I wasn’t expecting to be working up a sweat on a Wednesday morning on the Champs-Élysées. And yet, invited by SFL for a sneak preview of the SFL Padel Club, I found myself racket in hand in the private garden at 90 Avenue des Champs-Élysées, just a few dozen metres from the ceaseless stream of cars and tourists. Suffice to say, the contrast was striking. On one side, the world’s most famous avenue with its familiar clamour. On the other, a padel court nestled in a secluded green oasis, as if suspended outside of Parisian time. I hadn’t played for months. The coach seemed to sense it.

On the court, I realised why padel is so addictive

I’d been told, told again, almost promised: padel is instantly addictive. I was only half convinced. An hour later, I understood. What strikes you first is how accessible the game is, because unlike tennis, where the first few sessions feel more like a ball-retrieval session than a proper match, in padel you’re exchanging shots quickly, you get into the game straight away, and you’re having fun almost from the very first rally. The coach first helped me get my footing right. Staying in the centre of the court, anticipating the ball after it bounces off the glass, focusing on placement rather than power. Simple instructions, immediate results.

What I hadn’t anticipated was just how much the setting changes everything. Playing padel in a dedicated hall is one thing. Doing it in the garden of a renovated mansion in the heart of the 8th arrondissement, with Haussmann-style façades as a backdrop and a lunchtime cocktail waiting patiently a few metres away, is quite another. There was something almost theatrical about the scene, and I must admit it made me a better player, or at least more relaxed, which amounts to the same thing.

What SFL really had at stake that morning

But let’s be honest: SFL didn’t invite us for our padel skills. This pop-up court set up in the garden of 90 Champs-Élysées is a life-size demonstration of an ambition that goes far beyond sport. The property company, the oldest in France and now part of the pan-European Colonial SFL group, is reinventing here what it means to work in a premium building. Not just beautiful, well-lit spaces, not just an address that looks impressive on a business card. But an experience, an ecosystem, a quality of life you won’t find anywhere else.

That morning, between a couple of awkward exchanges and a serve I’d rather not describe, I realised that this pop-up padel court was perhaps the most apt metaphor for what the high-end commercial property sector is trying to build by 2026. A cult of the Parisian setting. It’s not a question of trends or social mimicry, but of physiology.

An hour on that court and you come away with slightly tired legs, a genuine smile on your face and an energy that no 9am meeting could ever provide. SFL understood this before anyone else: a happy employee is one who has smashed a ball against a glass wall before lunch.

And if, on top of that, they do it on the Champs-Élysées, in a secret garden that not even their office neighbours suspect exists, then, frankly, the issue of retaining talent is almost sorted. Almost, because you’ll still have to offer them a pay rise. But padel is a good start.

Translated by Bethszabee Garner