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| Jeff Cheng is the new Padel Pilipinas president. Ivan Saldajeno |
TAGUIG—Padel Pilipinas is entering a new era in its existence as the national sports association for the fast-rising tennis alternative, as sports patron Jeff Cheng has been named the new president.
More popularly known as the former team manager of the two-time FIFA Women's World Cup participant Philippine women's national football team, Cheng is bringing his national team leadership experience to Padel Pilipinas as he takes over DPWH Secretary Vince Dizon as the NSA chief.
In a press conference formally introducing him as the new Padel Pilipinas president, Cheng said that it was Senator Pia Cayetano, the NSA's founding president, who introduced him to padel.
"When we were training in Pinatar with the Filipinas football team, Senator Pia was there. They were training the coaches, so that's how I got involved, and they were looking for coaches in the Philippines. So after my split with the Philippine women's team, I got involved with padel," Cheng said during the said media conference, which also served as the press launch for the Asia-Pacific Padel Cup at Play Padel McKinley West here.
Jacqueline Gan, Padel Pilipinas' executive director, added that there was no formal election for the next in line to Dizon and just invited Cheng to take over.
"We just asked him if he could actually be now officially our president because he has given support and commitment to the padel community even before he was president," Gan said, adding that the APPC hosting was Cheng and Cayetano's brainchild.
With tennis, where padel is mainly patterned, getting a renaissance locally, thanks to Alex Eala, and pickleball, another tennis alternative, getting more popular by the day, with some help from the pro leagues PYCL and the upcoming MPPT, Cheng's main focus early into his tenure is to further promote padel.
"Being a young sport, the main thing is to promote the sport and get more people to participate, and I think it's building an entire ecosystem of having, first, the right coaches, so that having the right coaches, we build the right foundation of the players," Cheng further said.
According to him, Padel Pilipinas is now supporting more padel clubs nationwide, while plans for more padel venues are set in stone so that more people can try out the sport.
