Lamborghini courts Babolat to serve up exclusive new padel racquet

Italian supercar Lamborghini has announced a collaboration with French padel racquet manufacturer Babolat to produce a 50-piece limited edition Babolat BL001 padel racquet.

Babolat was founded in 1875, inventing the first tennis strings while padel is a high-octane blend of a racquet sport adapted from tennis and squash. The sport that’s played in a smaller court compared with tennis uses a solid, perforated paddle, as opposed to a strung racquet. It's a new lifestyle rage, with many padel courts popping up all over South African towns.

Aldric Bourgier, chief innovation and development officer at Babolat, joined Lamborghini's chief manufacturing officer Ranieri Niccoli to celebrate their manufacturing union.

“We have 150 years of know-how in racquet sports and we are committed to padel for more than 20 years, but we are keen to collaborate with experts in their field. Lamborghini is a connoisseur of carbon composite technologies as well as leather and paint. We can produce something special, unique,” he said.

“I love [padel],” said Niccoli. “I started to play and it’s an easy sport to pick up initially and then you realise how strategic it can be. It’s fast, interesting to play and watch, it’s a convivial sport, drawing people together in their passion.”

“When I was playing padel I realised the synergies between Lamborghini and Babolat. So we talked and realised we share not only a technological [interest] but [are] also passionate about sharing our respective expertise and pushing ourselves to deliver on this new challenge.”