The padel evening that the ComPETE organized was a great mix of people who had played tennis or padel before and were able to pick it up quickly, and people like myself who’d never played before. We had five teams, making it perfect for a round-robin style tournament. This made the tournament quite interesting as you didn’t know beforehand how good your opposition was, and there was a lot of variation even within teams. I was in a team with Daan and although we lost most of our games, I enjoyed playing against people I don’t see as often and engaging with my friends in a fun yet competitive atmosphere.
This event was quite different from what we usually do with AEGEE, which made it all the more fun. Even though half the participants (including myself) weren’t particularly good, everyone tried hard and many people got noticeably better over the course of the games, which made it very enjoyable. I think if we were to do this event again and mix up the teams, the results would be very different. Overall, padellen with ComPETE was a lot of fun and I would love to see it return as an event next year. In the meantime, I’ll continue playing this every so often – so that next time we play with AEGEE, we’ll finish closer to the top.
– Milan Nab Sangster
