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# From Interior Design to Padel: Building a Global Skill Level for the Fastest-Growing Racket Sport
- URL: https://www.foundedbywomen.org/women-who-lead/from-interior-design-to-padel-building-a-global-skill-level-for-the-fastest-growing-racket-sport/
- Published: 2026-10-06T09:57:31.000Z
- Updated: 2026-10-06T10:00:09.000Z
- Author: Editorial team
- Tags: Women Who Lead

Padel is booming, but one basic problem still holds the game back. Every good match needs four players of similar ability, yet there is no shared way to describe how good a player really is. Levels are self-declared, calculated differently by each platform, and understood differently from one country to the next.

For Leigh Millar, Founder and CEO of [FourPlay-Padel](https://www.fourplay-padel.com/?ref=foundedbywomen.org), that gap was impossible to ignore. Self-employed since the age of 19, she built businesses in interior design and fashion before moving to Bali, where she discovered padel while looking for a new community. She fell in love with the social side of the sport, then noticed the missing piece of infrastructure. As a natural problem-solver, she decided to fix it.

FourPlay-Padel uses video and AI to assess a player's skills and create one trusted level that travels with them wherever they play. The skill framework is being built and validated with experienced international coaches, and the next step is building the technology and moving into the first court-booking platform integrations. With padel projected to reach 105 million players by 2030, the ambition is to become the player-level infrastructure used across clubs, platforms and countries. In this interview, Leigh shares what inspired the move, the problem she is solving, and what comes next. Learn more at fourplay-padel.com.

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### Q: What inspired you to start your padel business, and what led you to padel after your earlier career in interior design?

I discovered padel after moving to Bali and looking for a new community, essentially, trying to find my tribe. I quickly fell in love with the social side of the sport, but also saw that it was missing a major piece of infrastructure: a trusted way to measure player ability. I have been self-employed since I was 19 and, after building businesses in interior design and fashion, I was ready for a new challenge. I am a natural problem-solver, so when I found a problem affecting an entire global sport, my instinct was to fix it.

### Q: What problem are you solving by building a global skill level for padel players?

Padel needs four players of similar ability to create a good game, yet there is no shared global language for describing player skill. Levels are often self-declared, calculated differently by individual platforms or understood differently from one country to another. FourPlay‑Padel will use video and AI to assess the individual player’s padel skills and create one trusted level that belongs to them wherever they play, helping players find better-matched games while improving engagement and retention for clubs and booking platforms.

### Q: What’s next for your business as padel keeps growing?

We are working with experienced international coaches to define and validate the skill framework before training the AI to reproduce those assessments consistently. The next stage is building the technology, testing it with real players and moving into our first court-booking platform integrations. As padel grows towards a projected 105 million players by 2030, our ambition is for FourPlay‑Padel to become the trusted player-level infrastructure used across clubs, platforms and countries.

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