Paul Rudman – Co-Founder
Paul started his marketing career providing SEO consultancy services in London in the very early noughties. He’s got 25 years of experience running companies, providing online marketing services to clients of all sizes and services, from McLaren to Marie Claire, from Wall Street Journal to HSBC and the UK Government.
At every stage of the evolution of online search, Paul has embraced the challenges involved with the need for adapting to where the search market has, and continues, to go and grow, and has now developed search services around AI Overviews, Citations, LLMs, Video creation & SEO, local search, and so much more.
Paul loves walks and conversations with his Jack Russell, Lucy, as well as all racquet sports, studied Sports Science at LJM, has coaching qualifications in tennis, squash as well as Padel, and Match Point Marketing is the perfect meeting place between profession and passion.
Polly Thatcher – Co-Founder
Matchpoint Marketing has been created to fill a gap in one of the UK’s fastest-growing sports: the need for specialist, hands-on marketing and operational support for padel clubs, operators and racquet sports businesses.
Behind Matchpoint Marketing is Polly Thatcher and Paul Rudman. Polly is a passionate padel player and marketing professional with over 20 years’ experience across strategic marketing, events, brand development and operational management. Over the past two years, Polly has become one of the most experienced padel marketing specialists in the UK working directly with leading padel operators to launch new sites, grow communities, fill memberships, and build club identities that players genuinely connect with.
A unique blend of marketing expertise and operational insight
Polly brings something rare in the padel space: a combination of senior-level marketing expertise and real on-court, on-site operational experience.
Her work with Padel People, Padel4all and The Padel Hub has included
everything from full-scale marketing audits and brand strategy development to centre launches, digital marketing management, content creation, organic social media growth primarily Instagram and TikTok growth, exhibition management and community-building campaigns.
Polly has personally helped multiple new clubs:
- Fill early-bird memberships ahead of opening
- Build local communities from zero
- Launch new sites with fully aligned operational and marketing strategies
- Grow brand presence across digital platforms
- Implement structured content plans, email campaigns, search optimisation and
- local activation strategies
Her experience uniquely blends the strategic (positioning, brand proposition, digital strategy) with the practical (site operations, player experience, community engagement, events, ambassador programmes).
Why Padel?
Like many people who pick up a racket for the first time, Polly quickly fell in love with the sport. But she also saw something bigger; an industry growing at extraordinary speed but without the specialist support that clubs, operators and new entrants really need.
With a passion for helping clubs grow, a deep understanding of customer behaviour, and first-hand experience working inside padel operations, Polly co-founded Matchpoint Marketing along with Paul to support clubs at every stage from pre-launch through to ongoing player retention and community building.
Marketing that understands players, clubs and the business of sport
Matchpoint Marketing isn’t a generic agency. We are entirely focused on padel and racquet sports, meaning we understand:
- how players interact with clubs
- how communities form and grow
- what drives early demand at launch
- what keeps players coming back
- how to market a hyper-local sports business effectively
- how operational decisions impact marketing outcomes
- the realities of site openings, staffing, timetabling, pricing and membership structures
This industry knowledge allows us to create marketing strategies that are effective because they’re rooted in how padel actually works.
What Polly brings to every project
With a career covering marketing agencies, event management, brand promotions, digital growth and entrepreneurship, Polly has built a toolkit that directly benefits padel operators, including:
- Strategic marketing campaign planning & execution
- Social media management (organic + paid) across all major platforms
- Content creation (video, socials, blogs, newsletters)
- Email marketing strategy and automation
- Website content management and optimisation
- SEO/SEM foundations & Google tools
- Exhibition & events management
- Local marketing activation
- Community building and player engagement
- Data-driven evaluation & ongoing optimisation
- Hands-on centre operations experience
Her ability to combine marketing insight with operational understanding means clubs receive strategies that are realistic, implementable and aligned with how padel businesses actually run day-to-day.
Our Mission at Matchpoint Marketing….
To help padel operators launch, grow and thrive by providing expert marketing and operational support built specifically for the sport.
Whether you’re a new club opening your first site, a growing operator scaling nationally, or a tennis club or other sports club expanding into padel, Matchpoint Marketing brings industry knowledge, proven experience and a genuine passion for the sport.
We don’t just promote padel.
We understand it.
We play it.
We help build the communities that make it thrive.