For years, the low white building at 103 Mill Road in Freeport was where Long Island went to play inside: 25,000 square feet of indoor turf called the Long Island Sports Complex, booked solid with youth baseball clinics, soccer sessions and birthday parties. On Wednesday it reopened as something the South Shore has never had. The turf is gone, and in its place stand five glass-walled padel courts.

Pop's Padel opened its doors October 1, and it is not easing in. The club runs seven days a week, 7 a.m. to 11 p.m., with four panoramic doubles courts, a single singles court, 30-foot ceilings, a pro shop, locker rooms and a lounge where you can watch every court from a seat with food and a drink.

The sport, for anyone still mixing it up with pickleball

Padel is the one with the walls. It is played in doubles on an enclosed court about a third the size of a tennis court, with glass walls that are part of the game: a ball that bounces past you can be played off the back wall, which keeps rallies alive far longer than tennis allows. The serve is underhand, the scoring is tennis scoring, and the racquet is a solid, stringless paddle. The game was born in Mexico in the late 1960s, conquered Spain and Argentina, and has spent the last few years opening clubs across Europe and, lately, America at a pace no other racquet sport can match.

The pitch for a first-timer is simple: it is easier to start than tennis, and it has more swing to it than pickleball. Most people are playing real points within an hour.

Finally, a court south of the LIE

Long Island has not been without padel, but it has been without it in one particular way: the courts sat on the North Shore, in Roslyn and Syosset, and everyone south of them drove. Pop's Padel says its mission outright is to bring the sport to the South Shore, and the location backs that up: Mill Road sits just off the parkway with its own parking lot, minutes from Merrick, Baldwin, Rockville Centre and the rest of the South Shore corridor.

The club's director of padel is Pepe Miralles, a former Division I college tennis player, and the instruction program is built out from day one: private lessons, group clinics and a beginner intro that covers everything from the underhand serve to how not to flinch when the ball comes off the glass.

What it costs, and what you get free

You do not need a membership to play. Courts are open to anyone through the club's booking system, which runs on Playtomic, the app most of the padel world already uses.

For regulars, the club is selling founding memberships in three sizes: a single membership at $85 a month, a duo at $150 and a trio-plus at $225. All three carry the same perks: 25 percent off court time, lessons and private events, a members-only league run with Adidas, one free open play session a month, two free guests a month, and a booking window that opens 14 days out instead of the public one.

The open play sessions are worth a note for anyone arriving without a foursome. Padel is a doubles game, and open play is how a new club builds the pool of players that makes pickup games possible. Showing up alone and leaving with three regular partners is the standard padel origin story.

More than the courts

The build is aiming above the usual bubble-and-bench racquet facility. The lobby looks onto the full run of courts, there are men's and women's locker rooms, and the retail shop stocks racquets, apparel and accessories, which matters in a sport where almost nobody owns their own gear on day one. The lounge serves food and drinks, and the club talks about itself less like a gym than like a club you would stay at after the match ends.

Leagues and tournaments are on the calendar across men's, women's and mixed divisions, in brackets by skill and age, so the competitive side will not be limited to whoever happens to book the next court.

What it means for the corner

Freeport has watched plenty of its big recreation boxes cycle through tenants, and the Long Island Sports Complex was a genuine institution for families from Freeport, Merrick and Baldwin. Its second act is a bet that one of the fastest-growing sports in the world is ready for the South Shore, the turf birthdays replaced by glass courts and a lounge.

If you have been curious about padel since the clips started filling your feed, the barrier just dropped to a 10-minute drive. The courts at 103 Mill Road are open until 11 tonight.