The history of Padel

Mexican businessman Enrique Corcuera set up the first-ever padel court at his holiday home in Acapulco in 1969 – but the roots of the sport go back further than that. During the 19th century, passengers on British cruise ships played a similar game with tennis rackets and in the 1910s ‘platform tennis’ became popular in Washington and New York, with paddles replacing traditional tennis rackets.

Over the next decade, changes were made to the courts, adding wooden floors and high surrounding fences to avoid losing the ball in the winter snow. But it wasn’t until the 1960s when Enrique set up the first recognised court on land he owned in Acapulco. The main difference being that he surrounded his court with walls and a metallic fence of up to four metres on all sides, designed to prevent the ball from escaping onto his neighbour’s land. He called the sport Paddle Corcuera.

Spanish entrepreneur Alfonso de Hohenlohe, a friend of Enrique’s, was the main driving force behind making padel an international sport. While visiting Mexico in 1974, Hohenlohe enjoyed this new game so much that he decided to import it to Spain’s Costa del Sol, where he built the country’s first two padel courts at the Marbella Club.The introduction of the courts marked the beginning of the game’s popularity among the members of this exclusive club, including the tennis player Manolo Santana, who won four Grand Slam titles. Soon, tournaments were being organised along the Costa del Sol as more and more clubs built their own courts. Padel is still wildly popular in Spain today with more than 20,000 padel courts, and an estimated six million active players. Behind football, it’s the country’s second-most-popular sport.

In 1975 an Argentine millionaire, Julio Menditenguia, discovered padel in Marbella and decided to take the sport to his country – where it became hugely popular. Today there are more than two million officially licensed padel players in Argentina, a country that boasts more than 10,000 padel courts.

In 1991 the International Paddle Federation was formed and in 1992 the first world championships were held in the dual cities of Madrid and Seville. In 1993, the Sports Council of Spain recognised paddle as a sport, and changed its spelling to padel for pronunciation purposes in the Spanish language. In 2005 the first professional world tour, Padel Pro Tour, was created. In 2013 this was renamed as the World Padel Tour – a circuit that still runs today with events held across the world.

In 1992 the British Paddle Association was formed by a group of passionate British expats seeking to compete in the 1992 World Paddle Championships. Since then the sport has steadily grown throughout Britain. In 2019 the LTA announced it will integrate British Padel into the organisation’s day-to-day operations. Since then the number of courts in Great Britain has grown from 51 to 760. Similarly, the number of players has increased from 65,000 to over 230,000 at the end of 2024 - with that number set to grow even further over the coming years.

Taken from LTA Padel website.