Editor’s note: The following (lightly edited) feature article is the fourth installment of a new “How I Became Obsessed With Padel” series we’re rolling out from regular guest contributor, Scott Matulis, a former PR Director for the Worldwide Senior Tennis Tour who discovered padel in Vegas two years ago and can now hit balls off of the glass occasionally. He is the author of the LinkedIn and Substack serial novel The Applicant.

For the sake of transparency, please note that GLDN PNT is a Premier Partner of Padel Nation — and, as always, we’re very grateful for their support in allowing us to keep this publication rolling.

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Scott London is a longtime entrepreneur who has helped build and commercialize legendary apparel brands including Wu-Wear, Zoo York and Baby Phat. His latest venture, GLDN PNT, is a clothing and lifestyle brand created specifically for padel.

London is also every bit as obsessed with the sport as the people he designs for — and, like many tennis converts, he still sometimes hits an overhead when he should be hitting a bandeja.

I recently sat down with him to talk about how he became obsessed with padel and why he thinks padel is the new Burning Man.

How did you first discover padel and how did it become more than just something you do for fun?

It’s interesting because my padel story is very similar to the progression of padel in Miami itself.

A lot of people were introduced to padel by Wayne Boich, who owns Reserve now. He had a padel court at his home. And there were a couple of small clubs with padel. There was Real Padel Miami and Wynwood Padel Club, which is really where I first started playing padel on a regular basis. It was right before the pandemic — or just as the pandemic was starting.

I was still playing tennis every day, and then I started playing padel. And padel, as everybody knows, is super addictive. So I decided I’m only going to play tennis on Tuesdays and Thursdays and play padel the other days.

I remember on the days I wouldn’t play padel, if I saw those guys that night or the day after, and they’re talking about their match, I would be so mad that I wasn’t playing just those two days. So I gave up tennis completely, and started playing padel all the time.

I went from playing at Wynwood to playing at Ultra Padel, with someone who, unfortunately, just passed away (Fernando Alarcón). He had the first indoor courts [in Miami], and I started playing there whenever it would rain.

Then there was a place in Miramar, which is about an hour away. And I remember the first time driving out to Miramar with a bunch of guys and thinking to myself, ‘This is obviously a real addiction.’ I would never have driven an hour to go play tennis. I’ve played tennis my whole life. But I would never have driven an hour just just for a regular game.

Eventually I ended up at Reserve Seaplane, and then last year, I joined Sunset Padel, which is very close to me. And so, like I said, my progression in padel has [largely mirrored] padel’s progression in Miami. And now I’m sort of playing all over the place. If I drop my son at school, I’m playing at Ultra because it’s nearby.

I went to Burning Man for years, and I always say that padel is the new Burning Man. It’s the new obsession. Years ago you were always talking about Burning Man and who was going and whose camp were you in and how many days you were going for.

But now you’re out to dinner, and everybody is talking about padel, the game they had yesterday, the game they’re going to have tomorrow, the game they had today, and who beat who. There’s so much trash talking and everything. It’s so fun.

There’s a lot of stuff being written about the padel community and that the sense of belonging is different than it is in tennis and other sports. Do you agree that tennis and padel are different in that context?

Look, the number one thing about padel is the community, which is why I decided to start GLDN PNT. The community is just so strong.

The thing about tennis is it’s a very heady game. It’s a very individual, mentally gritty game. Especially at a high level. And you’re out there on your own. Even to the point where in a fun game, you’re having fun, but you’re still an individual. Just to make a point, I would go as far to say that there is no community in tennis.

I think about this all the time: ‘Why is there such a sense of community in padel?’ I think it’s proximity. First of all, it’s a doubles game. The teammates are very close together, so you’re talking much more than in tennis. It’s a communication game, where you’re hitting the ball, you’re constantly talking, your opponents are constantly talking. All four people are talking.

People say that padel is the ‘new golf.’ You could never say that about tennis, right? I think it’s because of the walls. It’s very intimate because of the walls. It’s four people doing something together. Not an individual, not two people, but four people doing something together.

So, whether you are trash talking each other, you know, across the net, or whether you’re just communicating, just having fun, or just saying, ‘What are you and your wife doing for dinner tonight?’ in between points, whatever the thing is, you’re actually talking. There’s something about those four walls, I think, that make it more intimate.

People get addicted to tennis, but to me it seems like the addiction to padel is more aggressive, more all-consuming, if you get what I mean. What’s behind that in your opinion?

First of all, padel is a thinking-man’s game. And then of course it’s very dynamic. Also, even if you’re not good, even if you don’t have the perfect form, with padel, you’re still going to have a lot of fun out there. Where in tennis, you’ve gotta really learn the top spin. You’ve got to learn the strokes, you know?

A novice tennis player could not play against a very good tennis player and both of them have fun. But a novice padel player can have fun with a good padel player. The beginner can play with the expert, and it happens all the time in pro ams and things like that. In tennis, that could never happen. You’d just be picking up balls all over the place, right?

I think the other thing that’s really interesting about padel is that every now and then you can do something that a pro does. You know what I mean? Whether it’s a trick shot or you get it off the wall or whatever happens, you’re like, "‘oh my God!’

In tennis, you’re never doing that. You’re never hitting the ball like Federer no matter what you do. But in padel, you’re going to be able to hit the ball out of the court. And eventually you’re going to learn how to run out of the court and hit it back.

Okay, so how did it go from, “Well this is super fun, I’m not playing any more tennis” to “this is a business?” What was the need that wasn’t being met and how did you decide to step in?

So, I’m sure many people have thought, ‘Oh, it would be a great idea to have a padel clothing line.’ But they have no idea how to actually make that happen. Because of the nature of my background, fortunately (or unfortunately), I actually knew how to make that happen.

When I talk about this, I’m not sure that I always get the point across: It’s not that I looked at the padel community and thought, ‘Oh, I want to have a brand and sell to the padel community.’

The importance of the community for any clothing brand — or any brand that we can think of in the world — is that the brand starts from a certain community, and then people want to be associated with that community.

I say that padel is to tennis what snowboarding is to skiing. It goes back to your question about community and tennis. There is that community there, but it’s different. Same thing with skiing. It’s just different. It’s more individualized than snowboarding. And now you see the big ski companies emulating the snowboard companies. All the skiers want to dress like their cooler cousin. You know, they want to dress like the snowboarders dress.

So, it’s not that I wanted to build a brand and just sell it, because, let’s face it, the padel community is relatively small. But, at the end of the day, I think that people are going to want to be associated with what padel players stand for.

If Tom Brady picks up a golf club or a tennis racquet, nobody actually cares. If he picks up a padel racket, it’s in the paper, right? Same with Alcarez. Same with Nadal, etc. They pick up a padel racquet, everyone’s like wow, look at them, they’re so into padel!

So what’s the difference between padel clothes and tennis clothes?

There isn’t one.

So, it’s funny… when I first started, I told a very good friend of mine, ‘I’m gonna start a padel collection.’ And he’s actually an ex-pro athlete, and he said, ‘Oh, that’s great, because there’s nothing to wear.’

And I said, ‘Ronnie, you know there’s a world of tennis clothes out there. I’m not gonna actually do anything different. It’s basically the same.’ He was like, ‘Yeah, but you know, I’d still rather wear padel clothes.’

I think we’re still trying to figure out the vocabulary of what sets us apart from tennis. I think that our new collection kind of heads in the direction where we can get away with colors that are not necessarily tennis colors.

It’s easier to talk about it with the skiing and snowboarding analogy. In the beginning of snowboarding days, the kids were wearing grunge instead of ski clothes.

In padel, you see people wearing their favorite t-shirt, that they would probably never wear to tennis. In tennis, I feel like you put a tennis outfit on, more than you put a padel outfit on. In padel, you kind of bring your own personality to the court.

Clothing is clothing at the end of the day. But when we go to the store, we’re thinking about who we want to be. We’re playing. It’s a costume. It’s dress up. And when we pick it out of our closet, it’s the same thing. We’re thinking, ‘Who do I want to be and who do I want the world to know that I am?’

You can view GLDN PNT’s entire collection online here and get news and updates by following them on Instagram here.

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just released last week. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

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While other padel-related events like RacquetX and the Padel World Summit may get more attention, for my money the most interesting and intriguing one of the year will take place this September 21 - 22 at the first-ever Padel Relations member meet-up in New York City.

That’s because, unlike RacquetX, this two-day event will focus solely on padel (rather than the racquet-sports ecosystem as a whole) and, unlike Padel World Summit, it doesn’t require a multi-day transatlantic trip smack dab in the middle of one of the busiest times of the year for me racquet-sports-wise (though I’ll admit there are certainly much worse places to go than Barcelona in late May!).

Combine this level of convenience and padel-specific programming and you’ll start to get some sense of why everyone from the U.S. tech duo set to reshape how we play padel to Antonio Goes, the Founder of Courtr (which is an official parter of the event along with Weebora), has told me they’ll definitely see me there.

(What’s more, I’ve even talked to friends from the padel world who are considering traveling to the event from places as far flung as Budapest and Guyana.)

Standing Out in the Crowd

With so many padel-focused networking groups and associations out there (and more popping up all the time), it can admittedly be hard to keep track of them all. So, if you aren’t already familiar with Padel Relations, here are a few quick details you should know:

• It was founded by Victoria Pahlett, a Swedish-born, Luxembourg-based former Division 1 tennis player (for the University of North Carolina at Charlotte 49ers), who has over five years working hands on in the international padel industry, including stints at Playtomic and MATCHi…

• As of this writing, Padel Relations has welcomed over 135 padel clubs, businesses, and organizations (including Padel Nation) into its global padel network from over 35 countries, including Argentina, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Germany, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Malaysia, the Netherlands, Spain, South Africa, Switzerland, Türkiye, the U.A.E., the U.K., and Zambia — just to name a few (in other words, it’s a truly global padel network), and…

• To date, the network also counts over 25 U.S. padel clubs and businesses among its ranks, including Mink Padel (in Harlem, NY), Olympus Padel (in Colorado Springs, CO), Mesa Padel Club (in Mesa, AZ), Boise Padel Club (in Boise, ID), Pick and Padel and U-Padel (both in San Antonio, TX), PadelUp (in Sterling, VA), Kraken Padel Club (in Dallas, TX), Union Padel Club and Proximo Padel (both in Chicago, IL), and The Padel Courts, Pura Padel, and Padel Up (all in Los Angeles, CA) — again, just to name a few.

(Although Victoria emphasizes that non-member clubs and padel businesses are more than welcome at the event, too, because, “the goal is to get everyone involved.”)

The Event Itself

One other very notable Padel Relations U.S.-member club is Padel Haus, so it’s probably little surprise that the actual playing portions of the event set to take place both days will be held at the recently opened Padel Haus Greenpoint location.

In addition to providing attendees with ample opportunities to network, socialize, and play padel at one of New York City’s (and the U.S.’s) preeminent padel venues, Victoria is also organizing both official and unofficial event dinners at stunning locations around Manhattan, including a rooftop location that is yet to be publicly announced but is sure to dazzle anyone who decides to join the party in the Big Apple in late September.

Ultimately, Victoria tells me:

We are super excited to bring the Padel Relations Event to New York this year as we see more and more people getting involved in the U.S. padel market. We look forward to some fun days with club owners and decision-makers and can’t wait to keep growing this global padel business network!

If past Padel Relations events across Europe are any indication, this will be one not to miss — so I do hope to see you there!

Learn More Here

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just released last week. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

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Here at Padel Nation we generally try to highlight the positive direction padel is taking across the U.S. rather than the negative direction so many other things are taking across our country and the world at large….

And today we get to highlight a positive (yet seemingly overlooked) direction that U.S. padel is taking to help a series of very negative and completely devastating events that happened in Venezuela just a little over a month ago — namely, two powerful 7.0+ earthquakes that shook the South American country, damaging or destroying an estimated 850+ buildings, injuring over 16,000+ people, and taking the lives of another 5,200+ according to recent estimates.

Granted, there have certainly been no shortage of worthy organizations raising money to help the Venezuelan recovery efforts in the aftermath of this catastrophe, including:

• International Rescue Committee

• U.N. Crisis Relief

• UNICEF USA

But one that particularly that has particularly caught my attention is one from LA-based Padel Up — which we’ve covered several times before for various events and initiatives and which, this Wednesday, July 22, will be hosting a “Rally for Venezuela” event to raise money for recovery efforts.

In fact, in the weeks following the Venezuela devastation, while so many others were focused on hype surrounding the World Cup, the Taylor Swift / Travis Kelce nuptials, and the U.S.’s 250th birthday, I saw an Instagram post from Padel Up stating:

If you’ve ever been to Padel Up, you know that Venezuela is a huge part of our community. Our coaches, staff and clients represent this beautiful nation proudly.

It’s been two weeks since an earthquake destroyed Venezuela and took so many precious lives. We can’t forget what has happened and must continue to drive support for Venezuela.

Padel Up is committed to raising funds to send to Venezuela. If you’d like to participate, you can find our GoFundMe link in our bio.

We will be announcing an event dedicated to Venezuela support shortly so please stay tuned. Padel Up is also committing 100% of our revenue from our weekly Link Up events every Friday this July.

Shortly thereafter, I came across this follow up, officially announcing the “Rally for Venezuela” event that will take place the day after tomorrow:

On June 24, powerful earthquakes changed the lives of thousands of families across Venezuela.

As a community, we believe that even small actions can make a meaningful impact.

Join us for Rally for Venezuela, an evening where we come together through padel, food, music, and community to raise funds for earthquake relief efforts.

Padel Up Culver City
Wednesday, July 22 / 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Can’t make it? You can still support by donating through the GoFundMe in our bio. Every contribution helps.

Thank you to all of our partners and everyone helping make this possible.

Together, we rally for Venezuela. 🇻🇪❤️

And, sadly to me, while dozens of AI-generated padel-related social media posts routinely garner hundreds, if not thousands, of likes and 🔥🔥🔥 responses, this very worthy cause (so far) seems to have fallen on deaf ears…

What’s more, the GoFundMe they’ve set up is still about 90% short of its goal, which I hope you’ll agree is a bit disheartening given that so many people in the U.S. don’t think twice about dropping hundreds of dollars per hour to play padel.

But I’m in for $250, whatever that’s worth — and I trust that at least a few of you who read this will contribute as much as you can, too (and, perhaps more importantly, pass this along to your friends, as well, whether they play padel or not).

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Plus, it seems that if anyone can pull off a big, meaningful padel event, it’s Padel Up — so hopefully we can all band together and show everyone what the U.S. padel community is really all about!

Donate to "Rally for Venezuela" now

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just released this week. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

Editor’s note: The following (lightly edited) feature article is the third installment of a new “How I Became Obsessed With Padel” series we’re rolling out from regular guest contributor, Scott Matulis, a former PR Director for the Worldwide Senior Tennis Tour who discovered padel in Vegas two years ago and can now hit balls off of the glass occasionally. He is the author of the LinkedIn and Substack serial novel The Applicant.

And apologies for this week’s second article arriving a day late and very early in the morning (for U.S. readers anyhow). Publishing while traveling through Spain has proved trickier than planned, but we’ll shoot to get back to our regular schedule next week!

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Rene Lewicki leads business development for Wilson in the Western United States. He’s German. He’s also one of the people working to grow padel in the U.S., and he has a unique perspective on what it will take to make the sport popular here. He thinks Wilson rackets are better than your current stick.

Here’s how he became obsessed with padel…

Give me the origin story, how you discovered padel and how you fell in love with it.

So, I played padel the first time when I was 15 or 16. I was at a training camp in Spain for tennis, and my coach, who was from Chile, one day said, ‘Hey, we are going to play padel today,’ and we were all like, ‘What is that?’

He got us out on the court and we played. And we did that two years in a row when we went to this training camp in Spain. We always played one afternoon of padel. And we all had a blast, but in all honesty, thank God there are no videos from back then. It was probably the most hilarious thing because we were all good tennis players, but we had no clue how to use the walls.

So, fast forward a few years, I was a grown up, worked in the sporting goods industry, lived in Berlin, Germany. A friend of mine told me there is someone building these weird courts in Berlin. It looks like tennis but smaller. I was like, wait, wait, that sounds familiar. So I drove out there and I realized like, ‘Oh my god, those are padel courts!’

So, I played for just over a year, I played every day at this club. We played through the German winter. Any time there was no snow on the ground, we would play padel. We had the onion system of clothing. We came with like six layers.

And then I moved to the U.S. for a job by myself. And besides working, I didn’t have much to do. I was not married. My girlfriend back then was in Germany, so I found out that there were padel courts that today are called The Padel Courts in Los Angeles. I would drive in on the weekends.

The club was run by some super nice guys from Spain. I would go up there once a month and just play for one or two days. It was padel and I loved it.

When was that, and how was the padel community at that point in LA?

That was 2014. And it was mostly expats; people from Europe. There was this super fun crew who were all from Spain, mostly from Madrid. They all came here to study or whatever, and two of them ran these padel courts.

Without being negative, I don’t think it was the most profitable business because I can’t even remember being charged there when I played. They were happy that I came out and that I knew how to play a little bit.

Back then when I played on those courts, I would have probably played on a school backyard if somebody would have made a brick wall behind me.

People who knew padel were so desperate for padel courts that the standards were way lower than now. I mean, nowadays, if you want to have a top notch padel facility, you look at six courts plus restaurants, and all these nice things.

I was just at that club and one of the cool things about it is that it has a half court. I’d never seen one of those before. Back then, every court that existed was like gold. We played tournament matches on that half court. It was hilarious. We would play for fun, just like one against one, little freakish singles tournaments. They were fun. It was different.

Also, it’s not necessarily the width. It’s the length, it’s shorter. And that’s the tricky part. That really throws you off when you play there.

How did you end up working for Wilson?

I was in the sporting goods industry in different roles. And I spent lots of years in the racket sport industry, so tennis and padel were always very near. At one point, my other business ventures were over and it was time for a change.

I made a list of stuff that I care about, and that I could imagine working in. Padel was number one. Tennis was number two. Coffee wholesale trading was number three. Absolutely unrelated.

And funny enough, I was in Italy last summer, and I had an Airbnb with my family, and I walked one day to a pizza place in a town outside of Venice, and I walked by this super nice looking old villa, and I saw a sign that said, Amer Sports, Wilson.

And I was joking to my wife, ‘Hey, why don’t I just walk in there on Monday and ask them if they’re looking for a padel guy in the U.S.?’

And believe it or not, three weeks later, I was back home and I saw a job on LinkedIn that Wilson is looking for a business development manager for padel. So I applied, got the job and I love it.

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

Subscribe now

Share

Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… my brand-new 352-page padel book was just released this week. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble.

Or if you’re a club owner and you’d want to carry a handful of copies in your pro shop for “padel curious” people who are interested in trying the sport out but don’t know quite where to start, let me know and I can connect you with my publisher’s wholesale department.

Many thanks in advance!

Subscribe now

While I didn’t have the privilege of attending the inaugural event of the 2026 Pro Padel League (PPL) season in New York City this past weekend myself (as I’m currently in Spain for the Premier Padel P1 in Málaga), it’s obvious from all the coverage I’ve seen that it was a real showstopper.

(And according to at least one spectator, more fun to watch than tennis — controversial as that may be!).

For starters, the event was held in Manhattan Center of the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City, an iconic 120-year-old event venue with soaring, 75-foot frescoed ceilings on the west side of Midtown that was originally the home of the Manhattan Opera House. (Be sure to check out this virtual tour of the space if you want to see what all the fuss is about).

Then there were the players themselves, with over 50 of the world’s top men and women spread across the 10 teams that currently make up the PPL, including international superstars like Leonel “Tolito” Aguirre and longtime U.S. standout Brittany Dubins.

And finally, there was the fact that this was the first pro padel event to be broadcast live by a major U.S. television network, namely CNBC — which is perhaps not surprising given the network’s focus on investing news and the fact that the PPL has raised $25 million in funding over just the past 18 months, including a $15 million Series A round led by Charlotte Hornets Co-Chairman & Governor Rick Schnall (of the NBA).

Ultimately, the DC Matrix (which recently “re-located” from Arkansas) claimed the men's championship over the Toronto Polar Bears with this un-returnable por-tres kick smash, while the San Diego Stingrays captured the women's championship after breezing by the NY Atlantics 6-1, 6-1 in a little over an hour.

The tour’s next event (which I do plan on attending) will be in Los Angeles from August 13–16, followed by two tour stops in Mexico — first in Playa del Carmen from September 24–27 and next in Guadalajara from November 19–22 — before concluding in Miami, where The City's Cup will crown the league's men's, women's, and overall champions December 3–6.

The Bigger Picture

As stunning as the venue was and as exciting as all the action turned out to be, perhaps most impressive was the fact that the NY Atlantics team hosted a youth community clinic at Mink Padel — which connected local NYC youth from StreetSquash and Uptown Inner City League with professional players and coaches for an introduction to the sport.

Of this community-building, youth-focused outing, PPL CEO Michael Dorfman said on Instagram: "It’s all well and good that celebrities love padel. But to me, this is what it’s all about.”

Heading into the weekend he further told media outlets like Sports Destination Management:

Opening our 2026 season here in New York is an incredible moment for our league. This week represents everything we’re working to build — world-class competition, meaningful opportunities for our players, and new ways to introduce more fans to padel through our partners, broadcast reach, and community initiatives. We’re excited to welcome new fans to the sport and continue growing the game together.

Given everything I’ve heard and seen about the weekend, it looks like the PPL succeeded on all fronts — and I look forward to being courtside next month in Los Angeles to take it all in firsthand.

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

Subscribe now

Share

Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… I’ve actually got a full-blown padel book coming out in July. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by pre-ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Many thanks in advance!

For the third month in a row, I’ve teamed up with Aris Sevastianos (of the El Remate padel newsletter) to bring you a curated list of upcoming U.S. padel club openings that should be on your radar.

(If you missed our previous months’ lists you can find them here and here).

So far, we’ve detailed 14 clubs that are bringing 91 courts to eight states across the U.S., and this month we highlight five new clubs (including two that are opening this weekend) in five different states that will soon be bringing at least 20 new padel courts to the U.S. (Yes, that’s a lot to keep track of!).

This month’s list includes:

Bay Padel (San Jose, CA)

After bringing three previous clubs to the Bay area (two in San Francisco and one in Sunnyvale), Bay Padel is getting ready to open its fourth club further down the bay in San Jose.

In fact, this six-outdoor-court club will have its official soft opening this weekend, with a full day of padel (including a tournament), live music, and “Intro to Padel” sessions taking place this Saturday, July 11 from 9AM to 6PM.

This will be followed by Bay Padel opening yet another padel club in California later this year (this time in the Marina del Rey neighborhood of Los Angeles) — so be sure to stay tuned for more details on that one.

Estimated Opening Date: July 11, 2026 (Soft Opening)

Padel Park (West Jordan, UT)

Yet another padel club in the Western half of the country will have its coming-out party this weekend when Padel Park hosts its grand opening this Saturday, July 11 in West Jordan, Utah (just about 20 - 25 minutes south of downtown Salt Lake City).

As we covered a few months back, Padel Park is one of at least six padel clubs that will soon be open in the greater Salt Lake City area, and it will add another six indoor MejorSet courts (with 40-foot ceilings!) to the region’s rapidly growing roster of places to play.

From 10AM to 2PM this Saturday, you’re invited to come play, meet the community, enjoy free beginner clinics and open play, participate in giveaways, explore goods from local vendors, and see what Padel Park is all about. Just be sure to RSVP here.

Estimated Opening Date: July 11, 2026 (Grand Opening)

Three Rackets (Broomfield, CO)

A concept known as Three Rackets will soon join Nicol NJ, Ballers Philly and The Heights Racquet & Social Club (outside Minneapolis) on the the short — but growing — list of U.S. racquet clubs that offer padel, pickleball, and squash (though, sadly, The Heights is still the only one with doubles squash courts).

As you can see in this Instagram video tour, when it opens later this summer between Boulder and Denver, Three Rackets will feature five indoor Favaretti padel courts housed in a 34,000 square foot space with 32-foot-high ceilings.

This will accompany three all-glass squash courts and four pickleball courts along with spa-like locker rooms, lounge and social space, a fully stocked pro shop, and a kitchen and bar.

Estimated Opening Date: Summer 2026

Padeland (Chandler, AZ)

The greater Phoenix area will soon have even more places to play when Padeland brings three indoor padel courts (along with seven pickleball courts, a wellness space with cold plunge and sauna, a full restaurant, and a craft brewery) to downtown Chandler.

Of the project, co-founder Daniel Maldonado told AZ Big Media:

We set out to build something we couldn’t find here in the Valley: a fun social environment that blends movement, wellness and good vibes. Padeland brings together sport, community and great food and drink in a space that’s as exciting and inspiring as the game itself.

Speaking of the space, the 35,000 square foot building Padeland will soon call home is the former site of the LOOK Dine-In Cinemas facility — which, while I’m admittedly biased, seems like a great way to repurpose a huge amount of vacant real estate!

Estimate Opening Date: Summer 2026

Padel Foundry (Virginia Beach, VA)

On the opposite side of the country from Padeland, yet another former, long-empty movie theatre (once known as the Beach Cinema Alehouse) is being re-imagined as a padel club thanks to a new concept called Padel Foundry, which will bring the first-ever padel courts to Virginia Beach.

While the total number of courts has not been disclosed yet, we do know the founders plan to open, “a purpose-built indoor padel and wellness destination designed to bring sport, recovery, learning, and community together under one roof.”

Although the initial reception to the announcement was a bit frosty (on Instagram, at least), perhaps the rise of padel in other Virginia cities like Charlottesville, Richmond, and Sterling will eventually catch the attention of Virginians in the southern part of the state and convince them to give the sport a go.

Estimated Opening Date: Spring 2027

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… I’ve actually got a full-blown padel book coming out in July. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by pre-ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Many thanks in advance!

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Thanks to the influence of my proudly luddite father (who never owned a computer or a cell phone before he passed in 2020 — yet inexplicably loved his fax machine to the very end), I tend to be a bit of a technophobe myself.

What’s more, as I point out in the “Top 10 Reasons to Play Padel” chapter of my upcoming book, one of the things I personally love most about the sport is that it’s a refreshingly “analog” experience in what’s now an almost entirely digital world.

In fact, other than sleep, the hour or two I spend on a padel (or squash) court three or four times a week is about only time that that I’m not staring at a screen of one variety or another on any given day and actually being present in the moment.

And, to be honest, the last thing I want when I step off court is to instantly be shown AI-generated video highlights of how poorly I’m playing or get AI-driven coaching tips about how to improve my obviously mediocre game.

So, suffice it to say, as genuinely nice and obviously brilliant as they are, I was a little bit skeptical to hear about Julia Schwartz and Russell Einbinder’s plans for using AI to forever transform how we play padel. But I decided to hear them out…

The Path to Padel

The first thing that endears Julia and Russell to me when I first talk to them is that, unlike some other people I’ve come across in the padel space, they obviously love the sport itself and not just the upside potential they see in it.

Both grew up as tennis players, with Julia jokingly telling me she exited her career on a high note after she was the captain of her JV tennis team in high school. She also seriously brags on Russell and the fact that he was part of an NCAA championship-winning D3 tennis tennis team at Amherst (a fact he’s never once brought up to me, which is no surprise given his quiet, humble nature).

Both also discovered padel while living and working in New York City and almost immediately became obsessed. Julia informs me:

We’re both members at Padel Haus Dumbo in Brooklyn, so that’s our home base. It has been really special for us because it’s where we got hooked and where we’ve experienced firsthand how powerful the community side of the sport can be.

We’ve also been playing increasingly at Mink Padel (shoutout to Evan Brown!) now that the weather is warming up.

She goes on to tell me:

For Russell, padel has been a wild trip down memory lane, because he has reconnected with so many tennis players he grew up with on the USTA tennis circuit that he hasn’t seen since juniors.

He plays tournaments with his college doubles partner which has been an interesting arc in their competitive racquet sports journey.

Russell plays much more competitively and is regularly playing matches and tournaments, [whereas I’m] more on the social/open-play side — high beginner, aggressively campaigning for intermediate status, but very proud of my three wins at Monday’s high-beginner open play.

Once I’m convinced these two are far more padel-obsessed than they are padel opportunists, my mind opens a bit more to what they’re trying to do.

Solving Padel’s Many Pain Points

In order to understand where they are trying to go, I first ask about where they’ve been, to which Julia tells me:

We both come from pretty multidisciplinary backgrounds, which has ended up being really useful for building in a category like padel.

Before tech, Russell trained as an architect, earned his Master of Architecture from Columbia, and worked on a number of city and state buildings for New York and New Jersey. He then moved into startups and became Chief Growth Officer at Everyrealm.

I started my career in finance, having spent six-plus years in private equity before moving into startups and operating roles at early stage companies and finally Everyrealm, an a16z-backed blockchain and gaming company where I was a co-founder and Chief Strategy Officer.

Together at Everyrealm, we launched over 10 products, built communities into the hundreds of thousands, and managed large teams across engineering, product, marketing, and operations.

More recently, they’ve joined forces to start Unprompted, an AI product studio building custom agents and software products — which is where padel comes into the mix. As Julia explains:

We found our way into padel tech very organically. We became obsessed with the sport as players, and then immediately ran into all the same problems everyone else does: where can we play, how do we find people, what’s happening nearby, why is everything spread across WhatsApp threads, club websites, booking apps, and word of mouth? Padel Browser came from wanting to solve our own problems first.

Granted, I’ll likely always default to my very own low-tech U.S. padel map, which I created because I was finding so many AI-dependent sites giving out information like that the best place to play padel in the province (!) of Delaware is Houston, TX or that Lubbock, TX is home to nine different padel clubs, when it actually currently is home to zero.

But I have found it to be a very useful cross-referencing tool, and as they themselves point out, Padel Browser is far more than just a club-finding tool:

The North Star has always been simple: help more people play more padel.

Padel Browser started as a response to a basic discovery problem. When we got into the sport, it was surprisingly hard to answer simple questions: Where can I play? What clubs exist? What events are happening? What competitions are coming up? How do I get more involved?

So we started by mapping clubs and courts. From there, we expanded into competitions, programming, and events, and we’re now starting to build more around players and community.

Because discovery in padel is not just about finding a court. It is about understanding the whole ecosystem: where to play, who to play with, what is happening, and how to get involved. That is also a big reason we partnered with the USA Padel (formerly the United States Padel Association).

Taking the Next Step On- and Off-Court

They continue by telling me:

As we spent more time talking to players and working with clubs, we realized discovery is only the first step.

Once someone is interested in padel, there is still a lot of coordination required to turn that interest into actual participation. Players need help finding the right club, clinic, event, level, or group. Clubs need help capturing that demand, following up, filling programming, coordinating members, and making sure people find the right entry point. That is where our Front Desk Agents come in.

Padel Browser helps people discover the ecosystem. The agents help clubs activate that interest – by following up with leads, communicating directly with players, filling clinics and open plays, coordinating games between players at the right levels, and helping clubs run more proactively.

Having always been more of a visual learner, I ask them if they can show me what they’ve built rather than just tell me about it — and this is what they share with me:

While the tech behind all of this is admittedly all way over my head, I do start to see how this could also make life easier for players (and clubs alike) —especially as someone who has been constantly tasked with herding all the cats onto both the padel and doubles squash court over the years.

As they explain:

The biggest pain point is finding more people you can play with, so that you can play padel when you want, where you want, and with people at your level.

Padel has this funny paradox where the sport is incredibly social, but organizing a game can be surprisingly hard. You need four people, ideally at roughly the same level, in the same geography, with overlapping availability, who are all looking for the same kind of experience.

That’s a lot of coordination for something that should feel easy and fun. Right now, most of that coordination happens manually. Players text friends, post in WhatsApp groups, make open games on booking apps, wait for someone else to organize, or default to playing with the same three people.

Clubs also spend a lot of time trying to fill courts, organize open plays, match players by level, and answer repetitive questions.

So for us, the core problem is not just ‘booking’ or ‘discovery.’ It’s coordination. If we can make it easier for players to find the right games and easier for clubs to activate their communities, we think that directly grows participation (and retention for clubs, too).

After a half-dozen conversations with this fast-moving duo over the past few months, I’d venture to guess that this is just one of many AI-fueled, padel-focused innovations we’ll see from them going forward.

And, at the end of the day, I’m all for any technology that helps grow the sport and makes it easier for me to get on court — if only so I can get away from technology for a little while.

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Share

Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… I’ve actually got a full-blown padel book coming out in July. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by pre-ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Many thanks in advance!

Dear Padel Nation,

While many exciting and positive things happened in the U.S. padel world this past month, June 2026 also brought some heartbreaking news on two separate fronts…

First off, we lost U.S. padel pioneer, Ultra Padel Club founder, and former Team USA player and coach, Fernando Alcaron, in a tragic accident in Florida at the end of the month that also took the life of his 18-year-old daughter.

While I didn’t know him personally, from the outpouring of support, grief, and fond memories on social media, it’s clear he was a true legend in his own time and much beloved by everyone who had the pleasure of knowing — or playing alongside — him.

Secondly, I got word that one of the very first padel courts to ever be built in the U.S. (in Chattanooga, TN in 1996 — pictured above) has been unceremoniously torn down with little to no warning to — or approval from — its original benefactors and/or ongoing supporters.

Coupled with the news that Orlando Padel Club Indoor is closing its doors and adding to a growing and troubling — yet probably inevitable — trend we’re seeing in U.S. padel, you might think June was a month best put behind us.

But, alas, all was not lost. Because this past month we also got word that:

• Municipal padel courts have recently opened in Amarillo, TX (per the very recently rebranded USA Padel — formerly the United States Padel Association) and just outside Detroit in Southgate, MI (per our friends at the El Remate newsletter)…

• Nicol NJ recently added three new outdoor padel courts to its indoor padel, squash, and pickleball offerings…

• Our friends at Padel Plant just set a new all-time attendance record for a USPA 100-level event at the recently held first edition of the Virginia Padel Open…

• Our friends at Clubhouse Sports held the first-ever Charleston Padel Cup here in Charleston, SC — and it was a smashing success despite the heat…

• Our friends (and Padel Nation sponsors) at Wakit Rakit held a FIP Promises Tour event at their recently opened club in Spring, Texas…

• CNBC is set to begin broadcasting the Pro Padel League starting with next week’s 2026 season debut at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City (as if I don’t have CNBC on enough already!)…

• USA Padel has declared October 2026 to be “National Padel Month” — with a number of initiatives designed to get new players on court and recognize the pioneers who have helped build the sport is the U.S. over the past 33 years, and…

• Pope Leo XIV (the first-ever U.S.-born Pope) was introduced to padel during the recent Premier Padel Italy Major in Rome.

And although June saw me traveling far less than I did in May to play padel, I’ll be heading to Spain for most all of July — in part to play some padel, in part to just get away from it all for a bit post finishing my padel book, and in part to go to my first-ever Premier Padel tournament in Málaga.

On a publication front, regular guest contributor, Scott Matulis, launched a new bi-monthly series that we’ll be publishing called, “How I Became Obsessed With Padel” and his first two installments featured Padel N9NE Founder Aaron Hasnain and new Los Angeles Beat owner David Eisen (both of whom are so obsessed with padel they have their own private courts).

And finally, in June, I had the pleasure and honor of welcoming two new Padel Nation sponsors: AMET International (who now officially powers our publication) and Playbypoint (who is joining us as an official preferred partner).

I’m extremely grateful for — and humbled by — their support and look forward to working with both of these great brands as they continue to help build padel across the U.S.

To close out, I’ve included a few of the other articles we published last month below in case you missed them.

As always, thanks for reading, have a great Fourth — and play up!

- ae

««« Five New U.S. Padel Clubs To Know About »»»

New padel clubs are soon set to open (or recently already have) everywhere from padel strongholds like Florida and Texas to new padel frontiers like Utah, Maryland, and Orange County, California. Here’s what you need to know.

««« The Biggest U.S. Metros Without Padel »»»

With new padel clubs opening all the time across the U.S., you might be surprised by some of the rather large metro areas that still don’t have padel (yet). Here are the five biggest.

««« Are the Padel Courts You Play on Legal? »»»

Eric Loftus (of Northeast Padel and the American Sports Builders Association) penned an important — and perhaps somewhat controversial — guest piece for us last month exploring the fact that many outdoor padel courts in the U.S. may not be compliant structures under the building codes of the jurisdictions where they stand.

So, are the courts you’re playing on “legal”? You might be surprised — and the consequences can be dire if not.

««« An Inside Look at the L.A. Padel Scene »»»

The L.A. padel scene is really starting to take off, so guest contributor Scott Matulis recently sat down with one of the L.A. padel scene’s true OGs, Jon Guerra, to learn more about where L.A. padel has been, where it’s at now, and where it’s going next.

««« Padel Set to Re-Establish Its TN Roots »»»

While it was somewhere between disappointing and devastating to learn that one of the first-ever padel courts in the U.S. was recently torn down after 30 years in Chattanooga, TN, the good news is that four new courts at two new clubs (one in Chattanooga and one in tiny Gray) will soon help U.S. padel to re-establish its roots in Eastern Tennessee.

… and that’s a wrap — until next month, at least!

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

Subscribe now

Share

Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… I’ve actually got a full-blown padel book coming out in July. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by pre-ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Many thanks in advance!

Editor’s note: The following (lightly edited) feature article is the second installment of a new ”How I Became Obsessed With Padel” series we’re rolling out from regular guest contributor, Scott Matulis, a former PR Director for the Worldwide Senior Tennis Tour who discovered padel in Vegas two years ago and can now hit balls off of the glass occasionally. He is the author of the LinkedIn and Substack serial novel The Applicant.

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You could say David Eisen and I are pretty much the same guy (other than I’ve have both my knees replaced and he’s only had one). We’re the same age. We discovered padel around the same time two years ago. We’re both tennis players.

I live with my Mom and write articles about padel. He built a padel court in his backyard and bought a Pro Padel League (PPL) franchise, the LA Beat, for $10 million.

So, yeah, we’re pretty much the same guy — at least in our passion for padel, anyway.

Here’s how David became obsessed…

How did you find out about padel and how did you get started playing it?

So, honestly, I didn’t know much about the sport at all until about two years ago.

I live in a community called Addison Reserve in Delray Beach, Florida, which was one of the first premier communities in the country to build padel courts.

I was introduced to the sport by the pro there, who is now the coach of my team, the LA Beat.

I had played tennis for almost my whole life. I started playing pickleball, too, but as soon as I started playing padel, I became so obsessed and addicted to the sport that I stopped playing tennis and pickleball entirely. I devoted all of my time to playing padel.

That was about two years ago. Having the background of playing racquet sports my whole life, I picked it up pretty quickly. I started taking a lot of lessons with the pro to learn the game, the angles, the glass, and all that, and quickly became pretty good at it.

And it also started to really take hold in Addison itself, a bunch of my friends there started playing, and now we have a group of 15 plus people there that we play with during the season.

It’s funny, I started playing about the same time in Las Vegas. What do you think it is about padel that causes people to be so obsessed with it?

It’s the energy of the game. It’s the pace of the game. It’s being in what I call almost a cage-like environment. And it’s the camaraderie between you and your partner, and even your opponents.

I mean in tennis, when I played, honestly, my mindset was to dominate my opponent. I didn’t even talk to my opponent when we switched sides, I wouldn’t even look at them.

In padel, we bump rackets, we slam hands when we switch sides. It’s just a much more enjoyable game, quicker pace, like I said, higher energy. A lot more interaction with your partner and your opponents. And it’s much more engaging.

I mean, when you’re playing, the pace of the game keeps you much more engaged than any other racket sport I’e ever played. I think those are the factors that really contribute to people wanting to play the game, to continue to play the game and honestly, to a certain extent, becoming obsessed with the game.

So when I was talking to Nicole (Eisen) she said you built a court in your backyard. Tell me about that.

Yeah, so that’s a little bit of a funny story.

Here in Long Island, where I come for the summer months outside of Florida, I had originally put in a permit to build a pickleball court because I already have a tennis court.

So, I put in a permit to build a pickleball court, and this was a few months before I was introduced to padel. As soon as I started playing padel, I called the builder and I said I want you to change the permit from pickleball to padel. And honestly, I was one of the first private homes here in the Hamptons to build a court.

Ever since I built that court, good things have started to happen. That’s how I got introduced to the PPL and wound up purchasing the LA franchise. I’ve met an unbelievably interesting group of people that I play with. My older son got introduced to his current partner in private equity via the padel court playing with people here in the Hamptons during the summer.

You’re the third person I’ve spoken with this week who got obsessed with padel and promptly built a court in his backyard. What are the ins and outs of that?

Honestly, I engaged my builder to handle all of that. I had gotten some information about building a court and what it entails. I gave that information to my builder and he sourced out a company that builds the courts, and it turns out that company is one of the larger installers and builders of courts here in the Hamptons, and I think around the country.

There wasn’t much that I actually had to do other than monitor the status of the build because I wanted it completed before I came here for the season last summer. I’m only here for about three and a half months. So, the court got finished in early June of 2025, which is exactly when I wanted it to be completed.

The manufacturer, Padel Lux, was the company that sourced it and installed it, and they did a great job. I mean, they’re building a whole bunch of courts here in the Hamptons in private homes.

I understand the permitting process to get a padel court built is fairly arduous. Was it difficult for you?

It’s very difficult to get the permit in the Hamptons.

I believe it took probably eight months for me to get my permit, here in Southampton. There’s very specific rules and regulations about clearing and other types of landscaping in the various towns in the Hamptons. So it’s not that easy here. It may be easier elsewhere. I’m not really sure.

So you built your court and now you own a professional padel team. Can you take me through how all that occurred?

Again, it all started with building the court here. We got introduced to some of the executives at the PPL. We had them play at the house here with my sons.

When I sold my business in 2023, which was a family business for 64 years, I was thinking to myself, what could be my next thing where I could continue that family type of atmosphere, that family business feel. And when I started speaking to people at the league they mentioned to me that a franchise might be becoming available.

They saw my passion for the sport, obviously, my investment in the sport by building a court here at the house, my kids’ interest in the sport, and their background in private equity and running and operating a business.

So although there was pretty high demand for the LA franchise, which, in my opinion, is probably one of the best franchises in the league, they offered it to us to bid on, and we came back with a very attractive bid to the league.

It was not only purchasing the franchise, but also investing in the league itself. Because again, you know, I had high conviction for the tremendous upside for potential for this sport down the road. And I think this was a great avenue to be a part of the boom in padel.

I mean, honestly, I was playing it so much. I still play, probably if I can, two to four hours a day as long as my body holds up. That’s my limiting factor now. And I follow the sportintensely here in the United States and around the world.

I see the interest really bubbling up here in the U.S. You see all these clubs that are being built. Any of my peers and my kids, and friends that play the game, all they want to do now is play now.

Anyone who plays the game and becomes interested in the padel experience, they’re hooked on it. They’re really hooked on it. I don’t think there’s any other sport that’s more popular now in South Florida than padel, or on the Hamptons or Long Island.

You can watch David’s pro padel team, the Los Angeles Beat, kick off the Pro Padel League’s 2026 season at the Hammerstein Ballroom in New York City from July 9 - 12.

The Beat are scheduled to play Friday, July 10th at 6 PM (Group Stage Session #3) and Saturday, July 11th at 9 PM (Group Stage Session #5) with Sunday match schedules to be determined. Tickets can be purchased here.

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

Subscribe now

Share

Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… I’ve actually got a full-blown padel book coming out in July. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by pre-ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Many thanks in advance!

Subscribe now

While you may (rightly) associate the early days of U.S. padel with places like Houston and Miami, one of the first-ever courts built here in the States was actually in Chattanooga, TN, of all-places — and sadly, I just learned it was recently torn down.

As it was explained to me by the former Director of Racquets at the private all girls’ school on whose grounds the court was constructed, in the early 1990s a well-heeled, globe-trotting group of racquet-sports enthusiasts with deep ties to the Coca-Cola Company discovered padel while on an international trip together.

Not surprisingly, they instantly became obsessed with the sport, and began planning trips to Europe and South America purely so they could play, before eventually deciding to just build their own court under the Veterans Memorial Bridge in their hometown of Chattanooga.

The court, known as the “Katherine Jackson Johnston ‘25 Paddle Court” (notice the spelling — and what that means for the proper pronunciation of the sport), was officially dedicated in 1996, just two years after the first two padel courts in the entire U.S. were built at The Houstonian Club in Houston, TX.

(The ‘25 ostensibly refers to the year she graduated from the Girls Preparatory School, on whose property the court technically sat).

The End of the Beginning

While there’s little to no record of what happened on or with the court over the next 25 plus years, it obviously fell into serious disrepair (due in large part to drainage issues from the bridge above it) and was eventually all but abandoned.

However, in recent years there had been a fair bit of interest and discussion around potentially restoring the court as well of a smattering of people (perhaps illicitly) attempting to play on it.

Evan Brown (who has started padel clubs around the U.S. including Mink Padel and Olympus Padel among others) and I were even able to a video tour of the court about this time last year thanks to Alison Engel, the former Director of Racquets at the Girls Preparatory School I mentioned earlier.

Unfortunately, the next time I spoke with her wasn’t until a few days ago, when she called to tell me that with very little notice (or approval from the original group behind the court) it had recently been torn down, effectively destroying one of the greatest physical pieces of U.S. padel history we had.

The Next Generation

As bummed as I was to hear this news, the conversation ended on a high note when she further told me that a new project known as Arena Club will soon be brining two indoor padel courts to Chattanooga, along with a dozen pickeball courts, a rooftop plunge pool, a fitness center, and various upscale social and dining amenities.

What’s more, thanks to Brit Ivy chiming in on a recent LinkedIn post of mine about the largest U.S. metro areas that still don’t have padel yet, I learned that the tiny town of Gray, TN (population ~1,200) now has two outdoor padel courts at a club known as Vitesse Padel, which bills itself as, “the only place to play padel between Richmond and Nashville.”

While this admittedly may seem a strange place to find padel courts, they are situated directly next to the Vitesse Soccer Academy, an elite junior training center for the sport that has been run by former Dutch professional soccer player Michael Louter since 2006.

And given that even The New York Times has taken note of how many pro soccer players have fallen head-over-heels for padel it starts to make a lot more sense why there are now courts in such a seemingly obscure place.

It also gives me hope that U.S. padel will be able to reestablish its deep roots in Eastern Tennessee and thrive there for years to come.

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

Subscribe now

Share

Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… I’ve actually got a full-blown padel book coming out in July. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by pre-ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Many thanks in advance!

Editor’s note: The following (lightly edited) feature article is the first installment of a new ”How I Became Obsessed With Padel” series we’re rolling out from regular guest contributor, Scott Matulis, a former PR Director for the Worldwide Senior Tennis Tour who discovered padel in Vegas two years ago and can now hit balls off of the glass occasionally. He is the author of the LinkedIn and Substack serial novel The Applicant.

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Aaron Hasnain owns Padel N9NE in San Diego, CA, and is one of the bright young entrepreneurs curating the padel wave in southern California.

Up until a few years ago, Aaron was a biotech guy developing drugs for people with pulmonary disease. Which is why I wanted to sit down with him to discover how he became obsessed with padel.

Here’s what I learned from our conversation:

Are you from San Diego originally?

No. I was born in Canada, so I’m Canadian. I lived in Canada for 15 years and then moved all around the U.S. after that. My father was in biotech, so we moved to North Carolina, then San Francisco, and eventually San Diego, because those were all biotech hotspots.

I’m biotech by training. Right now, I run business development for a publicly traded biotech company called Gossamer Bio. We started the company in 2018, took it public in 2019, and I’ve been there for a number of years developing drugs for people with pulmonary disease.

So how does that biotech background lead to padel?

I have a place in the Bahamas in a community called Albany. It’s a very cool community that was started by Tiger Woods, Justin Timberlake, and Joe Lewis.

Joe Lewis is a very successful British businessman. He invested in some biotech companies I’m affiliated with and he called my father one day and said, ‘Hey, I want to meet you guys. Why don’t we fly you out to the Bahamas, put you up for a couple days, and we can have a meeting?’

So we flew out there. And lo and behold, he has a yacht in the water. And when I say yacht, at the time he actually had two. One was around 380 feet. It was like a floating city. It was probably the most insane thing I’ve ever seen in my life. It was so big it didn’t fit into the marina and had to be docked half a mile offshore.

And in the bottom of that boat was a padel court.

Wait… inside the yacht?

Yes, inside the yacht. The boat is called Aviva. Joe is from the U.K., where padel is very big, and he traveled around the world and fell in love with the sport. So, he literally built a boat around the padel court.

The court is indoors. It has something like 25- to 29-foot ceilings. It’s the most unbelievable thing you’ve ever seen. You can find pictures of it online if you Google Aviva padel court. It’s nuts.

And the whole thing is on stabilizers, so when you’re at sea and the boat is rocking, the padel court doesn’t move. It’s the craziest thing you’ve ever seen.

Funny, that’s exactly the same way I was introduced to padel… So when you were playing, you couldn’t tell you were on a boat?

There’s no way you would tell. You don’t even feel like you’re on a boat. It’s this massive floating skyscraper. It probably had more than 100 staff members. It was just a whole other level.

So, of course, my first introduction to padel is on this boat. And I’m like, ‘What the hell is this?’

This was around 2018 or 2019. I played the sport and fell in love with it immediately. I was always an athlete. I grew up playing tennis and golf and different things, so the hand-eye coordination was there. I picked it up relatively quickly, but I was never really that good.

Joe was in his 80s and unbelievable. He moved like a cat. He played so silky smooth. He was incredible. So I played with him a couple times, with my dad, out there.

Did you keep playing whenever you went back to your place in the Bahamas?

Yes. The community in the Bahamas built a number of courts. At the time, I think they had three courts and an indoor court. Now they have something like 14 courts. So every time I went out there, three or four times a year, I would play either on the boat or in the community.

Eventually, I came back to San Diego and thought, ‘I’m really loving this. I have to find a way to actually play in San Diego.’

What was the padel scene like in San Diego at that point?

There really wasn’t one. At the time, there was maybe one YMCA court that was kind of shut down. Barnes Tennis Center had one or two courts, but it was far from me and they weren’t really that nice.

I had a tennis court in my backyard that wasn’t really being used. Kids would run around on it, but it wasn’t anything special. So we called Joe and said, ‘Hey, I need the manufacturer.’ There was really nobody in the U.S. building courts at the time.

They introduced us to the guys who had the Adidas license in the U.S., AFP. They basically flew a team down from Spain and helped me set up a court in my backyard.

This was around 2018, so there was really no infrastructure. Nobody knew what padel was. I thought they would just show up and build it. Little did I know, they had to get a crane to lift the metal pieces and glass over my house. It was this whole production.

These were Adidas courts?

Adidas is in the padel scene, primarily outside the U.S., and now they’re getting more into the U.S. But at the time, they licensed the U.S. rights for padel to a company called AFP.

AFP had the exclusive license to use the Adidas name for courts and products in the United States. They were smart. They got that license early when padel was nothing in the U.S.

Adidas was probably thinking, ‘Padel is never going to take off in the U.S. because pickleball is king.’ So AFP had the U.S. rights, and they connected me with the team.

They flew down, built the court, and it took about a month, which is not how it works anymore. But eventually, I had a padel court in my backyard.

How did it evolve from a court in your backyard to starting a padel club?

I started to play and slowly introduced people in my family. And then something just exploded. Covid happened. By the end of 2020 and beginning of 2021, everybodywas looking for things to do outdoors.

I’m a really social person. The biotech community is really strong here in San Diego. I have lots of friends and family here.

Very quickly, without a doubt, and I’m not exaggerating, I probably had close to 300 people playing at my house every week or every other week. It got insane. People were dying to come play. I had to create a spreadsheet.

I live in a gated community, so I was putting everybody on the gate list. People were just coming and going. Even if I wasn’t playing, I would say, ‘Okay, you have the court from this time to this time, then somebody else comes from here to here, and then I’ll jump into a game from 12 to 2.’

There was this revolving door of people at my house all day long.

What was the level of play like? Were these people who knew padel — or mostly beginners and tennis players?

Nobody really knew how to play, but they were all athletes. They were people in my ecosystem. I know a couple of professional athletes in the area who were coming out to play, and we were having decent enough games that it was super fun.

Then word started to travel locally that I had a court, and that I was the only one at the time in San Diego with a private court. So people who had moved to San Diego from other places started calling me randomly.

One of my neighbors, who I had never met before, called me one day and said, ‘Hey, I heard from the HOA that you have a padel court. I’m from South Africa. I love padel. I would love to meet you.’

So I started getting people coming to the house who actually played the sport.

Is that when you realized this could become something bigger?

That’s when the light bulb really went on. I was like, ‘This is really cool. There really isn’t anywhere to play in San Diego. Maybe I can create a social ecosystem out of this.’

At the time, it wasn’t about making money. It was more like, maybe I could find some land, build a court or two, and create a great place for people to connect, especially because of what was going on with Covid.

That backyard court showed me there was real demand. People wanted to play. Some already loved padel, and others would try it once and immediately want to come back.

That’s really how the obsession started.

You can visit Padel N9NE and play on its 8 pristine panoramic outdoor courts at 9885 Barnes Canyon Rd, San Diego, CA 92121. For more information visit their website, follow them on Instagram, or call (858) 732-9014.

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… I’ve actually got a full-blown padel book coming out in July. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by pre-ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Many thanks in advance!

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At this point, it seems that everything on Earth now has its own day, week, or even month…

This includes bagels (January 15)… hats (also January 15)… ice cream (all of July)… Star Wars (May 4)… Kurt Vonnegut (November 11)… aardvarks (March 19)… leaving work early (June 2)… avocados (July 31)… yoga (June 21)… negronis (September 21 - 27)… and sobriety (dry January) — just to name a few.

And beginning this October you can add padel to this list thanks to a new initiative that was recently unveiled by the United States Padel Association (USPA) and is largely focused around three main components:

• The U.S. Open Padel Championships — which, for the second straight year, will be played at Padel Haus Atlanta (October 2 - 5) and “bring together the nation’s top players and international contenders for a high-stakes tournament that showcases the athleticism and excitement the sport delivers at its highest level.”

• The USA Padel Awards: A new tradition designed to “honor the players, coaches, clubs, and advocates who have driven the sport’s remarkable growth and helped put American padel on the world map.”

• Learn-to-Play Programming: Whereby participating clubs across the U.S. will host structured introductory clinics, open courts, and beginner-friendly programming throughout October, lowering the barrier to entry for anyone curious about playing padel for the first time.

As you can see, there’s obviously a lot to unpack here. Which is why I recently hit up USPA President Bill Ullman and Executive Director Scott Colebourne to learn more.

Here’s What I Found Out…

When I ask what the impetus for National Padel Month was and if they modeled it after any similar initiatives in other sports, they explain:

National Padel Month is an initiative that we have talked about for the past couple of years internally, and we've also received requests from others within the industry to designate a specific month to celebrate padel.

Many of those working in padel at the moment have had experience in other sports that have had a National Month designated for their particular sport. We are definitely using lessons from these sports in the rollout for National Padel Month.

Scott, in particular, adds:

One of the most important aspects of National Padel Month is the collaborative communication efforts from all stakeholders on the delivery side of the sport.

Clubs, equipment manufacturers, court manufacturers, brands involved in padel, as well as the USPA, will all band together to promote the sport like it's never been seen before, with the intent to bring awareness of padel to a much greater audience that has never heard of the game before.

We're all making very large efforts to communicate and create new players. By combining these efforts around one specific month, our combined voices will have a much greater impact.

Timing Is Everything

With a packed padel calendar that continues to get even more so all the time, I ask about why they chose October in particular for this initiative, and Scott tells me:

October was our first choice due to the U.S. Open occurring. It also has great positioning, with many parts of the country experiencing a change in weather that either signals that indoor play is about to begin or that it’s cooling off enough to allow more outdoor play.

October also provides a great opportunity [weather-wise] for newcomers to visit clubs and sign up for Learn-to-Play programs.

We have strong relationships with over 80% of the clubs in the USA, and we anticipate a majority of them having a learn-to-play program that we can promote through all of our communication channels.

We’re also inviting those clubs not directly affiliated with the USPA to run similar programs and join together to promote padel. As a governing body, we are not focused on USPA padel. We’re focused on padel in the USA.

An Uphill Battle?

When I ask about the challenges facing organizing a national initiative like this for a sport that is so relatively new to the U.S., they concede that there are plenty of obstacles they’ll have to navigate, telling me:

The biggest challenge that we face in everything related to padel in the USA is awareness of the sport. If you've played or watched padel, there's a good chance you love it, but the majority of the USA still has no awareness that the sport exists.

A potential challenge that others may see is an ability to create cohesiveness within the industry. However, we have seen that not only in the player community, but also in the club community, there is a great willingness to work together to promote the sport. I see that as one of the strengths of padel.

Ultimately, it’s clear they believe the juice will be more than worth the squeeze, though, with Scott adding:

The upside opportunity for National Padel Month is enormous. We feel that this is the right time in the sport’s growth in the USA to have the first National Padel Month.

The Golden Point

In closing, I ask them at what point — be it number of clubs participating… number of new players they get on court… or some other metic — will they consider National Padel Month to be a success.

According to Scott:

Success will be defined by [several] factors including the number of new players we get on the court, and then we'll continue to stay in communication with the clubs to gauge how many of these players became regular players at the club.

In addition to defining success in the number of new players, we want to create a groundswell of interest in padel to expose the sport to new spectators, create fans, and bring awareness of the sport to those outside of padel.

What we've experienced is that if you've played it or seen it, there's a good chance you love it, but we're still in the small stages of awareness for the sport in the USA.

While there’s certainly no arguing that final point, there’s also little doubt that the USPA’s National Padel Month initiative will help raise awareness of “the world’s fastest growing sport” in the world’s largest sports market.

And, as Scott points out, if they can manage to get a significant amount of people to try the sport out for the first time, we’ll likely have a lot more rabid players across the U.S. very soon.

If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… I’ve actually got a full-blown padel book coming out in July. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by pre-ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Many thanks in advance!

The other day a long-time friend of mine from the squash world asked me if there was anywhere he could play padel on an upcoming business trip to Omaha, NE (obviously, he’s not aware of the U.S. padel map I created!).

When I told him that there weren’t any courts there that I was aware of, he seemed both disappointed and surprised — which surprised me.

Granted, I’ve only been to Omaha once about 15 years ago (for the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting), but it has never registered to me as being a big enough city that you’d be surprised there wasn’t a padel club there yet.

So, I decided to look it up — and, as it turns out, the greater Omaha metropolitan statistical area (MSA) now has over 1 million residents, making it the 56th biggest MSA in the U.S. Shows what I know!

This also got me wondering what other large U.S. metro areas still don’t have padel yet.

Here’s What I Learned…

Thanks to Jam Padel opening earlier this month in the greater Seattle area (which is the U.S.’s 15th biggest MSA with about 4.2 million residents), the 30 largest MSAs in the U.S. now all have at least one padel club to speak of.

However, several of these currently still only have a single club at the moment (that I’m aware of, anyhow) including:

• Detroit (the 14th biggest MSA with about 4.4 million residents) — which is home to ZMash Padel, a club with eight indoor courts in Sterling Heights, MI…

• Minneapolis-St. Paul (the 16th biggest MSA with about 3.8 million residents) — where you can find The Heights Racquet & Social Club and its three indoor courts in Mendota Heights, MN…

• Baltimore (22nd biggest / 2.9M residents) — where racquets phenom Chris Haley opened BMore Padel, a four court outdoor facility in Pikesville, MD…

• Portland (26th biggest / 2.5M residents) — which is now home to the first padel club in the state of Oregon at Foundry Padel, a four court indoor club in the Cathedral Park neighborhood of Portland, and…

• Las Vegas (29th biggest / 2.4M residents) — which surprisingly still only has one club (the long-standing eight court outdoor facility known as P1 Padel) despite the generally favorable climate, its deep tennis roots, and recently being ranked as the 7th best sports business city in the U.S. by Sports Business Journal.

Then there are a handful of smaller MSAs that all surprisingly have at least one padel club, like Lancaster, PA (No. 105)… Melbourne/Titusville, FL (No. 89)… my childhood hometown of Colorado Springs, CO (No. 79)… Stockton, CA (No. 77)… and Columbia, SC (No. 71).

Meanwhile, El Paso, TX (No. 70), my current hometown of Charleston, SC (No. 66), and Tucson, AZ (No. 52) all have two or more padel clubs, despite not even being in the top-50-biggest MSAs in the country.

The Five Biggest U.S. Metro Areas That Still Don’t Have Padel (Yet)

Rounding out the top 50 biggest MSAs that don’t yet have any padel courts or clubs are several quite notable ones, including:

• No. 32 Columbus, OH — With 2.25 million residents and one of the largest, most-sports-obsessed universities in the U.S. (Ohio State), it’s quite surprising that Arch City doesn’t have padel yet (though I have heard rumors that one of the clubs who finally brought padel to Ohio may be working on something behind the scenes).

• No. 37 Virginia Beach/Norfolk, VA — A sprawling, coastal area with roughly 1.8 million residents and no padel to speak, at least until Padel Foundry opens its doors there next year.

• No. 38 Jacksonville, FL — Another sprawling coastal city of approximately 1.8 million that will soon be getting its first padel club thanks to Conquer Padel and the five indoor padel courts they are planning to open there.

• No. 45 Memphis, TN — A city of roughly 1.45 million residents known for its barbecue, deep musical roots, and twice-daily, red-carpet-marching ducks — but not padel, unfortunately. Given its demographics, low median income, and high poverty rate, I’m not sure I see that changing anytime soon — but a rapidly growing latino population may well help prove me wrong.

• No. 47 Fresno, CA — Where 1.2 people currently reside in California’s Central Valley. While Fresno is far more commonly associated with agriculture than racquet sports, a deeply rooted tennis community and rapidly growing pickleball scene may make the area ripe for padel.

The Final Frontiers

Beyond that, a few more fairly large padel-less MSAs where I could personally see the sport thriving include:

Birmingham, AL (No. 48)… Buffalo, NY (No. 51)… Tulsa, OK (No. 53)… Rochester, NY (No. 54)… Omaha, NE (No. 56)… Honolulu, HI (No. 57)… Knoxville, TN (No. 60)… Winston-Salem, NC (No. 85)… Madison, WI (No. 86)… and Durham/Chapel Hill, NC (No. 93).

Then, finally, there’s the handful of delightful smaller cities where I’d selfishly love to see padel take root, like Portland, ME (No. 102)… Wilmington, NC (No. 112)… Santa Barbara, CA (No. 124)… Savannah, GA (No. 126)… and Asheville, NC (No. 134).

If anyone brings padel to any of these places, I may well have to move there and be your first member!

Where do and/or would you like to see padel pop up next around the U.S.? Let us know in the comments below.

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If you enjoyed this article, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… I’ve actually got a full-blown padel book coming out in July. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by pre-ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Many thanks in advance!

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Last month, Aris Sevastianos (who is the mastermind behind the El Remate padel newsletter) and I highlighted nine new U.S. padel clubs that will be opening in the coming months.

Now, we’re back with five more that should be on your radar — both in places where padel is old hat (like Houston, TX) and brand new (like Orange County, CA), plus a few spots in between.

These soon-to-open new clubs include:

Utah City Racquet Club (Vineyard, UT)

Utah City, a 700-acre mixed-use development in Vineyard, UT (just south of Salt Lake City), has partnered with Los Angeles-based racquet sports platform LVBL to launch, “Utah County’s first next-generation, lifestyle-focused racquet club.”

While plans originally called for six outdoor padel courts (as you can see in the rendering above), when it opens in this weekend, Utah City Racquet Club will feature four outdoor padel courts (along with six pickleball courts and two tennis courts) — making the all-out Utah padel avalanche we covered awhile back even bigger.

Further details on this weekend’s grand opening can be found here.

Estimated Opening Date: June 13, 2026

Padel Social (Bethesda, MD)

Much to the excitement of many D.C.-area racquet-sports enthusiasts, Padel Social will soon be (re)opening its doors, this time at a permanent location with three state-of-the-art (and ASCE-7-compliant) lighted outdoor padel courts from Sportsfield Specialties.

The new club (complete with a clubhouse and fully stocked pro shop) will be located just steps from its original pop-up location and have a very similar look and feel according to founder Jake Weinstock, who also tells me: “I really miss the people and can'‘t wait until we get the doors back open. We have such a great, diverse, and growing mix [of players].”

Estimated Re-opening Date: July 2026

DUS Padel (West Palm Beach, FL)

The team behind DUS Padel will soon be bringing a premium, wellness-focused padel club to West Palm Beach, FL with a new 26,000-square-foot facility that will feature five indoor courts, an organic café, recovery amenities including saunas and cold plunges, and the first official NOX Pro Shop in the U.S.

The founders are positioning it as a true “third place” where members can play, recover, work, socialize, and attend events under one roof.

Construction is already well underway and the first 100 members in the door can join up and get a wide variety of discounts and other perks (including unlimited spa access, three monthly guest passes, and 10% off lessons, clinics, food, beverages, and merchandise among other things) for as little as $2,250 per year or $225 per month.

Estimated Opening Date: Fall 2026

Punto Azul Padel Club (Houston, TX)

Later this year, a padel club known as Punto Azul will bring eight outdoor courts (three of which will be covered) from Padel Galis to the Oak Forest / Garden Oaks neighborhood of Houston, TX — which will help further establish Space City as the number two padel stronghold in the U.S. after Miami.

Fittingly enough, Punto Azul was founded by an Acapulco native, Jose Castrejon, who is committed to importing the sport’s rich culture from Mexico to the U.S., with a focus on community, hospitality, and youth development through a dedicated academy.

Rounded out by an on-site café, workspaces, bar, gym, and locker rooms, the club will help double the total number of courts in the downtown Houston area.

Estimated Opening Date: Fall 2026

Vortex Padel Club (Orange County, CA)

Thanks to Jennifer Hebrock of Mindspring Padel, I recently had a great chat with Talah Anwar, who is finally bringing the world’s fastest growing sport to Orange County, CA with the opening of four outdoor courts at Vortex Padel Club later this year.

As I learned in our conversation, Talah is a biomedical engineer by trade (!) who loves the power that sports like basketball, padel, and soccer have to not only bring people together but actually create all new communities.

In fact, over the past two years Talah and his friends have held eight multi-sport events around Orange County that have attracted between 300 - 400 athletes from all walks of life — and he looks to keep that momentum up with Vortex and padel once it opens to the public later this year.

Estimated Opening Date: Late 2026

Enjoy this article? If so, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… I’ve actually got a full-blown padel book coming out in July. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by pre-ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Many thanks in advance!

Editor’s Note: The following (lightly edited) guest feature comes from fellow American Collegiate Padel League advisory board member, Eric Loftus — who is a Partner at Cape & Island Tennis & Track, a sports construction firm that has built 3,350+ courts and tracks across New England over the past 50+ years.

He is also President of Northeast Padel and a Partner at Padel Solutions Group (an official U.S. distributor of Sportsfield Specialties courts).

He serves as Courts Division Director on the board of the American Sports Builders Association and chaired the joint editorial board that produced the ASBA/USPA Padel Court Installation and Maintenance Manual (2025) — the first national standard for padel court construction in the United States.

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Padel is the fastest-growing sport in the world, and courts are going up across the United States at a pace that would have seemed impossible five years ago.

Investors are writing checks. Clubs are breaking ground. Developers are adding padel to project plans before the ink is dry on the site permits.

Yet a meaningful number of those courts — already built, already in use, already collecting membership fees — may not be compliant structures under the building codes of the jurisdictions where they stand.

That is not a marketing claim. It is a structural engineering reality, and it is one that the American padel industry needs to confront directly — before someone gets hurt, before an investor loses their capital, and before a single preventable incident poisons the reputation of a sport that has worked hard to earn its place in the American market.

What “Legal” Actually Means for an Outdoor Padel Court

In the U.S., outdoor structures — including padel courts — are governed by the International Building Code (IBC), which has been adopted in all 50 states in some form.

The IBC’s structural design chapter references ASCE 7, the national engineering standard published by the American Society of Civil Engineers, as the required basis for calculating design loads on buildings and other structures.

For an outdoor padel court, the governing design case under ASCE 7 is almost always wind.

A padel court is a large, semi-enclosed structure — a steel frame with significant vertical glass surfaces — that behaves aerodynamically like a partially enclosed volume. Wind pushes against the glass from outside and, when it enters through openings, pushes outward from inside simultaneously.

The resulting forces on the frame, the glass panels, the anchor bolts, and the foundation can be substantial, and they vary significantly by location.But wind is not the only load that must be engineered. ASCE 7 governs the full spectrum of forces that act on an outdoor structure.

In northern climates, snow loads must also be calculated — the weight of accumulated snow on any horizontal or near-horizontal surface, including canopies and roofed court structures. Foundation design must account for soil bearing capacity, frost depth, and the transfer of all wind and gravity loads from the steel frame into the ground.

In seismically active regions, seismic loads must also be considered.

Each of these factors is site-specific, and each must be addressed by a licensed engineer. A padel court is not a simple structure dropped onto a concrete pad — it is a system of interdependent structural elements, each of which must be designed to work with the others.

ASCE 7 requires that every outdoor structure be engineered for the specific conditions at its specific geographic location, using site-specific load calculations, exposure categories, and pressure coefficients. The calculations must be performed by a licensed structural engineer, documented in stamped drawings, and submitted as part of the building permit application.

This is not optional. It is not a recommendation. It is the legal requirement in the vast majority of U.S. jurisdictions.

The Enforcement Gap

Here is where the practical reality diverges from the legal requirement — and where the risk accumulates.

Building code enforcement in the U.S. is handled at the local level by Authorities Having Jurisdiction (AHJs), typically municipal or county building departments. These departments vary enormously in their capacity, expertise, and resources.

A building department in a major city with experienced plan reviewers and structural engineers on staff will scrutinize a padel court permit application carefully. A building department in a smaller municipality that has never processed a padel court application before may issue a permit based on a site plan and a basic description of the structure, without ever reviewing structural calculations.

This happens. It is not rare. And it creates a dangerous illusion of compliance.

A permit is not the same as compliance. A permit means the municipality processed your application. It does not mean an engineer independently verified that the structure meets the adopted building code.

If the IBC has been adopted in that jurisdiction — and in most of the U.S. it has — the legal requirement exists whether or not the building official caught the deficiency. The liability exposure for the property owner is real regardless of whether a permit was issued.

There is a related enforcement gap that compounds this problem: some outdoor padel courts in the U.S. are operating on temporary or conditional permits — approvals issued to allow construction to begin or operations to commence while full documentation is still pending.

Temporary permits are a legitimate part of the construction process, but they are intended to be transitional. When a court continues to operate indefinitely under a temporary permit, the structural review that should have triggered full compliance may never occur.

The court is open. Players are on it. And the engineering that should have been verified before the first match was played has never been reviewed.

The American Sports Builders Association (ASBA), in its first-ever Padel Court Installation and Maintenance Manual published in 2025, identified this directly as one of the most common mistakes in U.S. padel court construction: using courts not certified by American engineers and ignoring wind loads.

The European Standard Is Not the American Standard

The majority of padel courts currently being installed in the United States are manufactured in Spain and other parts of Europe. Many of these are excellent products, well-engineered for the markets they were designed to serve.

The problem is that they were designed to serve European markets — and the engineering standard that governs structural design in Europe is not the same as the one that governs it in the U.S.

European courts are engineered to Eurocode EN 1991-1-4, the European standard for wind actions on structures. ASCE 7 and Eurocode 1 are not interchangeable. They use different definitions of basic wind speed (ASCE 7 uses a 3-second gust speed; Eurocode uses a 10-minute mean wind speed), different pressure coefficients, and different load combinations.

A direct numerical comparison between a wind speed rating under Eurocode and a wind speed rating under ASCE 7 is not valid — the underlying calculations are fundamentally different methodologies.

A court that is structurally adequate for its intended European market is not automatically compliant with U.S. building codes. To be compliant in the United States, a court must be re-engineered for the specific U.S. site, with stamped PE drawings from a U.S.-licensed structural engineer, using ASCE 7 as the governing standard. A European CE mark or Eurocode certification does not satisfy this requirement.

This is not a criticism of European engineering. It is a statement of regulatory fact. The U.S. has its own building codes, and those codes require ASCE 7 compliance. Full stop.

The Fine Print Problem

There is a more specific issue that deserves direct attention, because it is being actively marketed as a solution when it is, in fact, not one.

Some manufacturers — particularly those selling into wind-exposed markets — advertise their courts as wind-load compliant, with impressive-sounding speed ratings. Read the fine print, and you will sometimes find a qualification: the wind load rating applies to the steel structure only, with the glass panels removed.

The logic offered is straightforward: remove the glass before a major wind event, and the structure survives. The glass is the “sail” that catches the wind; without it, the frame presents a much smaller cross-section to the wind and can withstand significantly higher speeds.

This is technically accurate. It is also practically useless as a compliance argument in the U.S. — and the physical reality of the glass itself makes the point clearly.

A standard panoramic padel court contains 18 glass panels, each measuring 2 meters wide by 3 meters tall (approximately 6 feet 7 inches by 9 feet 10 inches) in 12mm tempered glass — and each weighing approximately 400 pounds.

That is 3.6 tons of glass per court.

Removing all panels before a wind event is not a matter of pulling a few clips and stacking some panes in a corner. It is a multi-hour operation requiring trained personnel, specialized glass-handling equipment, and safe storage space for panels that cannot simply be laid on the ground.

Each panel must be carefully unclipped, supported, moved, and stored without edge contact — because tempered glass, once chipped or nicked at its edges, can spontaneously shatter. Replacement panels are not off-the-shelf items; they are custom-ordered components with meaningful lead times.

ASCE 7 requires that structures be engineered for wind loads as they will actually be used — with all components in place. A padel court is a padel court because it has glass walls. A structure with the glass removed is not a padel court; it is a steel frame. The building permit is issued for a padel court. The structure that must meet the code is a padel court — glass installed, in service, as designed.

Beyond the regulatory argument, there is a practical one that is equally decisive. As of today, there are only approximately ten to twelve installation crews in the entire U.S. with the training, equipment, and experience to properly remove and reinstall padel court glass panels.

These crews are spread across a country of 3.8 million square miles, and they are in high demand. They are not available on 24 hours notice.

A wind event does not schedule itself around crew availability. A nor’easter in New England, a severe thunderstorm complex in the Mid-Atlantic, a tornado watch in the Plains — these systems can develop and intensify in hours.

The operational model of “remove the glass before every significant wind event” is not a real-world risk management strategy. It is a liability disclaimer dressed up as a feature.

The question every property owner and club operator should ask is simple: In the event of an unexpected wind event, who is responsible if the glass fails? If the answer involves a clause about glass removal, the answer is you.

The same logic applies if the court carries a wind load rating that falls below the ASCE 7 design wind speed required for your specific location. A court rated for 90 mph installed in a jurisdiction where ASCE 7 requires a 115 mph design wind speed is not a compliant structure — regardless of what the marketing materials say. The liability does not transfer with the brochure.

What Real Compliance Looks Like

A properly engineered padel court in the United States involves the following, without exception:

Site-specific wind load calculation

The engineer of record uses ASCE 7 and the ASCE Hazard Tool (ascehazardtool.org) to determine the design wind speed for the specific geographic location, accounting for the site’s exposure category — whether it is in an open field, surrounded by trees and buildings, or in a coastal zone.

Full-system engineering — frame, glass, anchorage, and foundation

The wind loads calculated for the site must be transferred through every element of the structure: from the glass panels to the steel frame, from the frame to the anchor bolts, and from the anchor bolts into the concrete foundation. Each element must be independently verified.

A court that has a strong frame but under-designed anchor bolts, or a well-anchored frame on an inadequate slab, is not a compliant structure.

Stamped PE drawings

The structural calculations and construction drawings must be stamped by a licensed Professional Engineer (PE) registered in the state where the court is being built. This is the document that the building department reviews, that the inspector references, and that protects the property owner in the event of a dispute.

Foundation designed as part of the system

The concrete slab or perimeter foundation is not a generic construction element — it is a structural component of the court system. Its thickness, reinforcement, and anchor bolt pattern must be designed specifically for the wind loads at that site. A standard concrete slab poured without engineering input is not a compliant foundation for an outdoor padel court.

The Questions Every Buyer Should Ask

Before signing a contract for an outdoor padel court installation, every property owner, club operator, and developer should have clear answers to the following questions:

1. Is this court engineered to ASCE 7 — with the glass installed?

Not “wind resistant.” Not “tested to Eurocode.” Not “rated to 130 km/h.” Engineered to ASCE 7, with the glass panels in place, for the specific wind speed at this specific site.

2. Will I receive PE-stamped structural drawings?

Stamped by a licensed Professional Engineer registered in this state, covering the frame, the glass, the anchorage, and the foundation.

3. Who is designing the foundation?

Is the slab designed as part of the court system, or is it a generic concrete pour? Who is the engineer of record for the foundation, and are they coordinating with the court manufacturer’s structural requirements?

4. Who is responsible if the court fails in a wind event?

This is the question that clarifies everything. A manufacturer or installer who is confident in their engineering will answer it directly.

5. Who will maintain the safety standards of this court after installation?

A court is not a one-time transaction. Glass panels develop edge chips over time that can compromise structural integrity. Anchor bolt connections can loosen. Silicone seals that cushion glass against steel frames degrade with UV exposure and temperature cycling. The same engineering standards that govern the initial installation apply to the court’s ongoing condition.

Ask who is responsible for periodic inspection, what a maintenance program looks like, and what the process is for identifying and addressing structural concerns before they become failures. A court without a maintenance plan is a court whose compliance degrades from the day it is commissioned.

The Bigger Risk: What a Single Failure Could Do to the Entire Industry

There is a consequence to non-compliant construction that goes beyond the individual property owner, beyond the specific court, and beyond the specific storm. It is the one that should concern everyone in the American padel industry — builders, manufacturers, clubs, investors, and players alike.

Padel is still a young sport in the United States. Awareness is growing rapidly, but the sport does not yet have the deep cultural roots in this country that it has in Spain, Argentina, and other parts of the world where it has been played for generations.

The American public is still forming its opinion of padel — what it is, whether it is safe, whether it belongs at their club or in their community.

A single high-profile structural failure — a court that collapses in a storm, a glass panel that shatters while players are on the court, an injury that makes the local news — has the potential to set the entire industry back by years. Not because padel courts are inherently dangerous. They are not, when they are built correctly.

But the average person reading a headline does not know the difference between a properly engineered, code-compliant court and one that was installed without a structural engineer ever reviewing the drawings.

They will not read the fine print. They will read: “Padel Court Collapses. Players Injured.”

That headline does not damage one manufacturer or one installer. It damages padel on the whole. It gives ammunition to every zoning board that is already skeptical of the sport, every insurance underwriter who is already nervous about it, and every club board member who was on the fence about adding courts. It creates a reputational problem for an industry that has worked hard to establish itself as a serious, legitimate, and growing part of American sports culture.

This is the argument that transcends business competition. No one in this industry — not the American manufacturers, not the European importers, not the installers, not the clubs — benefits from a safety incident caused by a non-compliant court.

We are all building the same market. A failure anywhere in that market is a failure for all of us.

The standard exists. The engineering is well understood. The path to a safe, compliant, insurable court is not complicated or prohibitively expensive. What is required is the commitment to follow it — and the willingness to ask the hard questions before breaking ground, not after the storm.

A Note on Responsibility

The U.S. padel industry is at an inflection point, and the sport is growing faster than the infrastructure knowledge base that supports it.

Building officials are processing permit applications for a structure type they have never seen before. Property owners are relying on manufacturers and installers to tell them what compliance means. Installers are sometimes relying on European certifications that do not translate to U.S. code requirements.

This is not a situation that calls for alarm. It calls for education. The engineering standards are clear. The liability framework is clear. The path to a compliant, safe, insurable outdoor padel court is well-defined.

What has been missing is a clear, direct explanation of what that path looks like — and what the consequences are for those who take a different one.

The American padel industry has an opportunity to set a standard that the rest of the world will eventually follow. The United States has some of the most rigorous structural engineering requirements for outdoor structures of any country in the world, and for good reason.

Building to those standards is not a burden. It is a competitive advantage — for the builders who do it, for the property owners who require it, and for the sport itself.

Enjoy this article? If so, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… I’ve actually got a full-blown padel book coming out in July. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by pre-ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Many thanks in advance!

Editor’s note: The following (lightly edited) feature article is from regular guest contributor, Scott Matulis, a former PR Director for the Worldwide Senior Tennis Tour who discovered padel in Vegas two years ago and can now hit balls off of the glass occasionally. He is the author of the LinkedIn and Substack serial novel The Applicant.

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I wanted to know about the early days of padel in Los Angeles, so I asked Jon Guerra.

He’s been around the local padel scene longer than most people here and has seen it from a variety of angles: player, coach, club operator, and guy from another country trying to figure out how we do things here.

He’s been instrumental in growing a tiny community into something much bigger, and he’s currently the General Manager at the soon-to-open Los Angeles Padel Club (LAPC).

Like a lot of the guys who have been beating the daylights out of me, Guerra learned padel as a kid growing up in Spain. He came to the United States on a soccer scholarship, at Lindenwood University in St. Louis, where he almost immediately tore his ACL.

After three years in Missouri, where there was zero padel to be played, he finished his master’s degree in Interactive Media and Design and moved to Los Angeles — where he promptly tore his ACL again.

Oddly enough, that second knee injury led Jon back to padel. I blew the crap out of my ACL at about the same age, so we start our conversation there.

A Q&A With L.A. Padel OG Jon Guerra

Great to meet you. I tore my ACL when I was 25 and have had both knees replaced, so I know where you’re coming from knee-wise.

I tore my ACL in the same knee twice. I had the interior meniscus and ACL, and then the exterior meniscus and ACL. Soccer is one of those sports where you don’t control every movement because it’s an impact-contact sport. I stopped playing a few years ago.

Let’s start with how you ended up in Los Angeles. Was it for padel, or something else?

I moved to L.A. for a job at an interior design and architecture firm, HBA — Hirsch Bedner Associates. I was a product designer there, and eventually I became more of a branding and industrial designer. We developed hotels, casinos, resorts, apartment complexes — things like that.

Then I tore my ACL the second time. I had surgery at Torrance Memorial Hospital, and I tried to find a PT, gym or wellness center close to the hospital because I had to go there for revisions and follow-ups.

I found a club called South End Racquet & Health Club. They had two padel courts, and I thought, “Okay, this is destiny. This is meant to be.”

Right after rehab, I started going to that club every day after work. I met a lot of cool people there — Spanish people, Mexican people, tennis players, padel players. It was a very small community at the time.

Around the same time, Sunset Padel Club closed.

What was Sunset Padel Club?

Right now it’s called The Padel Courts in Hollywood. Before that, it was called Sunset Padel. I believe it had two Spanish owners, though I don’t remember exactly. They closed after a few years. The market was too early for padel.

I think the progression of the sport in L.A. was that Sunset Padel and South End came first. They opened at a similar time, maybe a year apart. Then Sunset Padel had to close, but South End kept going.

What year was this?

I think Sunset Padel closed in 2015. I found the club in Torrance and started playing there. Because of my background in padel, and as I started getting in shape again, members would ask if I could give them a few tips or help them with a few baskets of balls.

Eventually, I started giving lessons in my spare time. That’s how I started. I was there from 2018 to 2024.

And you were still working your full-time job in design?

Yeah. I would go to the office every day at 8 a.m., leave around 5 or 5:45 p.m., then sit in traffic for 45 minutes to an hour going to Torrance. Then I’d play from 6:30 to 9 p.m., or whenever we wanted to stop.

That’s where I met Pablo Barajas, who was my partner. In 2019, we started playing the USPA tour — tournaments around the U.S. That’s when I started committing a little bit more. It wasn’t just going after work to play and have fun anymore. I started skipping games so I could practice more. That’s how it started.

How did your playing career go?

In 2023, I ended up being ranked 13th in the country. The best 16 players qualified for the Masters and I played it that year.

During that time, I was already negotiating with the new owners of The Padel Courts. In March 2024, I started working there as the head coach.

Because I was already working from home, I had a lot of flexibility. I started thinking, “How can I make this work?” My job was very stable and comfortable, but I had always been linked to sports — soccer, padel, surfing, judo, field hockey, whatever it was.

So in 2024, the opportunity was there. I started doing everything from programming to teaching clinics, giving lessons, organizing open play and helping with the pro shop. All the padel operations were my responsibility.

The owners were not familiar with the sport, but one of them had lived in Dubai for a year and saw what padel was like there. He thought, “Why don’t they have anything like this in L.A.?” That’s how we started.

I worked there all of 2024 and 2025. At the beginning of this year, they sold The Padel Courts to another group. But at that point, I was already committed to the LAPC adventure.

Steve (Shpilsky) and I met each other at The Padel Courts during open plays and clinics. The first clinic he had was with me. At the beginning, it wasn’t an approach for me to join them. He was just chatting with me as a friend: “We’re starting this thing. We’re looking for people.”

Eventually, he said, “We’re looking for a GM. We’re looking for coaches. Would you be interested in talking?” I said yes.

He didn’t want to just poach somebody from The Padel Courts, but the sale of that facility was part of the situation at the time. So I said, “Let’s see what you have and what you’re trying to do.” That’s how we connected. It felt like a really interesting project.

One of the cool things I’ve learned about LA is that it has a lot of padel courts at private houses. When did that start?

By 2018, when I moved to L.A., there were three or four houses with padel courts. There was a house in Bel Air and one in Beverly Hills. Those courts were built around 2017 or 2018, I think. Probably in the last three years, we’ve had more private courts built at houses than in all the years before.

Are large numbers of private padel courts exclusively an L.A. thing?

As far as I’m concerned, yes. I don’t think it happens the same way in Europe or South America because there is a more open approach to the sport. Padel started in country clubs and was kind of an elitist game in the ’80s and ’90s. You had to have access to a tennis club or country club.

But after 2000, everybody wanted to get into the sport. The U.S. market now is where the Spanish market was 25 years ago. We’re in that stage where you can feel that something is cooking. There is a lot of interest, a lot of new ventures, a lot of new money coming in. But it’s still small enough that people don’t have access to padel easily or affordably.

The private-house scene here is unique. I think it’s part of the social structure of L.A., where you have big residential areas with big backyards and space. The people who have access to that wealth travel and experience the sport in other countries. Then they come back and say, “Hey, my friend just built one. I’m going to build one too.”

Does that happen in the other big U.S. padel cities like New York or Miami?

I don’t think that happens in New York. It’s more of an urban area.

Miami got really big really fast because of South American culture. Miami has the largest Argentine population in the States, along with people from Venezuela, Puerto Rico, Cuba, and other countries.

Argentina, along with Spain, is one of the main countries for padel. That’s why Miami grew so fast, but I don’t think the private-court scene is as big there compared to L.A.

Los Angeles also has a lot of folks from those same countries, and from Mexico, where padel is big. Is it comparable to Miami in that way?

L.A. is more socially layered. Right now, only a certain portion of the population has access to padel in L.A. because it’s expensive, regardless of where you’re from.

The padel community in L.A. is still more high-end. But it’s starting to open up a lot. I feel like in the next six months or year, everybody is going to have access to an affordable padel court.

There are a lot of padel clubs going up in Los Angeles now, and in Southern California in general. Is there room for everybody, or is there going to be a shakeout?

This is something we discuss a lot among those of us already in the community.

Because we are involved day after day in the sport, we don’t always notice the growth until certain milestones happen every year, like the L.A. Cup. We used to have only three teams per division, and now we have 100 people who want to play.

Those kind of milestones make you realize the sport is growing. So I don’t think there are enough padel courts for the demand we are going to have. There is going to be a moment when you realize the sport is booming, and you have to be ready before it happens. Otherwise, you are late.

We have the FIFA World Cup this summer. We have the Olympics. We have padel probably becoming an Olympic sport in the next Olympics or the one after that. There is going to be a moment when we have so much demand that we won’t be able to pretend anybody is going to have a monopoly on padel in L.A.

I’m from a town in Spain with 180,000 people, and we have at least 20 clubs. Nobody is fighting for players. So if that pattern follows, or Miami’s, I can’t imagine how anybody would say, “We have too many clubs right now.”

What about coaches? Do we have enough padel coaches in Los Angeles?

That’s the million-dollar question.

I’m not worried about how many coaches we have. I would ask, “How good are the coaches right now?”

I don’t want to be negative. Right now, there are very good coaches, but there are not many of them. The issue is the quality of coaching. I’m not saying there is bad coaching in the United States. I’m saying that because it’s very early, it’s easy to get into the sport and start coaching.

Can you give me a story or amusing anecdote from your time in L.A. padel?

I’ve played with all kinds of celebrities here in L.A., but the highlight of my padel life in L.A. — and this is because I have a soccer background — was when I was giving a clinic one night and all of a sudden a reservation came in under the name “Frank”.

It was three guys, and the fourth one was wearing a hoodie. When he took it off, it was Zinedine Zidane.

We literally stopped the lesson. The guys I was teaching and I tried to get a picture with him. We actually got a picture with him. Then we stopped the lesson and just watched him play.

Was he good?

He was pretty decent. Pretty good. I would say he’s high-intermediate-ish.

It was very random. I was alone in the club, with only two players, giving a lesson. Then all of a sudden he walked in like it was nothing.

Things like that happen all the time because of padel in the States. I have had more random situations than ever. Padel is one of those sports here, because of the community and how it’s growing, where there’s always some celebrity, some friend, or some kind of serendipity that gives you amazing stories.

Enjoy this article? If so, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… I’ve actually got a full-blown padel book coming out in July. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by pre-ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Many thanks in advance!

Dear Padel Nation,

I was lucky enough to both start and end May with padel trips around the Eastern half of the U.S., (re)visiting two clubs in Virginia to kick off the month and then checking out two new ones this past weekend in Ohio to close it out.

(Plus, I also got to play padel last month at both Kiawah and the Daniel Island Club here in South Carolina for the first time ever — which underscores a growing U.S. padel trend I explored in a recent article).

After having been among the first players to ever set foot on the three stunning courts at the Boar’s Head Resort in Charlottesville, VA, last May for a grassroots padel (and squash) event known as the Wahoo Invitational, I somehow managed to get invited back for the sophomore edition this year — and the experience was every bit as exceptional the second time around (the photo above will help to explain why).

From there I immediately headed to Richmond, VA, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite U.S. cities, and Padel Plant, which is easily among my favorite padel clubs in the entire country due to its ultra-unique setting (in a former hydroelectric power plant)… its incredibly lob-friendly ceiling heights… its inviting stay-after-you-play vibe (complete with local craft beers and delicious wood-fired pizzas)… and its rockstar staff (great to see Alex again and meet Blanca for the first time!).

After a few weeks at home, this past weekend saw me and a group of racquet-sports-obsessed friends traveling to Cincinnati, OH, to celebrate the birthday of the living legend who first brought padel to South Carolina by playing the sport at two very impressive new clubs:

• Cincinnati Open Sporting Club — which is home to two pristine outdoor padel courts along with dozens of tennis courts (which are used for the ATP/WTP 1000-level pro-tennis tournament they host each August) and some of the most luxe lounge, dining, bar, co-working, and (Midwest-Tennis-branded) pro-shop areas you’ll likely find anywhere in the racquets world.

• Club Padel Newtown — a soon-to-open club we profiled several months back that will initially open with four outdoor courts, a delightfully funky craft beer store (inside a retro gas station), a BBQ restaurant, plenty of indoor/outdoor lounge and event space, and a private dog park (among many other offerings) before adding an additional ten indoor courts at a later date.

Speaking of traveling to play padel, the padel tourism trend is obviously starting to gain major traction, as evidenced by the fact that last month Travel + Leisure ran a feature article on the new Privé Passport offering from the team behind Privé Padel (which I have covered numerous times since launching Padel Nation in January).

What’s more, Lee Witham (whose company Padel+ is responsible for building a majority of the courts I played on in May) penned a guest article for us last month exploring why one of the U.S.’s biggest tourist destinations may also be one of its most-overlooked padel paradises.

While I don’t currently have any padel trips planned for June, I am set to do my first international padel trip to Spain in July to attend the Premier Padel P1 in Málaga.

In the meantime, I’ll be covering (almost) everything you need to know about what’s happening in the U.S. padel world in June after recapping (almost) everything you need to know from May — which you can read about directly below.

As always, thanks for reading — and play up!

- ae

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««« Nine New U.S. Padel Clubs to Visit Soon »»»

The ever-growing list of padel clubs around the U.S. got even longer in May thanks to these nine soon-to-open clubs, which will be bringing 67 new padel courts to six states including California, Colorado, Florida, Texas, Ohio, and Washington (in fact, Seattle will finally get its very first padel courts this morning!).

««« Padel Haus Expands Its U.S. Empire Again »»»

In addition to the nine clubs mentioned above, leading U.S. padel club operator Padel Haus opened not just one, but two, brand-new (and very eagerly awaited clubs) in the month of May. You can get the full details on both of them here.

««« Wait, You Can Play Padel in ________?!? »»»

While operators like Padel Haus tend to get a lot of attention and publicity when they open new clubs in “tier-one” cities like Denver and New York City, plenty of other clubs continue to open in second- and third-tier cities around the U.S. with relatively little fanfare.

We tried to help right this wrong last month by highlighting a few off-the-beaten-path clubs you should know about in Colorado, New Mexico, Florida, Vermont, and West Virginia.

««« When Will the U.S. Hit Peak Padel? »»»

While I’m admittedly no math whiz, a few recent events (including all the clubs mentioned above opening) did lead me to dig into some hard data last month in an effort to get some sense of what might end up being the U.S. padel market’s saturation point in terms of total number of courts. Here’s where I landed.

««« Legendary U.S. Tennis Club Adds Padel »»»

For padel to get anywhere near its saturation point in the U.S., one helluva lot of tennis facilities around the country will need to start adding courts. And this iconic U.S. tennis venue finally installing one may well signal that a lot more dominoes are about to fall.

««« U.S. Padel Moves Closer to Center Stage »»»

Yes, ultra-traditional tennis clubs in the northeast are finally coming around to padel, — but so are ultra-hip cultural events like Coachella in the American southwest.

In fact, as Scott Matulis explored in this guest piece for us last month, a recent padel pop-up in the California desert could help catapult U.S. padel towards its biggest stage yet.

… and that’s a wrap — until next month, at least!

Enjoy this monthly U.S. padel recap? If so, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Share

Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… I’ve actually got a full-blown padel book coming out in July. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by pre-ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Many thanks in advance!

Subscribe now

While the majority of the U.S. padel world’s attention usually goes to “tier-one” cities like Miami, Houston, and Los Angeles, you’re now starting to see padel popping up in second- and even third-tier cities across the country as well.

And given how relatively little attention some of locations get — yet how important I believe them to be to the overall growth of the sport around our country — I wanted to close out the month by highlighting a few of them, including:

Santa Fe, NM (@ Forked Lightning Racquet Club)

New Mexico’s capital city has always been one of my favorite in the entire U.S. (not to mention, among our nation’s very oldest). I love its ultra-funky, arty desert vibe and the fact it’s home to amazing southwestern food (including some of the best pozole I’ve ever tasted), the original Meow Wolf, and perhaps the most legendary turn-key squash establishment of all time, The Kiva Club.

However, up until recently it had never been anywhere I’d ever seriously considered moving, due in no small part to its lack of padel courts.

But that’s no longer an issue thanks to Forked Lightning Racquet Club and the three outdoor padel courts they opened earlier this year (along with 12 indoor and outdoor tennis courts and an additional dozen pickleball courts).

Apparently, I’m not the only one who’s excited about having padel in the area, either. Among the many big-name celebrities that attended its grand-opening festivities were tennis legends and former pros including Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf, Coco Vandeweghe, Mike and Bob Bryan, Luke and Murphy Jensen, Justin Gimelstob, and John Isner.

Colorado Springs, CO (@ Olympus Padel)

Having grown up in Colorado Springs, I couldn’t have been more excited (or surprised) when Evan Brown — who has also been involved with other notable U.S. padel projects like Aspen Padel Club, Mink Padel in Harlem, and The Padel Courts in Los Angeles — told me he would be opening Olympus Padel there a little over a year ago.

Since then, I’ve had the pleasure of playing there several times (including with my former high-school-tennis coach) and watching the community steadily grow (via the club’s thriving WhatsApp group).

Colorado Springs is also the home of the U.S. Olympic Training Center… my alma mater, Cheyenne Mountain High School, and its nearly four dozen combined boys and girls state tennis championships… another legendary turn-key squash club known as Guillermos’s… and the iconic Broadmoor Hotel and Resort with its storied tennis program.

So, perhaps it only makes sense that the Springs is now home to the world’s fastest growing sport, too.

Titusville, FL (@ Wakit Rakit / La Cita Tennis Club)

While this part of Florida is known as “the Space Coast” due to the numerous historic NASA facilities in the area, U.S. padel pioneer and O.G. Tito Moreno and the Wakit Rakit team also found it to be the perfect location for their first-ever club (with a second also recently opening in Spring, TX).

Of his decision to open a club here, rather than in a more established Florida city like Miami or Orlando, Moreno says:

“Titusville is the perfect spot to join America's padel boom. Padel's social energy and quick mastery make it addictive for families and friends, while its depth challenges experts. I'm here to build community and train toward representing Team USA at the 2032 Olympics."

In addition to two brand-new, soon-to-open padel courts, Wakit Rakit (which sits on the grounds of the iconic La Cita Tennis Club) features six Har-Tru clay tennis courts and two indoor racquetball courts.

Charleston, WV (@ Edgewood Country Club)

No offense to the other Charleston (I live in the South Carolina version), but West Virginia isn’t exactly the fist state that springs to mind when I think of must-visit racquet-sports destinations.

Yet Edgewood Country Club, which opened in 1898 in the mountains overlooking the West Virginia capital:

• Was the host venue of quite possibly the most fun hardball-doubles-squash tournament I’ve ever played in (and most definitely the only one where I’ve ever been offered both pre- and post-match dirty martinis!)…

• Was the first place I ever saw, let alone played, pickleball (clear back in 2019), and…

• Is now home to the first (and currently only) padel court in the state.

From what I’ve heard, it’s catching on fast. So, it might not be the only one for long — and a return trip may well be in order (especially if pre-match cocktails are still on offer)!

Wilmington, VT (@ Brook Bound Inn)

About 130 miles northwest of the emerging padel mini-mecca of Boston, you’ll find charming, rustic Brook Bound Inn and its seven private rooms along with a swimming pool and pickleball and padel courts spread across 32 acres of pristine Vermont forest.

Whitney Kraft, who has a four-decade-plus-long career in the racquet sports industry and is responsible for helping to bring some of the earliest padel courts to the U.S. serves as the Racquets Director.

So, next time you’re in need of a break from the hustle and bustle of your big city padel club, but you still want to be able to play, you might want to consider a trip to this off-the-beaten-path corner of Vermont.

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Despite working in the finance industry for 16-plus years (as a writer), math is decidedly not my strong suit.

However, two things recently happened that made me want to dig into the numbers around padel in the U.S. a bit and try to determine at what point the market might become oversaturated with courts.

First off, I wrote an article about padel clubs starting to close in the U.S. (though not due to saturation issues, mind you) — which drew a lot of attention, to say the least.

Secondly, while doing research for my forthcoming padel book (set to be released July 21st), I came across some interesting data from FIP’s World Padel Report 2025 — which I used to create the following table:

Given that the United Nations estimates that the U.S. currently has a population of roughly 349 million people, this means that, in theory, were padel to get as popular here as it is in:

• Mexico, which the birthplace of the sport, we could support nearly 7,000 courts…

• France, where the sport has exploded in popularity recently, we could support 21,500+ courts…

• Argentina, which along with Spain has historically been padel’s primary stronghold, we could support about 54,375 courts…

• Italy, which now is second only to Spain in total number of courts, we could support over 60,500 courts, or…

• Spain, where the sport has grown and flourished for years, we could support a whopping 127,000+ courts (which is about 50,000 more than the number of pickleball courts currently in the U.S.).

To be clear, this is not a prediction of how many courts we might one day have in the U.S., but merely an extrapolation of how many courts we could potentially expect to have were padel to take off in the U.S. to the degree it has in other more mature markets.

Stockholm Syndrome

Of course, when it comes to cautionary tales in the padel world, none loom larger than the major market collapse (or perhaps correction, depending on how you look at it) that occurred in Sweden a few years back, which completely wiped out over 100 clubs and other padel-related businesses and resulted in an estimated €500 million in capital losses.

While exact data is somewhat hard to come by, the numbers I’ve seen seem to suggest that Sweden peaked somewhere in the general ballpark of 5,000 total courts before things started to go south, which would imply a citizens per court ratio of roughly 2,125.

Granted, several factors — including soaring energy costs — contributed to the massive market pullback in Sweden. But if we were to take this 2,125 ratio as a warning sign, it would mean that you’d need to start worrying about market (over)saturation at:

• Around 1,250 courts in the greater Austin, TX metro area, where new padel clubs are starting to pop up left and right…

• Roughly 1,400 courts for the greater Salt Lake City area (including Provo and Orem), which is experiencing a major padel boom at the moment…

• Approximately 3,000 courts for the greater Miami metro area, which is undeniably the epicenter of padel in the U.S. right now…

• About 3,700 courts for the greater Houston area (including The Woodlands), which is making a solid push to be padel’s “second city” in the U.S. after Miami, and…

• Just over 6,000 courts for the greater Los Angeles area, where big new clubs are opening soon from leading operators including L.A. Padel Club, Ballers, and Bay Padel.

The Cost Discount and Pickleball Premium

Given that booking a padel court in the U.S. can easily be anywhere between two and ten-times more expensive than booking a court in places like Spain or Sweden, my guess is that the numbers above are overstated by a corresponding factor.

What’s more, unlike in those places, a significant portion of padel’s target addressable market is likely already playing pickleball instead of (or perhaps in addition to) padel here in the U.S., which will likely further reduce demand for courts.

So, while not scientific, unless padel somehow becomes significantly cheaper to play here in the U.S. or city parks around the country begin putting up hundreds of free courts, my approach on determining a rough U.S. saturation point would be to:

• Apply Sweden’s 2125 “danger ratio” to the U.S. population — which works out to about 164,000 courts…

• Divide this by three or four to account for the significant cost disparities between U.S. and European markets — which comes out to about 54,750 or 41,000 respectively, and…

• Multiply this by somewhere between 0.75 and 0.50 to account for the percentage drop-off in demand due to pickleball (which I’d estimate between 25% and 50%)…

Which ultimately leaves you with about 41,000 courts on the high end and 20,500 on the low end.

Granted, I know those numbers will no doubt seem impossibly high to some (including me) and insultingly low to others (including everyone pushing the whole “We’ll have 20,000 courts in the U.S. by 2030” narrative on social media).

But, keep in mind, we only very recently even passed the 1,000-court mark here in the U.S., and in order for us to hit 20,000 courts by 2030, roughly 15 new courts would have to open every single day for the next 1,316 days straight (and unless 30 new courts opened this past weekend alone, we’re already behind pace!).

What’s more, even if 250 new courts opened every single month from here on out, it would still take over 13 years to hit the 41,000 court mark.

So, while I’m definitely bullish on the sport overall in the U.S. and happy to do whatever I can to help it grow, if I had to bet on these numbers, I’d definitely take the under.

Agree? Disagree? Please let us know in the comments below and/or vote in our poll:

Please also be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Oh, and one other thing… I’ve actually got a full-blown padel book coming out in July. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by pre-ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Many thanks in advance.

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When it comes to the question of whether tennis and padel can — and possibly even should — happily co-exist, there are certainly no shortage of opinions.

On the one hand, you’ve got tennis legend Novak Djokovic calling rapidly growing racquet sports like padel a “threat” to tennis during a 2024 Wimbledon press conference (despite the fact that he’s regularly been spotted playing it over the years).

Meanwhile, current men’s world-number-10-ranked Alexander Bublik made big headlines recently after telling reporters, “If you can’t play singles [tennis], you play doubles. If you can’t play doubles, you play padel.”

(Ironically, those comments were made during a tournament in Rome where he got bounced out early in both singles and doubles. Perhaps he should give padel a go?).

Then, on the other hand, you have notable tennis greats like Andy Murray, Rafa Nadal, and Dominic Thiem not only actively playing and promoting the sport, but also investing heavily in it, as well. Not to mention, AO Ventures, the investment arm of the Australian Open and Tennis Australia making a significant investment in leading U.S. padel club operator Padel Haus.

Beyond this, you are also starting to see big U.S. pro tennis venues adding padel courts. This includes LTP Daniel Island/Credit One Stadium, which hosts the WTA 500-level Credit One Charleston Open each spring in South Carolina and now has three padel courts, as well as the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Mason, OH, which hosts the ATP/WTA 1000-level Cincinnati Open each August and now has two padel courts (which I’ll actually be playing on a week from tomorrow!).

What’s more, as I covered in a recent article, here in the U.S., we’re starting to see a growing number of legendary country, city, and racquet clubs — including the likes of The Philadelphia Cricket Club, Merion Cricket Club, and The Piedmont Driving Club — start to open padel courts at their facilities.

And to this ever-growing list, we now can now add one of the most iconic of them all…

West Side Story

Founded in 1892 in the Forest Hills neighborhood of Queens, NY, on nearly 12 acres, the legendary West Side Tennis Club is among the most historic — and heralded — racquet-sports clubs in the entire U.S. (and world, for that matter). This is thanks in large part to the fact that it:

• Was the host venue of the U.S. Open from 1915 to 1977…

• Features 38 grass, green and red Har-Tru, and hard tennis courts (along with three platform-tennis courts), and…

• Is anchored by a picturesque Tudor-style clubhouse and the historic 14,000-seat Forest Hills Stadium, which has hosted major concerts from artists including The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, Bob Dylan, and Jimi Hendrix.

And, as of about a week and a half ago, it’s now also home to a brand-new Mundial court from Padel Galis.

Of West Side’s decision to finally add a padel court to its full-time offerings, the club’s Racquets Committee Co-Chair, Marnie Perez Ochoa (whose grandparents actually both competed in U.S. Opens that were hosted at West Side), tells me:

“We reviewed a number of the top court manufacturers throughout the process, but ultimately felt most comfortable moving forward with Padel Galis because of their experience and established outdoor footprint in the Northeast specifically.

Since padel is still a relatively new sport not just for many of our members, but operationally for the Club as well, it was important for us to work with a partner that had substantial experience installing and maintaining courts in climates similar to New York.

We wanted a group that could really guide us through the process and help educate us on the operational side of the sport, not just sell us a court. We also worked closely with them on some of the design elements.

For example, we selected a green turf color that subtly nods to the Club’s iconic grass courts, which are such a defining part of West Side’s identity. We also customized the protective coverings around the court to maintain a clean, minimal aesthetic while still incorporating the Club’s logo and branding in a tasteful way.”

As Ever With Padel, Patience Pays Off

While adding padel courts to West Side had been discussed by various boards and committees off and on for the better part of the past decade, the club’s first real introduction to the sport didn’t come until 2024 with the addition of a pop-up court from InstantPadel.

As Marnie recalls:

"It went up for the summer season as an introductory way for members to experience and learn the sport. The court was available throughout the summer and then removed in the fall. It served its purpose well by exposing members to padel and generating conversation and interest around the sport, but ultimately it was not enough at the time to justify moving directly into a larger permanent project.

Over the following year, the club continued monitoring both industry trends and member interest. We saw a broader shift across the racquet-sports industry, with many traditional tennis clubs evolving into more comprehensive ‘racquet-sports’ clubs. Peer clubs with similar membership bases, including the Philadelphia Cricket Club and more recently Sportime Randall’s Island and CityView, all embraced padel in thoughtful ways.

We also started seeing more and more West Side members traveling regularly to Brooklyn, Manhattan, and even New Jersey just to play padel, which reinforced that the interest and demand within the membership was real and continuing to grow.”

One and Done — or Just the Beginning?

While adding a single padel court to a very traditional club with over three dozen tennis courts may not exactly seem like a seismic shift, padel advocates like Marnie know that if you can get people (and especially racquet-sports junkies) to play padel just once, they’ll likely come back again and again.

She explains:

The idea behind starting with one court was to take a measured approach. It gives members the opportunity to experience padel on a true regulation court while allowing the club to evaluate demand, programming, and overall fit before considering anything larger long term.

Since installation, the surrounding area has also naturally evolved into another social gathering space for members, especially during the busy summer and concert season.

The membership has received the court and sport really well so far. There’s definitely been curiosity and some initial intimidation around the walls and mesh since it looks very different from tennis, but once members actually step on court and try it, that usually disappears pretty quickly.

A huge part of the early success and member buy-in has also been the engagement and energy from our Director of Racquet Sports, Chris Sanni. His willingness to embrace all racquet sports and help introduce members to the game in an approachable way has been incredibly important.

So Happy Together?

Shortly after the installers put the finishing touches on the West Side court, Marnie texted me the following video and a note that simply read: “We have a court!!”

While her excitement and sheer joy at finally having a “home court” is palpable (and very understandable — especially for me), she knows that, for the time being, she and her fellow West Side padel lovers will need to straddle the line between practical and cautiously optimistic, ultimately telling me:

“I think our approach is to remain thoughtful and member-driven as the sport continues to evolve.

In the near term, the goal is really just to continue introducing members to padel, build consistent usage, and learn from how the membership responds to the court and programming over time.

Longer term, we hope padel continues growing in a healthy and sustainable way both at West Side and across New York and the U.S. More broadly, we think racquet clubs are increasingly moving toward offering multiple sports and experiences under one roof, and we want to continue evaluating how padel fits into that future for our membership.”

Enjoy this article? If so, please be sure to subscribe to Padel Nation (for free!) to get exciting updates and important insights on the rapidly emerging U.S. padel scene like this one delivered directly to your inbox 2X weekly — or share it with a padel-playing friend.

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Finally, as always, a big thank you to the friends and preferred partners of Padel Nation who help make posts like this possible, including:

Interested in becoming a friend or preferred partner of Padel Nation? Drop us a line here and let’s talk!

Oh, and one other thing… I’ve actually got a full-blown padel book coming out in July. So, if you enjoy the work I’m doing in the U.S. padel space, you can support me by pre-ordering a copy (or two!) online at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. Many thanks in advance.