The History of Padel: When was Padel invented?

In 1974 the Spaniard Alfonso de Hohenlohe went to visit his friend Enrique Corcuera in Mexico and got to experience the new sport that Corcuera had ‘invented’ in his own backyard. De Hohenlohe was intrigued by the game and took it back with him to Spain where he built two courts at the Marbella Club. A year later, a friend of de Hohenlohe, the Argentinian man Julio Menditengui, who frequented the Marbella Club, was amazed by the sport and introduced it in Argentina. A few years later it became the second most played sport in the country and today there are more than two million players enjoying Padel in the country’s over 10 000 courts. The sport also continued to grow in Spain and is now the second biggest sport even in Spain, only after football. As an example; 900,000 Padel rackets are sold in Spain every year compared to 400,000 tennis rackets which goes to show how big the sport has grown.

Padel has grown into a global sport and is now enjoyed in countries such as Portugal, Belgium,France, Holland, Sweden, Finland, UK, Chile, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay, USA and Canada to mention a few. It is estimated that more than twelve million people play Padel worldwide according to the International Padel Federation. The sport is nowadays organized through the International Padel Federation that was founded in 1991 and includes 35 national federations.