The padel origin story: from one Acapulco backyard to the world

Padel originated in Acapulco, Mexico, in 1969, when Enrique Corcuera enclosed a small court at his home with walls to keep the ball in play. That backyard improvisation is the entire padel origin story — one man, one space constraint, and a game now played on every continent.

Acapulco, 1969: where the padel origin story starts

Corcuera's court kept the essentials of tennis — a net across the middle, tennis-style scoring — but the enclosing walls changed everything. Balls that would be dead in tennis rebounded off the walls and stayed live, which made rallies longer and the game far kinder to ordinary athletes. His wife Viviana is credited with drafting the first written rules. And the dimensions Corcuera settled on, 20 meters long by 10 wide, are still the regulation court size today. The modern spec — wall heights, serving, scoring variants — is in our padel rules reference.

Nothing about the invention was a business plan. For its first five years, padel was a house game, played by Corcuera's family and guests.

Marbella, 1974: padel crosses the Atlantic

One of those guests mattered more than the rest. Alfonso de Hohenlohe, a Spanish aristocrat and founder of the Marbella Club, played the game on a visit to Mexico, liked it, and in 1974 built Spain's first two padel courts at his club on the Costa del Sol. The Marbella crowd — social, competitive, not all of them tennis players — took to it immediately, for the same reason beginners still do: you can hold a real rally on day one. If you've never seen the game itself, what is padel covers the basics.

Argentina takes the game and runs

Among the Marbella converts was Julio Menditeguy, an Argentine who brought the sport home in the mid-1970s. Argentina is where padel first became a mass sport. Through the 1980s and 1990s, courts went up at clubs across the country, and participation grew until padel ranked, by most accounts, second only to football. Argentina also shaped how the game is played: much of the sport's shot vocabulary and coaching tradition — the bandeja included — comes out of the Argentine school.

Three decades as a Spanish-speaking sport

From the mid-1970s to the late 2000s, padel history is largely a two-country story — Spain and Argentina, with strong pockets in Mexico, Uruguay, Chile, and Brazil. The institutions date from this era. The International Padel Federation (FIP) was founded in Madrid on July 12, 1991, by the Spanish, Argentine, and Uruguayan associations, and the first Padel World Championship was played in 1992, hosted in Madrid with the finals in Seville. Spain kept building through the 2000s until courts were standard at municipal sports centers, not just private clubs. Outside the Spanish-speaking world, though, the sport stayed close to invisible.

The 2010s: the European boom

That changed in the 2010s. Italy, Sweden, the Netherlands, France, Belgium, the UK, and the Gulf states all saw clubs multiply within a few years of each other. The economics helped: counting run-off space, up to three padel courts fit where one tennis court stood, and a court earns money in four-player blocks. The social side helped more — doubles-only play, short learning curve, rallies from the first session. Padel didn't need to convert tennis players; it recruited people who had never held a racket.

Pro tours consolidate into Premier Padel

Professional padel grew up in Spain, and for years the World Padel Tour, launched in 2013, was the sport's main circuit. In 2022 a rival arrived: Premier Padel, backed by Qatar Sports Investments and aligned with the FIP. After two seasons of split loyalties, the two sides agreed in 2023 to unify, and from the 2024 season Premier Padel became the single global tour. The World Padel Tour closed after eleven seasons. For players and fans, one calendar and one ranking replaced a fractured landscape.

The Olympic ambition

Padel made its multi-sport games debut at the 2023 European Games in Kraków, and the FIP has been open about the larger goal: a place at the Olympic Games, with Brisbane 2032 the realistic target. Inclusion requires broad international participation across continents, and padel is still filling out that map — growing fast in Europe and the Middle East, more slowly in Asia, Africa, and North America. Ironic, given the sport was born in Mexico.

However the Olympic bid lands, the distance already covered is remarkable: a game improvised in one backyard in 1969 now runs a unified world tour. Scorekeeping has traveled the same road — from a host calling numbers across the net to Padel Scoreboard, a padel scoreboard app for iPhone and Apple Watch that tracks match scores from your wrist.

FAQ

Where did padel originate?

Padel originated in Acapulco, Mexico, in 1969, on a walled court Enrique Corcuera built at his home. It reached Spain in 1974 through Alfonso de Hohenlohe's Marbella Club, and Argentina shortly after.

Who invented padel?

Enrique Corcuera invented padel. He built the first enclosed 20-by-10-meter court because his property couldn't fit a tennis court; his wife Viviana is credited with writing the first rules.

Why is padel so big in Spain and Argentina?

They had a head start measured in decades. Padel's origins gave both countries courts, clubs, and coaches from the 1970s onward, while most of Europe only discovered the sport in the 2010s.

Is padel an Olympic sport?

Not yet. Padel appeared at the 2023 European Games, and the FIP is working toward Olympic inclusion, with Brisbane 2032 the most-discussed target. The sport still needs wider international participation to qualify.

Is padel the same as paddle tennis?

No. Padel is played in doubles on an enclosed 20-by-10-meter court where walls are part of play. Paddle tennis (now often called POP tennis) is a separate, older American game played on a smaller open court without walls.