The history of padel: born in Mexico, not Spain

Was padel born in Spain? Nope. And the real story is better.

It was born in 1969, in Acapulco, Mexico, in the backyard of a private home: that of Enrique Corcuera, a businessman who loved tennis.

The first court, in a backyard

Legend says a tennis court would not fit in that backyard, so Corcuera invented a smaller one. What is documented is the court itself: twenty by ten meters, three-meter walls, and a tennis net down the middle. The same dimensions the rulebook sets today, more than fifty years later.

The first rules, the story goes, were written by Viviana, his wife, and given to him as a birthday gift. That game was called Paddle Corcuera.

The 1969 court measured twenty by ten. So does the one at your club. In half a century it has never needed changing.

From Acapulco to Marbella, and from Marbella to Argentina

In the 1970s, Prince Alfonso de Hohenlohe spent his summers at that Acapulco home. He liked the game so much he built two courts at his hotel in Marbella. That is how padel reached Spain.

And Julio Menditeguy, an Argentine member of that Marbella club, brought it to Argentina, where it took root with a strength that still lasts.

The dates that made it a sport

From a backyard in Acapulco to courts across half the world, in fifty years. So no: padel was not born in Spain or Argentina. It was born in Mexico, and the world made it its own.

Next time you step on a twenty-by-ten court, you know which backyard it came from.