I’ve always been curious about beginnings. When I first read the story of how and who invented the game of padel, I was intrigued. Was it just a case of a rich guy – with time and money on hand – getting frustrated by his ball landing in his neighbor’s backyard or was it all thanks to a slight miscalculation when digging the foundations for his tennis court? Thanks to Enrique Corcuera’s “miscalculation”, padel as a sport was born.
Who invented Padel? The game of padel in its current form was invented by Mexican millionaire Enrique Corcuera, who built the first court in Acapulco, Mexico, in 1969. The court was enclosed by building walls around it. The walls covering the base-lines were three meters high, and the side walls were each about two meters in height.
How and where did it all start and how it came to be? Whether it’s the cog of the bicycle wheel, what keeps planes in the air and what made the moon landing possible? Amongst many others. Was it just a case of a slight miscalculation or was he adapting his plans to what was possible?
I know all about “slight miscalculations.” My slight miscalculation made me fail woodwork in school. But not all miscalculations seem to end up in a fail. Some “slight miscalculations” may very well end up called an “invention” that would change the status quo. Let’s look at Enrique’s inventive miscalculation in greater detail.
Who Was Enrique Corcuera
Very little is known about Enrique Corcuera’s life prior to him inventing the game of Padel other than that he was a Mexican millionaire. Being called a millionaire during the tumultuous Mexican Civil War (late 1960s-1970) also referred to as The Mexican Dirty War (Guerra Sucia) can only mean one thing – old money.
We can only speculate that the Corcuera family must have made their fortune generations earlier, likely to have come from the booming Mexican Petroleum Industry from decades earlier.
Whatever the source of the family fortune, it was this fortune that allowed Enrique to build the first padel court, which would lead to padel becoming the fastest growing racquet sports in the world today.
In honor of his legacy, the prestigious Enrique Corcuera Trophy was created and is awarded to the winner of The Mexican Open Tournament.
Where did it all start?
Although Enrique Corcuera is credited for the invention of padel, truth is, the concept of playing padel was not totally new or unheard of at the time.
Its origins can be traced back to the 1890s when it was played in a similar form by British sailors in the lower levels of their navy ships. It’s likely that the sport played by the soldiers would have been what is called hand tennis or ‘fives.”
Fives is an English sport believed to derive from the same origins as many racquet sports. In fives, a ball is propelled against the walls of a 3- or 4-sided special court, using a gloved or bare hand as though it were a racquet, similar to hand-pelota.
We can only speculate that playing hand tennis or “fives” formed part of the soldiers’ exercise routine and was used as a way of releasing the stresses of life on board of a navy ship.
The First Padel Court
There are two versions of the story as to how the first Padel court came to be.
The first version is that Enrique Corcuera, a tennis player, got fed-up with his ball landing in his neighbor’s backyard. So he decided to build a wall.
Another version has it that Enrique Corcuera initially wanted to build a tennis court on the terrace below his grand Mexican Villa, but realized that he‘d run out of space by the time the foundations had been dug. He modified the original plans and instead built a shorter and narrower court to fit the dimensions of the available space.
With a net placed in the middle, Enrique then decided to enclose the court by building walls around. The walls covering the base-lines were about three meters high and the side walls about two meters high each.
Thanks to the slight miscalculation of dimensions by a Mexican millionaire, the first padel court was aptly named ‘Pádel Corcuera’ or ‘Pádel Tenis’. Whether this is the true version of events or simply an urban legend, we can’t be sure, but it still makes for a good story.
The First Padel Racquets
The first racquets used by Enrique Corcuera to play the game of padel looked like this.
Padel in Spain
Some years later, Enrique Corcuera invited his good friend, Prince Alfonso de Hohenlohe of Spain, to try out padel at his Vila in Acapulco, Mexico. Prince Alfonso was instantly hooked on the game. Back in Spain, Prince Alfonso decided to have the first two padel courts built on the property of the Hotel Marbella Tennis club in 1974.
Turns out, Prince Alfonso was not only passionate about the game, but he was also a man with a vision.
He had some modifications made to Enrique’s original design that would make the court more competitive, followed by many more changes to the design over the next 20 years. Since the first courts were built in Spain, padel has taken nearly 25 years to finally get extended across the country.
Tournaments began to be organized and several clubs began to build their own paddle courts. This is how the National Tournament that gets played in the most prestigious clubs in Spain, was born.
Today, there are more than 10 000 Padel courts built across Spain, with the sport growing fast in popularity. Many Spanish Hotels offer padel as part of their sporting activities for visitors. With the result that the sales of padel rackets in Spain have become a booming business with sales nearly four times higher than that of tennis rackets.
Further Development in Argentina
In the years that followed the establishment of padel in Spain, most of the subsequent developments in the sport happened in Argentina.
This was thanks to Julio Menditeguy, an Argentinian member of Prince Alfonso de Hohenlohe’s club in Marbella, who decided to take padel to Argentina in 1975.
The sport quickly caught on and by the 1980s its popularity was driven by players such as Alejandro Lasaigues, Gatikker, Sanz, Novillo, etc. who all would become well-known names in the sport.
The Glass Palace
Further developments in the sport followed soon and by 1989 many changes were initiated by technical coach Jorge Galeotti.
He designed what was called the “Glass Palace”, the first transportable glass court in the world. This proved to be a big hit, allowing television cameras full visibility during transmissions of the game.
Today, the entire court – including the Astroturf floor – can get packed up within a couple of hours, ready to be transported to the next venue.
The Foam Rubber Racquet
In the same year, the first foam rubber padel racket was introduced to replace the original wood bat.
This foam rubber racket was developed by Argentinian, Carlos Pérez. The foam rubber rackets were designed to soften the impact and the vibration of the ball and silence the noise.
The foam rubber racket was a big step up from the original noisy and rather awkward wood bat. Today, Padel is one of the most popular sports in Argentina, with more than four million regular players and 10,000 Padel courts built across the country.
Padel Worldwide:
Today, padel is the fastest growing racket sport in the world. Currently, padel is played in more than 40 countries, with 35 national padel Federations spread across five continents to date.
Although padel is known as the second most participated sport in both Spain and Argentina after football (soccer). Its popularity has grown steadily in other Hispanic countries such as Uruguay, Paraguay, Brazil, Mexico, and Chile, including Portugal.
With its growing popularity, padel is starting to spread rapidly across Europe and other countries around the world such as Canada and the United States.
As far as Europe is concerned, the sport is fast expanding into the UK, Germany, France, Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Holland and Austria. Padel courts are even springing up in the UAE now thanks to the World Padel Tour that was played in Dubai in 2015.
Very informative and interesting read. I enjoyed it!