PADEL1969’s Post

I first stepped onto a padel court in 2022 when I was visiting my brother in Philadelphia. He drove us just outside city limits to a multi-purpose fitness center called PADELphia. As a tennis purist generally underwhelmed by other racket sports — including America's latest obsession (pickleball) — I had low expectations for this game that had been described to me as a cross between tennis and squash. But it was my brother's one request. And it turned out he knew something I didn't: padel is electric. "It's like four-dimension tennis," described LA-based tennis and padel coach Daniel Wulff. "You have an afterlife: When the ball goes by you in tennis, it's over; in padel, the ball can come back. It opens a new world." While popular in countries like Mexico, where the sport originated, and Spain and Argentina, padel hasn't quite taken off in the US the way pickleball has, for instance. Business Insider spoke to the EEP Capital cofounder Christ Ishoo, who is on a mission to grow the sport in the States, about the barriers holding padel back from exploding in the US. As for the future of the sport in the States, he's all-in, predicting that, in the US, there will be "10,000 courts in about 10 years." He's adamant that one key to growth will be incorporating youth programs: "How do we get the kids involved? Because that will create superstars for the future." Others, including Wulff, are less gung ho, especially with a behemoth like pickleball to compete with. "Pickleball, to me, is in the DNA of Americans. It's cheap, or free in most places, and the court is smaller, so you don't have to move that much," said Wulff. "It doesn't have the sexiness but it gets people going, it gets people playing, it gets people saving money. How do you beat that?"