History
A brief history of padel
Direct answer
Padel was invented in Acapulco, Mexico, by Enrique Corcuera in the 1960s, when he enclosed a court with walls and added a net. Spain and Argentina turned it into a mass sport. The International Padel Federation formed in 1991, and the first official World Championship was held in 1992. The cage you play in today still follows that 10-by-20-metre idea.
Padel can feel new in Pakistan. The sport is not. It is a doubles game built around an enclosed court, a lower net than tennis, and a solid, perforated racket — and that design is about sixty years old.
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Mexico: enclose the court, keep the rally alive
Enrique Corcuera created the game at his house in Acapulco. He adapted a fronton-style space with a facing wall so the ball would stay in play, then added a net. The playing area settled around ten metres by twenty — still the official rectangle.
Accounts of the exact year vary (often 1962 in Corcuera’s own telling, 1969 in short timelines). The idea is consistent: walls are part of the sport, not a nuisance. Doubles, not singles, became the standard.
Spain and Argentina: from private courts to a culture
Prince Alfonso of Hohenlohe encountered the game in Mexico and built courts at the Marbella Club in Spain. From there it travelled through hotels, clubs, and well-publicised exhibition events. Argentines who spent summers on the Costa del Sol took it home.
Through the 1980s, especially in Argentina, padel stopped being a private-house curiosity. Clubs multiplied, the press covered it, and a generation of players treated the walls as part of the shot. Spain’s boom followed as courts spread inland from the south.
A federation and a world championship
In July 1991, representatives from the Spanish, Argentinian, and Uruguayan associations met in Madrid and formed what became the International Padel Federation (FIP). The first official World Championship followed in 1992, with finals at Expo 92 in Seville. Argentina won the early team titles; Spain took its first later in the decade.
Portable glass courts — developed so spectators and cameras could see the whole rectangle — helped the sport look like the broadcasts you watch now.
What this means on court
You are not playing tennis with extra fences. You are playing a sport designed so the ball can come back off a wall. That is why defence off glass is a skill, why the serve is bounced and struck at or below the waist, and why the racket is a solid face with holes rather than a strung oval.
Knowing the origin story will not win you a golden point. Understanding that the cage is the game — not an obstacle around a tennis court — will.
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