5,000 People Showed Up to Play Padel… at an Airport

El Remate #45 | What's hot in 🇺🇸 & 🌎 padel | August 18-25, 2026

Bienvenidos a El Remate! I’m Aris, a padel-obsessed Missourian who spent two years living in Argentina and Spain to deeply understand the sport’s strategy, culture, and business. I’ve played and competed across 3 continents and 12 countries, and recently started documenting my journey on Instagram.

Each week, I curate what matters in padel: new US club openings, technique tips, my takes on international headlines and pro drama, plus insider knowledge from the global circuit. Subscribe for weekly updates! 📧

🔍 Topics we’ll cover this week

Padel just invaded an airport terminal, and 5,000 people showed up in one weekend. And that’s not even the weirdest place the sport showed up this week… no club, no problem?

Meanwhile, the GOAT has some strong opinions about your overgrip, and we get a clearer picture of who Team USA may be facing in the Padel World Cup.

Also in this issue:
— Mississippi’s first padel courts
— The forbidden partnership
— The Golden Boys head to India
— Padel rackets with… strings?

…and plenty more. Seguimos!

🇺🇸 Court Openings

Coming Soon

• HUGE milestone for US padel! Jackson, MS is set to get the state’s first padel courts as part of the planned $60M Prado Conservatory, a 9-acre “live-work-play” development transforming a long-vacant former YMCA near downtown. The project will preserve the existing YMCA as its centerpiece, with ~60 apartments in Phase I, and another 100 units planned in a new five-story building. The number of courts, indoor/outdoor configuration, additional amenities, and opening timeline have not yet been disclosed.

  

• M Padel, the padel concept from the Mouratoglou brand, is teaming up with premium indoor soccer operator Socceroof to transform 150,000 square feet of former warehouse space in northeast San Antonio, TX into an indoor multi-sport destination featuring padel, tennis, and indoor soccer. The facility will focus on coaching, leagues, youth programs, tournaments and events. It marks M Padel’s first location in Texas. Court count, amenities and an opening timeline have not yet been disclosed.

  

Additional Club Buzz 🐝

• Padel Haus just announced it’ll be fully enclosing its Atlanta location to make year-round play easier.

• Per insider sources, Brisas just launched a rest-of-summer padel pop-up in Aspen, CO, running through September 30. The location at at the Aspen Meadows Racquet Center is ultimately permanent, with Brisas planning to fully renovate and rebrand the entire space as Brisas Aspen this offseason, ahead of next summer’s full launch.

📈 Up Your Game 

The Secret Way Pros Strategize Overgrips

We spend a ridiculous amount of time obsessing over on-court technique. But a foundational piece of your success comes from none other than the overgrip. And chances are, you’re not applying it optimally.

Fortunately, padel GOAT Fernando “Bela” Belasteguín is here to eliminate all your uncertainty in this 8-minute video.

1. Figure out what you’re comfortable with. More overgrips = heavier racket = weight shift toward the handle. This can give you more stability and control, but can also put additional stress on your arm.

2. Then there’s thickness. Thinner grip = more freedom to move your wrist. Thicker grip = generally, more stability and control. If you’re a beginner, don’t go crazy trying to maximize wrist movement… control should come first.

3. Even the color matters! White overgrips are generally less slippery when sweaty because they don’t contain the same pigments as dyed grips. There’s a reason you see white grips all over the pro tour.

4. Where you hold the racket also matters. Players like Bela and Tapia consistently grab the racket from the same side for their forehand. It gives them a more consistent feel because the grip conforms to their hand in the same way every time.

   1. The tradeoff is that you’ll wear down one side of the grip (and eventually the racket) faster. Maximum consistency = keep the same side. Maximum lifespan = rotate it.

Finally, how often are you changing your overgrip? Bela reportedly changes his every match. You probably don’t need to go quite that far, but if your grip is sweaty, worn, or slipping in your hand, you’re playing with a piece of equipment that is actively making your job harder.

Remember… your racket isn’t just the racket. Happy gripping!

🌍 International Happenings  

No Club Needed Anymore?

An emerging trend is only getting louder. This week alone, padel has popped up in three places around the globe that have nothing to do with each other.

On one end, Munich Airport just opened three courts inside a terminal hall, dubbing it the region’s “biggest padel arena.” 5,000 people showed up for opening weekend, and the courts are already fully booked through September 6. My sincere condolences to whoever’s seated next to a sweaty player who just sprinted off court and straight to the gate.

Meanwhile, padel held its own dedicated zone at Sziget, one of Europe’s top-five most-attended music festivals, with ~500 people a day jumping on court. There’s no way it’s a coincidence that padel made its debut at Coachella earlier this year, too.

On the high end, The World’s 50 Best just published a State of Luxury report. Padel, alongside tennis and pickleball, has become a global fixture of the guest experience high-end hotels are selling. To name a few: floating courts at France’s Abbaye des Vaux-de-Cernay; dedicated padel retreats at Gleneagles; new courts landing at resorts worldwide.

The coolest part is that none of these venues even needed padel in the first place, and yet courts still pop up… all while catering to disparate customer demographics.

🏆 Pro Padel Roundup 

Pros… Pros Everywhere

With the Premier Padel tour on its summer break, many of its stars are scattered across the globe: Spain, the US, Australia, Greece, the Maldives… you name it.

In the meantime, men’s world No. 1s Coello / Tapia head to Mumbai (along with Alfonso Sánchez and Antón Sanz) on August 29 for India’s first-ever Padel All Stars exhibition, a one-night showcase expected to draw 4,000+ fans. At this point, it’s pretty clear that India is aggressively positioning itself in the sport, especially after just hosting a host of other top pros for the World Padel League’s fourth season.

Meanwhile in Taranto, Italy, padel is making its Mediterranean Games debut. On the men’s side, Egypt’s Youssef Hossam and Georges Wakim pulled off the upset of the tournament so far, knocking out No. 1 seeds Spain’s Pol Hernández and Guille Collado to reach the quarter-finals. Italy and France also continue to lurk as threats. On the women’s side, Italy’s Carolina Orsi and Giorgia Marchetti (golden at the 2023 European Games) headline, chasing another title.

And now that Team USA has clinched its spot in this November’s FIP World Cup in Doha, the next question is who they may eventually face… and the South American qualifier in Asunción, Paraguay just answered part of that. Paraguay locked in a rare men’s and women’s World Cup qualification, while Chile’s women snuck through on a tiebreaker over Uruguay and Venezuela. That fills out most of the South American contingent alongside already-qualified Argentina and Brazil. The last pieces of the 32-team field get sorted late next month at the European qualifier in Madrid, which will finally clarify who Team USA actually faces in the group stage.

🎯 Quick Hits 

• Wanna truly understand how the US tournament and national team pipeline works? Our friends at Padel Nation sat down with USA Padel’s Scott Colebourne for a full breakdown: circuits, divisions, seniors, juniors, all of it. (🇺🇸)

• MATCHi, a prominent UK booking & club-management platform, just backed PadelLevels (built by the team behind SquashLevels) as a cross-club rating technology. Game4Padel is among the first operators rolling it out across its network. (🇬🇧)

• Former Ukraine national soccer team coach Serhiy Rebrov apologized after a video surfaced of him playing padel in Marbella alongside Vasily Berezutsky, a former Russia footballer. He insisted no one should “doubt my pro-Ukrainian stance.” (🇺🇦🇷🇺)

• The Rafa Nadal Academy Padel Tour wrapped its first US season (four stops from Miami to Austin to NYC) of its amateur tournament model. Germany and the UK get their first editions in September. (🇺🇸🇬🇧🇩🇪)

• JR Sports, the coaching methodology behind eight world No. 1s, is opening a new academy in Santo Domingo with Padel Warehouse, bringing structured, competition-focused training to the Dominican Republic. (🇩🇴)

• Community musings:

  • What’s the greatest padel match of all time?

  • Apparently, many male players seem to lose their minds when they’re beaten by women…

  • Does the idea of strung padel rackets actually make sense, or is it a gimmick?

🤩 Cool Court of the Week

📍 Gdańsk, 🇵🇱
More info here!

Missed a recent issue? Todo tranca che ;) we got you covered:

• Padel’s Secret Power Couple, Revealed

• The UK Is a Siren Song for US Padel

• 📌 Hot take editorials:

  • I Said US Padel Is Ass-Backward. Here’s What Ensued

  • I Went to a Premier Padel Tournament So You Don’t Have To (Jk, You Need to Go)

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Thanks for reading! My promise: I’ll keep the newsletters coming, you share with a friend if you’re enjoying. Está bien? Forward to a friend.

For more on-the-ground 🌎 padel content from a 🇺🇸 POV, follow @padelyanqui on Instagram! And if you have any feedback, news to share, or are interested in becoming a preferred partner of El Remate, just respond to this email :)

See you next week & keep smashing those volleys 🎾