Bet On It
El Remate #20 | What's hot in 🇺🇸 & 🌎 padel | Feb. 24 - Mar. 3, 2026
Bienvenidos a El Remate! I’m Aris, a padel-obsessed Missourian who spent the last 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 weekLA’s first dual pickleball-padel facility just dropped three public padel courts, christening them with none other than the all-time padel GOAT. Meanwhile, Playtomic quietly flipped the switch on its APIs, Rafa’s academy is landing in the U.S., and you can now legally play your friends for $$$ from a mobile app.
Oh, and if you’re still blasting smashes instead of targeting the “Black Hole” down the middle… we need to talk.
Also in this issue:
— The Southeast’s suburban padel bet
— Gijón P2 preview + pro shakeups
— Padel alienating women? :(
— College padel hits the accelerator
…and plenty more. Seguimos!
🇺🇸 Club OpeningsSun Belt Spotlight
🌆 Downtown Pickleball Expands to Padel
Santa Monica, CA is getting its first-ever public padel courts as Santa Monica Pickleball & Padel (LA’s first dual Pickleball & Padel facility) unveils three courts in its downtown district. The launch is anchored by a grand opening appearance this Thursday from Fernando “Bela” Belasteguín, widely regarded as the padel GOAT after 16 consecutive years at world No. 1.
🍑 Suburban Superbastion
Just 19 miles from downtown Atlanta, Padel Highway is bringing four panoramic courts to Tucker, GA. The club is founded by a Mexico-rooted racket sports family betting on the Southeast’s appetite for social alternatives to pickleball. Positioned in an isolated zone (lower noises / smart zoning play), Padel Highway is leaning into tournaments, community programming, and multi-generational accessibility. The club has announced an April opening.
Additional Club Buzz
Initially announced last August, Rhode Island finally opened its first-ever indoor padel court. Two more outdoor courts are coming to the same facility (Newport Pickleball Club) later this year.
Down in Boynton Beach, FL, Replay Club is sharpening its luxury positioning under new management, expanding staffing and programming around its ten indoor padel courts. The club will now feature seven on-site padel professionals and a growing slate of group fitness classes.
While we only cover US club openings 🤷♂️, there’s something cool brewing for our friends right across the border in Vancouver 🇨🇦
📈 Up Your Game Find the “Black Hole” 🕳️
So there’s actually a spot on the court where you’ll win the point almost every time, and it has nothing to do with hitting harder.
It’s what The Padel Analyst calls the “Black Hole,” which he breaks down super well in this ~2 minute video.
Imagine drawing a straight line between your two opponents. Somewhere along that line, there’s always a section that’s unprotected.
That gap is the Black Hole.
If they’re tight together → small gap
If they drift apart → gap widens
If they’re deep near the back wall → less dangerous (the glass bails them out)
If they’re close to the net → lethal. No reaction time. No wall help. Rally over.
Your job is to find it. But here’s where it gets tactical.
⚠️ The danger zone gets bigger when defenders are lined up perpendicular to your shot.
Example: You’re hitting a bajada from the back. Your partner stayed high at the net. You go parallel down the line. While it looks aggressive and feels powerful, what you’ve actually done is open a runway straight into the Black Hole on the counter. One clean redirect and you’re cooked.
The smarter play:
Avoid creating clean perpendicular angles
Shift their alignment before you attack
Look for separation at the net
Punish it through the middle
Aim for that Black Hole, baby!
🌍 International Happenings Padel Tech Stack Loading…
First, Playtomic has officially opened its APIs to the broader padel, tennis, and pickleball ecosystem, allowing third-party developers to build directly on top of its infrastructure. That effectively turns Playtomic from a marketplace into a foundational layer for racquet sports tech. First to plug in is BreakpointCRM, giving clubs a more integrated way to manage and communicate with players inside the Playtomic universe. Sounds to me like deeper software tooling for clubs is coming…
At the same time, Rafa Nadal Academy is bringing its amateur Padel Tour stateside, with four U.S. stops across Miami, Austin, and Manhattan… all powered by Playtomic. The tour, already established in Spain and Italy, kicks off March 13 in Miami. Between infrastructure expansion and premium event partnerships, it’s been a statement week for Playtomic.
Finally, brace yourselves: padel itself is addictive enough, and one this ain’t gonna help make it any better. Lucra, a real-money competition platform, has partnered with Epic Padel and their club management app Zero.40 to let players compete for cash directly from their phones. The collab launches this spring across Epic’s US locations, with every operator that white-labels Zero.40 getting the feature automatically. Look, you were already playing your buddy for beers… now there's an app for that, a leaderboard, and apparently a compliance layer. Gotta love it.
🏆 Pro Padel RoundupPregamin’ the Gijón P2 (🇪🇸)
The Gijón Premier Padel P2 2026 (March 2-8) marks the European return of the Premier Padel season, with the world’s top pairs battling for €252,250 at the Palacio de Deportes in northern Spain.
You can tune in via Red Bull TV here.
Quick refresher for newer fans: Premier Padel runs three tiers: P2, P1, and Major. P2 tournaments are the third highest-ranked in terms of ranking points and prize money. However, the level of talent remains the same, with the top dogs still competing.
Top women’s seeds Delfi Brea / Gemma Triay return to the city where their partnership first exploded, chasing a title that’s slipped through their fingers since Rotterdam. Meanwhile, No. 3 seeds Ari Sánchez / Andrea Ustero look to build on their Riyadh title.
On the men’s side, reigning Riyadh champs Arturo Coello / Agustin Tapia headline a 28-pair field.
Finally, some additional buzz around the pro sphere:
Franco Stupaczuk confirmed he split again from longtime partner Martín Di Nenno because rivals had “found many weaknesses” in their game. Stupa cited tactical predictability and stagnation.
Meanwhile, Stupa renewed with Siux through 2029 (cementing a relationship that began in 2022) and unveiled the new Electra 2026 racket model
Reigning Riyadh queen Ari Sánchez just became the face of Adidas’ 2026 Arrow_hit racket collection, which introduces a system for adjustable racket weighting. Her signed edition drops in June.
🎯 Quick HitsHot Discussions
Can you be overweight and still be good at padel?
Your overhead still feel like a coin flip? Players talk about throwing baseballs to groove the kinetic chain, staying loose until the last millisecond, bending the knees, not trying to murder every smash, and plenty more...
Around the World
Sadly, 🇬🇧’s padel surge may be quietly alienating women… hopefully there’s a solution?
Jakarta governor Pramono Anung is pumping the breaks on padel in 🇮🇩’s capital, threatening demolition
Qué chimba, parce! The new Colombian Padel Federation is officially live, with 233 clubs and 687 courts nationwide (171 of them built in the last year alone) 🇨🇴
Premier Padel and Bullpadel just dropped their 2026 collab
My buddy Austin documented a massive week in US college padel. Cheering on my fellow Longhorns - hook ‘em! 🤘
Remember the Palm Beach billionaire who got fined $250 daily for having a padel court in his backyard? Well, here’s a juicy update…
Also down in Florida, Reserve Padel hosted 600+ guests and raised $150K+ for a charity event benefitting the Brady Hunter Foundation to protect vulnerable animals and empower children.
Weird new trickshot unlocked 😵💫
🤩 Cool Court of the Week📍 Shanghai, 🇨🇳
More info here!
Missed a recent issue? Todo tranca che ;) we got you covered:
📌 Hot take editorials:
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 or news to share, just respond to this email :)
See you next week & keep smashing those volleys 🎾