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 culture, strategy, 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 weekPadel participation in the U.S. jumped 14.5% in the first half of 2026, while pickleball managed just 1.3%. But is this a real flex, or just a misleading percentage?
Meanwhile, a new World No. 1 may be coming soon, and apparently the Pope needs another racket.
Also in this issue:
— Three tiny adjustments that’ll win you more matches
— 10 new courts across 3 new states
— The racket weight debate
— England loses 183 tennis courts to… something
…and plenty more. Bueno, let’s get into it!
🇺🇸 Court OpeningsComing Soon
PATL, a multi-location club with existing locations in Atlanta and Louisville and a Charleston club in the works, is expanding with a new dedicated indoor facility in Kirkland, WA (11 miles from downtown Seattle). The club will feature four indoor courts, plus a café and full-service bar, pro shop, and social space. Its opening timeline is TBD.
Now Open
The Point Racket & Social Club just opened on Johns Island in metro Charleston, SC, with two outdoor courts at a lakefront location. The club will offer instruction, open play, tournaments, a pro shop, and food & beverage.
Long Point Social Club just opened, bringing four dedicated padel courts to Houston, TX’s Spring Branch neighborhood alongside 12 pickleball courts. The club features an on-site dog park, all-day cafe, full-service restaurant, bar, and late-night cocktail lounge.
📈 Up Your Game Three Killer Adjustments You’re Forgetting About
If you keep losing matches but walk off thinking “we were def the better pair,” I hate to break it to you, but y’all… just weren’t.
Take it from this 13-minute video from The Padel IQ, which lays out small-but-deadly tactics that help you win more matches. My three biggest takeaways:
Quit changing direction because you can. If you’re putting an opponent under pressure, keep making them solve the same problem until they crack. Constantly switching from crosscourt to down-the-line (and vice versa) forces you and your partner to move around unnecessarily and gives your opponents an easy way out. Only change direction when there’s a clear opening, period.
Recognize your environment, and adjust to it ASAP. Whether indoor or outdoor, fast court or slow court, hot or cold, windy or calm, new balls or dead ones, there are tons of variables you need to think about.
ex) Fast indoor court with lively balls and a working smash → attack
ex 2) Cold, windy outdoor court → more bandejas and víboras, and look to finish points with volleys
Prioritize your serve. It’s *the* single shot in padel where you have complete control. Get the racket prepared high with the face open. Drop the ball from around eye level (rather than bouncing it), and step forward as you hit so your momentum carries you toward the net. A good serve = a weaker return, which gives you an easier first volley.
Suerte che!
🌍 International Happenings (Don’t) Believe The Hype? (🇺🇸)
So the Sports & Fitness Industry Association just released its mid-year report on U.S. sports participation, citing padel growing as “the fastest growing sport” at 14.5% through the first six months of 2026. Meanwhile, pickleball’s growth cooled to 1.3%, its first real “deceleration” after five years of hypergrowth.
While some of you might already be fired up, there’s a bit missing here. And if you don’t do enough diligence by solely clinging onto the hype, you’re gonna get badly hurt.
First, let’s put this data into context. If we apply the mid-year growth rate to each sport’s most recent annual estimated player base, pickleball still added ~2x as many players over a six-month period:
Pickleball’s 24.3M players × 1.3% ≈ 316,000 new players
Padel’s 1.07M players × 14.5% ≈ 155,000 new players
So sure, padel is growing dramatically faster. But it’s doing so from a MUCH smaller base. So… dare I ask, but is this just a vanity flex?
Look, I still believe padel has (and will continue to have) real growth ahead of it in the US, while pickleball’s growth has naturally matured and decelerated after five years of hypergrowth. But unless drastic infrastructure changes are made to help grow the sport Stateside, it will take years (and gulp, perhaps even decades) for that gap to meaningfully narrow enough for “padel is the new pickleball” to carry any real weight.
To get to a point where US padel has real, defensible growth metrics (where no one is raising eyebrows or trying to poke holes in the thesis), the sport needs to find an economic equilibrium where operators are flourishing, while simultaneously being accessible enough for everyday Americans to play as often as they reasonably want to.
Until that happens, the sport’s growth rate may not really matter, especially given how small the player base remains.
🏆 Pro Padel Roundup Madrid Shakes Up Race to #1 (🇪🇸)
Holy cow, what a tournament I’m so lucky to have witnessed (and if you’re curious from an insider’s POV on the tournament, feel free to peep my on-the-ground content here)!
To quickly debrief, a changing of the guard may be brewing. On the men’s side, No. 2s Chingotto / Galán just captured their seventh title of 2026, beating Nieto / Yanguas 6-4, 5-7, 6-4. Despite this marathon final, the real drama came two rounds earlier, when Nieto / Yanguas stunned No. 1s Coello / Tapia in straight sets. The result leaves Chingalán just 470 points behind Coello / Tapia in the 2026 race. A title at this week’s Paris Major would be worth 2,000 points, potentially enough to put them at No. 1.
On the women’s side, Triay / Brea continued their remarkable run, defeating Josemaría / González in three sets for their sixth title of the season. Triay also became the first woman to reach 200 Premier Padel wins, while she and 40-year-old Alejandra Salazar now sit tied with 58 career titles.
Speaking of Salazar, Madrid marked her final tournament in her hometown before retiring at the end of the season. The four-time former World No. 1 and seven-time World Champion was honored in an emotional ceremony at the Movistar Arena, surrounded by former partners, coaches, friends, and family :)
Now, straight to Roland-Garros for the Paris Major. Coello / Tapia are chasing a fourth straight Paris title (Chingalán have lost the final here two years running). With Madrid blowing the men’s race wide open, this tournament is gonna be BIG. On verra…
🎯 Quick Hits England has lost 183 tennis courts since 2023 while padel courts have nearly sextupled to 2,200+. BUT… just 77 tennis courts were directly replaced by padel, and tennis still outnumbers padel courts 11-to-1. (🇬🇧)
Soul Padel just raised £3.6M at a £30M valuation to scale from four to ten clubs over the next year, after claiming 80%+ utilization across its existing locations. (🇬🇧)
Premier Padel will return to Spain with six tournaments in its 2027 season, but plans to cut that number to five in 2028 as the circuit continues expanding into new markets. (🇪🇸🌎)
Where did the common “puh-DEL” mis-pronunciation even come from? Our friends at Padel Nation just broke it all down. (🇺🇸)
The Pope got another padel racket. Just 13 weeks after the FIP presented Chicago-native Leo XIV with one at the Italy Major, Athletica Vaticana has followed up with a racket signed by star players from this year’s Mediterranean Games. (🇻🇦)
Player community debates:
Is a cheap “starter” racket all you need until your technique catches up, or should you just make the jump to a “nicer” racket now?
Does a heavier racket make you a better player by forcing you to slow down, choose your shots better, and stop trying to smash everything in sight?
Is Playtomic’s rating system creating more problems than it solves? From “leveling sessions” and inflated ratings to outright fake accounts and matches, is it better to just… get to know your local padel community the old-fashioned way?
🤩 Cool Court of the Week📍 New York, NY, 🇺🇸
More info here!
Missed a recent issue? Todo tranca che ;) we got you covered:
📌 Hot take editorials:
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See you next week & keep smashing those volleys 🎾