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! 📧
Buenas, dear readers! Writing this from Fort Lauderdale, FL, where we just closed out this year’s RacquetX. Even in my humble opinion, padel really stole the show compared to the other racquet sports represented. There’s so much innovation happening across the sport, both in the U.S. and globally. Here’s a quick peep of the event from my POV:
Anyway, let’s get into what’s hot this week:
🔍 Topics we’ll cover this weekPadel’s pricing spectrum continues to widen across the States. Meanwhile, investors are hurling money at the sport.
And if your fourth flakes, Sandy from The Padel School has a 3.5-minute “living room racket skills” session that might be the most valuable practice you do all week.
Also in this issue:
— Pro padel crashes pro tennis
— Playtomic shakes hands with pickleball
— Will AI harm padel?
— Another big American brand joins the padel party
— Wedding shenanigans
Game on. Seguimos!
🇺🇸 Club OpeningsA Tale of Two Price Points
🌲 Not Something You See Everyday: Coastal and Accessible
Over in Portland, OR’s Cathedral Park neighborhood, Foundry Padel is set to open in June. The new 13,800 sq ft indoor club will feature four courts with 40-foot ceilings, plus a two-story social lounge serving local beer and wine. Hoping to keep the sport accessible, the founders are aiming to charge $15 per player, per hour. The club will use Playtomic to help players match up and mix in.
🌴 Meanwhile on the Other End of the Spectrum…
Down in Palm Beach, FL just south of Trump International Golf Club, Court Club is opening a private club that will feature six padel courts, six tennis courts, and multiple pickleball courts alongside a full-service clubhouse with dining, spa, pool, and fitness facilities. Built on a five-acre former church site, the club will pair top-tier food and beverage with family-friendly amenities like kids’ camps, clinics, and daycare. The price of entry reflects that, with a $45,000 initiation fee and $9,500 in annual dues.
🤫 On the Down-Low
— Interesting things brewing in Los Angeles…
— Right before Christmas, we covered a suburban Houston padel expansion underway in The Woodlands, TX. As a quick update, the club (now targeting a late May opening) will be called Lobb’s Padel and will debut with five courts.
📈 Up Your Game Next Time Your Fourth Flakes…
This week, I went down a bit of a rabbit hole and resurfaced with an oldie but a goodie.
In this 3.5 minute video, our boy Sandy from The Padel School walks through a short “racket skills” session you can do at home. The best part is you don’t need a court, nor much space. And it’s fantastic for muscle memory. Here are my notes:
Start with hit‑ups from weird positions
Juggle the ball on your racket from your knees, from seated, even cross‑legged on the floor. It sounds silly, but what you’re really doing is learning to feel the racket head in different body positions so your hand and the racket start acting independently of the rest of your body.
Add hit‑downs around a cone
Set a cone (or phone, soda can, etc.) in front of you and tap the ball down off your racquet as you move around it, changing direction from clockwise to counter‑clockwise. This forces you to control the ball while your feet and body are constantly shifting.
Do some mini wall rallies in tight spaces
With as little as 7-10 feet (or 2-3 meters), you can rally forehands and backhands against a wall, gradually moving back and even setting a little target mark to hit. Alternate forehand/backhand, go softer or harder, and force yourself to keep the volley going for control training.
Mix in lunges and “ugly” positions
Padel rarely lets you hit from a perfect, textbook stance, so Sandy builds that into the drills: lunges, split positions, little squat holds while you control the ball.
Level up with balance challenges
Work on hitting off a wall while standing on one leg, adding in uneven surfaces like standing on a cushion. If you’re feeling particularly cheeky, feel free to incorporate a bounce off your racquet before hitting back at the wall. This exercise will pay off when you’re stretching for volleys off the glass.
What I love about this video / concept is how low‑friction it is. It’s short, light on the body, and you can do it almost anywhere. And it directly translates to softer hands, better control off the glass, and more confidence in awkward positions.
Do it & tell me what you think! 🏡
🌍 International Happenings Investors Have a Field Day
For all the “pAdEl iSn’T iTs oWn aSsEt cLaSs” folks, peep what’s going on this week, with not one, not two, but three headlines you need to know.
First, Fitura Brands just launched with a $20M pre-money valuation to build a franchise platform spanning racquet sports, athletic pilates and recovery, with “Padel//SWT” positioned as its next-gen indoor padel club concept. The company is centralizing franchise development, vendor partnerships, marketing, site selection and training so each brand can scale quickly while sharing backend infrastructure. Within 🇺🇸 padel, this is a bet that premium, league-driven indoor clubs can anchor a modern sport-and-social ecosystem inside the $1 trillion American wellness economy.
Next, Miami-based Racquet 360 closed a $9 million round and has already deployed the capital across four units: National Padel League, RacquetX (hey I just went here!), Racket Central (digital/retail for padel and pickleball) and Racket Social Club locations. With revenue projected to grow more than 300% this year, the raise is explicitly framed as an “inflection point” play on U.S. padel demand, anchored by nearly 2,000 amateur players across 160+ teams in the National Padel League’s first season.
Finally, AO Ventures (the investment arm of the Australian Open), just increased its stake in Mindspring Padel, doubling down on what it sees as a key global platform for padel-court monetization. Mindspring’s model is to finance padel courts so clubs and venues can build without heavy upfront capex, directly attacking the biggest bottleneck in the sport’s growth, aka access to capital for infrastructure.
🏆 Pro Padel RoundupCancún Awaits, PPL Gets Hot (🇲🇽🇺🇸)
With no major tournament to recap from this past weekend, this week’s pro circuit update shifts gears to what’s ahead between the Cancún P2 and Pro Padel League.
The Premier Padel circuit heads to Mexico this week as the Cancún P2 takes over the Rafa Nadal Tennis Center from March 17-22, with €264,534 in prize money and draws of 28 men’s teams and 24 women’s teams.
Meanwhile, some things kicking around in the Pro Padel League:
Argentine polo legend Nacho Figueras just joined the ownership group of the Florida Goats, one of the Pro Padel League’s fastest-rising franchises. The team relocated to Palm Beach from Orlando after winning the inaugural City’s Cup in 2024 and finishing first in the 2025 regular-season standings, and their 2026 roster already features top names like Gemma Triay, Paula Josemaría Martín, Leandro Augsburger, and Jon Sanz.
This year’s Miami Open is adding padel to the program, hosting the inaugural PPL II tournament and daily activations with the Pro Padel League from March 15-29. Two courts will anchor the new Publix Padel Park, with pro matches, clinics, open play sessions, and court bookings available via Playtomic.
🎯 Quick HitsEuropean padel-tech behemoth Playtomic is using pickleball to deepen its US moat by plugging DUPR’s established rating system into its app
Is padel AI-proof? My buddy Dario wrote a really good take worth thinking about…
Players hotly debate: if your coach only sees 5% of your padel, how do you actually know what’s killing you in matches?
Another major American sports brand gets into padel… and no, it’s (still) not Nike
Two weeks ago, we mentioned that Jakarta’s governor threatened padel growth in 🇮🇩’s capital. Turns out, he wasn’t fooling around… 😬
This is what it’s all about :) — a 🇬🇧 club is staying open 24 hours on weekends during Ramadan, so Muslim players can break fast, pray, then hit the courts in the middle of the night
Doing this at my wedding 💍
🤩 Cool Club of the Week📍 Tepoztlán, 🇲🇽
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 🎾