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 is getting serious money. A €20M investment just put Germany’s biggest padel operator at a valuation north of €65M. And apparently, tokenized padel real estate is a thing now, too.
Meanwhile, two of the top men’s duos swapped partners, and word is spreading about a couple at the top of the sport who’ve been keeping things a lot more low-key than their ranking suggests…
Also in this issue:
— The overhead you forgot to use
— Ten courts, three states, one week
— Pros divide and conquer across the world
…and plenty more. Seguimos!
🇺🇸 Court OpeningsNow Open
Lobb’s Padel just opened in The Woodlands, TX (30 miles north of downtown Houston) with five indoor courts, alongside a full wellness area with sauna and cold plunge, a café, pro shop, and coaching. The club is pitching itself as more than a place to play, with open plays, leagues, clinics, and social events.
Vitesse Padel just opened in Gray, TN (part of the Johnson City-Kingsport-Bristol area in the Northeast corner of the state), bringing the region its first-ever padel facility with two outdoor courts. Founded by former Dutch pro soccer player Michael Louter alongside Vitesse Soccer Academy, the family-run facility is betting that padel’s accessibility and social appeal can translate from Europe and LatAm to the local market, with a mission centered on introducing the sport to the local community.
Padel Social has opened its permanent home in Bethesda, MD (7 miles outside downtown Washington, DC) with three lighted outdoor courts. The club will feature a clubhouse with a pro shop, food & beverage options, and social space.
Additional Club Buzz 🐝
Austin Padel Center just broke ground on its permanent flagship location.
Remember PURE Pickleball & Padel, the upcoming facility expected to be the world’s largest indoor pickleball & padel venue? The project is now the first real-estate investment tokenized by Caliber, a Scottsdale-based alternative asset manager, giving investors the option to hold a digital ownership certificate tied to the underlying real estate and operating business.
📈 Up Your Game The Overhead You Forgot to Use
So, you see a lob coming over your head and immediately start scrambling backward, trying to get underneath it so you can hit your trusty bandeja.
But what if the better move is to not move at all?
In this 7-minute video, Coach Sandy from The Padel School explains the gancho, a deceptively simple overhead that (right-handed) players use to handle lobs coming over their left shoulder while quickly regaining the net.
Just like the bandeja, the gancho keeps your opponents pinned deep, forces a difficult ball, and gets you back to the net. The difference is that you hit it directly over your head rather than moving to the side of the ball (like in a traditional bandeja).
For right-side players, this shot particularly matters because when a lob comes over your left shoulder, you’d have to move toward the center of the court to properly set up a bandeja… which (1) takes you out of position, and (2) leaves a ton of space for your opponents to attack.
And with the gancho, you can make contact higher and closer to the net, meaning you don’t have to give up your critical net position.
The target should be the opponent’s back corner, ideally involving the glass or fence. Your gancho will likely bounce higher than your bandeja (because of the higher contact), so using the glass or fence helps kill the ball and make it harder to defend.
Lastly, contact the ball slightly in front of you with a relatively straight arm, and drive through it in a downward direction. So step in, save yourself a few steps with the gancho, and get your ass back to the net. Suerte!
🌍 International Happenings Big Money Comes for German Padel (🇩🇪🇫🇷)
If you haven’t heard of PadelCity, it’s a name you should know now. Based in Munich, they’re a padel club operator founded in 2022 that’s become one of the biggest players in German padel at 24 clubs, 190 courts, and ~300K active players in its community. Backers include German soccer legends Hansi Flick, Mats Hummels, and Joshua Kimmich.
Last week, publicly-listed Compagnie des Alpes (“CDA”) bought 33.9% of PadelCity for €20M. Based in Paris, CDA is a leisure company that runs ski resorts and theme parks, and owns Urban Group, France’s biggest operator of recreational padel and soccer facilities. They also locked in call options to go to ~75% by 2028 and full ownership by 2030. Of the €20M, €12M went in as fresh capital and €8M bought out existing shareholders, valuing PadelCity north of €65M.
This is a pretty big deal, as Germany’s padel scene has been almost entirely independent single-site clubs, and PadelCity is currently the largest padel operator in the country. Compare that to Spain, for example, where BamVolea already operates 14 clubs and 250+ courts and calls itself the “largest padel club network in the world.”
Zooming out, Playtomic’s 2026 industry report classifies Germany (along with the UK and Ireland) as a “Hotspot” market, meaning that player demand and willingness to pay are already strong, but club and court infrastructure hasn’t caught up yet. So I think it’s fair to say that CDA is aiming to close that gap.
Side bar, Playtomic considers 🇺🇸 as a “Diamond in the Rough” alongside India and Australia (i.e., early-stage and fragmented, with demand still irregular and price-sensitive).
Point being, if this move pays off for CDA, expect other strategics (i.e., ski resort groups, gym chains, and sports private equity funds) to look at this ecosystem gap the same way.
🏆 Pro Padel Roundup From LA & Mumbai, With Love [In the Air] (🇺🇸🇮🇳🇮🇹)
While the Premier Padel circuit takes a quick break for the dog days of summer, some players scattered to Los Angeles for the second round of the Pro Padel League season, while others went to Mumbai for Season 4 of India’s annual World Padel League.
Los Angeles saw DC Matrix’s Ara Martínez and Marina Guinart claim the women’s title and Mexico Waves’ David Gala and Maximiliano Arce take the men’s crown, with both finals decided in super tie-breaks. And Jamie Foxx even showed up as a special guest for the coin toss. Off-court, the LA Beat hosted a star-studded showcase at a Beverly Hills private court.
Meanwhile in Mumbai, the Game Changers Lions captured their first-ever WPL title, beating the Aussie Mavericks Jaguars in the Season 4 Final. World No. 2s Bea González / Paula Josemaría, plus Federico Mourino / Teodoro Zapata and Gonzalo Alfonso / Sanyo Gutiérrez all delivered wins for the Lions, who also edged the Vedanta Leopards in the Semifinal.
And off-court, interesting happenings have occurred regarding partnerships at the top of the pro circuit, both professionally and romantically…
Within the men’s circuit, Coki Nieto and Mike Yanguas are back together, while Franco Stupaczuk and Jon Sanz are officially joining forces.
No. 1 Arturo Coello said he’d love to finish his career alongside his longtime partner, Agustín Tapia… a pretty ambitious dream given how much can change within pro padel.
And speaking of Tapia, apparently he and Marta Ortega have been keeping an extremely low-key relationship. Add “padel’s secret power couple” to the list of things I didn’t expect to be writing about when I started this newsletter…
Looking ahead, padel is making its debut as a medal sport at the quadrennial Mediterranean Games in Taranto, Italy, starting this Saturday. 88 athletes from 18 countries will compete across men’s, women’s and mixed doubles, marking another step in padel’s push into major multisport events, including the Olympics. Spain brings a stacked squad, while Italy, Portugal, and France are among the other medal contenders.
🎯 Quick Hits Marketing Brew (part of prominent newsletter Morning Brew) just took a look at padel’s growing appeal to American brands. (🇺🇸)
Our friends at Padel Nation might be onto something… are multi-sport clubs the future of padel’s sustained success in the US? (🇺🇸)
Padel just took over the Sydney Opera House for the inaugural Padel Invitational, bringing together celebs, community players, tennis legends, and Premier Padel stars. (🇦🇺)
Speaking of, how much do you know about Aussie padel (# courts, # players, etc.)?
The UK is getting its first-ever floating padel courts at Vibora Liverpool Waters. Guess we’ve officially run out of land? (🇬🇧)
Rafa Nadal Academy plans to open its first Southeast Asian center in Indonesia in 2028, focusing on tennis and padel. (🇮🇩)
The Generali Hexagon Cup will make Madrid its inaugural event and 2027 season opener in an attempt to carve out a permanent place in the pro padel calendar. (🇪🇸)
Community musings:
When is it time for you to actually pick a side? Team left, or team right?
Are the pros getting away with illegal serves? It’s such a hard-to-police rule that can give taller players an arguably unfair advantage.
Does Chingo’s diamond racket even make sense given his control-heavy game? Or is the “diamond = power, round = control” thesis a massive oversimplification?
🤩 Cool Court of the Week📍 Los Angeles, CA, 🇺🇸
More info here!
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📌 Hot take editorials:
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See you next week & keep smashing those volleys 🎾