Pádel (SPA-ENG)

Paddle

In the early 1990s, the privatization wave took hold in my country. The huge and dysfunctional state was causing huge expenses that were drowning the national economy. The president at that time wanted to do something about it and he did.

Something similar to what is happening now, with the well-known and boring circular story, we returned to the beginning, which is probably why the country is stagnant, instead of moving forward we have gone around in circles, like a pilgrim lost in the desert.

But let's go back to history. In those early years of the last decade of the 20th century, state companies that had been touched by the magic wand of privatization began to grant "voluntary retirements", that is, to pay compensation to all those members of their permanent staff who decided to leave their jobs early.

Many, including myself, took that money and did things; In my particular case, I canceled the mortgage, sold the apartment and with part of that money I bought the house where I live, it was cheap, but it was uninhabitable, I had to remodel it completely to be able to move in with my family.

Others who did not have housing needs or were not interested in solving them, embarked on different investments, in those years video clubs were becoming fashionable, as well as maxi kiosks that were new and paddle tennis courts.

What a way for places to play paddle tennis to appear!

This sport has its origins in Mexico, according to the story, an athlete named Enrique Corcuera, passionate about tennis and pelota, decided to put a second wall behind a 20-meter-long pelota court and nets on the side, defined its rules, and began to play it with his friends it was like tennis on a smaller scale, but both walls could be used to bounce the ball. Soon it spread to Spain first and then to Argentina where it immediately became very popular. Later, it expanded throughout the world and moved on to the professional stage.

In 1988, the first international tournament was held in the city of Mar del Plata, which pitted the best pairs from Spain and Argentina against each other. In 1991, the International Padel Federation was founded with headquarters in the Spanish city of Bilbao. By the advent of the 21st century, the epicenter of this sport had moved to Spain, becoming the fastest-developing modern game in the entire history of world sport.

Returning to the original story, most new and inexperienced investors did not do well. After a great initial explosion of enthusiasm, padel began to decline among fans who preferred 5-a-side football pitches with lighting and synthetic grass. But the young sport of padel at a professional level continued and grew in quality rather than in the number of players.

Today, Argentina shares world dominance with Spain and has just obtained a new title thanks to its recent triumph in the World Cup held in Qatar. In this way, the Latin American country increases its number of titles to 12 in the men's category and 8 in the women's category, where Spain has demonstrated absolute dominance in recent years.

In Qatar and other countries in the Middle East, as well as in some in Europe and America, the growth of the sport has been enormous and it is very possible that soon other countries will challenge the already outstanding ones for supremacy.