Padel, from an Acapulco house to a world tour.

The Corcuera court, Acapulco

The FIP's history says padel was invented in 1969 at Las Brisas, Acapulco, in a house owned by Enrique Corcuera. His court measured 20 by 10 metres, with walls 3 metres high and a net across the middle. The FIP says the first rules were drafted by his wife, Viviana, a former Miss Argentina. The LTA, which governs padel in Britain, gives the same 1969 Acapulco origin and says Corcuera called the game "Paddle Corcuera".

1969 or 1968?

• 1969: the FIP and the LTA.
• 1968: Adel Aref and Cristiano Eirale, in the Aspetar Sports Medicine Journal (23 March 2023), who give 1968 precisely and call the Corcuera story unofficial. A Mexican newspaper account, in Excelsior, is summarised as also giving 1968.

Mexico or the United States?

The Aspetar article records that some sources credit the United States, pointing to an earlier paddle tennis said to have been created by the Reverend Frank Beal of Albion, Michigan, in 1898, with a US Paddle Tennis Association from 1923 and platform tennis from 1928. It also records that the Spanish Padel Federation, confirmed by the FIP, holds that padel was born in Mexico, and it names Basque pelota as an influence. The FIP's own history does not mention the US precursors. At its 35th-anniversary event in October 2026, the FIP described Mexico as the birthplace of padel.

Spain and Argentina

The FIP says Prince Alfonso of Hohenlohe, a friend of Corcuera, brought padel to Spain and built courts at the Marbella Club Hotel in Andalusia. It says an Argentine member of Alfonso's tennis club in Marbella then took the sport to Argentina, where the first courts were at Club Tortugas and the Mar del Plata Ocean Club. The sources differ on dates and even on his name:

Before the rules were unified, the Aspetar article says, Spanish and Argentine padel differed, for example in fence heights and surfaces: synthetic turf in Spain and concrete in Argentina. Courts were laid on many surfaces before 1997, it says, including turf, concrete, parquet, tiles and clay.

The first national bodies

This is disputed. The FIP calls the Asociacion Padel Argentino, founded in 1988, the first national association. The Aspetar article names APPTAS, founded in Argentina in 1987, as the first official padel body in the world, and dates the Spanish Padel Association to 1987. The FIP records the first international competition, Spain against Argentina, at Mar del Plata in January 1988.

Glass walls

The FIP says Jorge Galeotti of Mar del Plata introduced the "Crystal Palace", the first detachable, transportable glass court, in 1989. The Aspetar article says glass walls appeared in Argentina in 1989 and were first used in Spain at the 1992 World Championship.

The FIP, 12 July 1991

The FIP says it was founded in Madrid on 12 July 1991 by the Argentine, Spanish and Uruguayan padel associations. A search summary of an FIP press release places the meeting at the Club de Golf La Moraleja and names the Spaniard Julio Alegria Artiach as the first president; the Aspetar article also names him as first president.

The first World Padel Championships followed in 1992 in Spain. The FIP says they were held in Madrid and Seville and were to be played every two years. Wikipedia, in a summary, lists Seville only, from 21 to 27 September 1992, with an Argentine pair winning the men's title.

In 1997, the FIP says, Spain and Argentina agreed in Barcelona to unify the rules and to standardise the name "Padel"; the Aspetar article agrees. The FIP records 11 national federations by the end of the 1990s, the first World Junior Championship at La Plata, Argentina, in 2000, and the first Senior World Championship in 2018.

Britain and the United States

The LTA says British expatriates formed the British Paddle Association to compete in the 1992 World Championships, and that the LTA announced in 2019 that it would integrate British Padel; The Padel Paper dates the LTA's recognition as the governing body to November 2020. In the United States, USA Padel says it was founded in 1993 as the American Paddle Association, took the name United States Padel Association in 2007 and renamed itself USA Padel on 29 June 2026; these are its own claims.

The professional tours

The FIP's history records the Padel Pro Tour, run by private organisers, from 2005 for eight seasons; the World Padel Tour (WPT) from 2013 to 2023; an FIP international circuit from 2019, renamed the CUPRA FIP Tour in 2020; and Premier Padel from 2022, as the official global professional tour governed by the FIP and supported by Qatar Sports Investments (QSI).

The 2022 dispute, each side

One name needs care here: in padel, the PPA is the Professional Padel Association, the men's players' association, and has nothing to do with pickleball's PPA Tour. Sportcal reported on 21 November 2022:

• The WPT's side: the FIP, the PPA and QSI were competing unfairly by setting up a parallel tour to exclude and replace it, and the FIP had abandoned its role as an impartial non-profit regulator. It asked for interim measures, including suspending Premier Padel.
• The FIP and PPA's side: in May 2022 they had complained to the European Commission that the WPT's player contracts were anti-competitive.
• The outcome in 2022: a Madrid commercial court rejected the WPT's request for interim measures, finding that its exclusivity and blackout terms gave it significant control over the sport and that professional players have a right to play other tours, and the Madrid arbitration court rejected the WPT's claim against players who had joined Premier Padel.

Unification, 2023 to 2024

On 24 August 2023 the FIP announced that QSI had agreed with Damm, owner of the WPT's organiser Setpoint Events, to acquire the World Padel Tour, subject to regulatory approval. The two tours would run separately through 2023 and be unified as Premier Padel, under FIP governance, from 2024, and the deal settled the parties' disputes, including those affecting players who had played on both tours. Spain's competition authority, the CNMC, is summarised as approving the acquisition with commitments, including no player exclusivity clauses for tournaments in Spain; that document was not opened.

The players' association later criticised the arrangement. Padel Alto reported that in February 2025 the Professional Padel Association said the top 100 men had skipped a Premier Padel event in Gijon; it denied promoting a boycott and said the FIP's double role as regulator and Premier Padel partner was a conflict of interest. The article carried no FIP or Premier Padel response. Padel's Olympic campaign is on the Olympic story, and the tours as they are now on padel bodies and tours.