By Maxwell Williams, Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES — The ball pops up in the air and soars into an arc, drifting against the blue sky, then comes down with a plunk on the glass wall behind Jon Guerra. Out.
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“Your swing is too hard,” Guerra says to me.
Guerra, who goes by Coach Jon, is sending lobs across the net toward me and three other students at the Padel Courts, a hideaway just off Sunset Boulevard in Little Armenia. We’re learning padel, a racquet sport played with foam paddle rackets on a tennis-like court surrounded by tempered glass walls. And it’s proving to be quite a challenge.
“Don’t go toward the ball, let it bounce to you,” Guerra says after a ball boomerangs off the wall toward me and I miss it completely.
A sport that began in the 1960s in Mexico, padel has already exploded across Europe and South America, and fans are hopeful it will do the same in the U.S. It’s been steadily gaining traction in Los Angeles, with new padel centers cropping up around the county: There’s Padel Up at Westfield Century City, Pura Padel L.A. in Sherman Oaks and at the courts at L.A. Galaxy Park in Carson. This summer, the Los Angeles Padel Club, co-founded by L.A. real estate developer Steve Shpilsky, will open a padel clubhouse in a restored Hollywood-era mansion in Culver City. Later, the King of Padel, an indoor padel and pickleball club, will join San Pedro’s West Harbor development.
The Padel Courts, where I’m trying the sport, resembles a Thumbelina-sized country club. It has a cozy vibe — there’s a fireplace in the clubhouse and a record player with Tyler, the Creator’s “Igor” album on it, alongside a wall full of trypophobia-inducing fiberglass-and-foam padel rackets.
Guerra, who reached a ranking of No. 13 in the U.S. in 2023, started the day’s clinic by explaining the difference between padel and tennis — the obvious one being the playable walls surrounding the court. You can either volley, play off a bounce or let the ball ricochet off tempered glass walls before you hit it. If your return hits the wall first, it’s out.
The fuzzy ball looks like a tennis ball but has a slightly lower PSI, meaning it’s a little flatter and less bouncy. Serves are underhanded and aces are slow, intricately placed shots that bounce at an angle off the side glass. It’s a game of mistakes, Guerra tells his students — you’re waiting on your opponent to misfire a ball in a way that allows you to make a shot they can’t return.
And there’s an important rule: Padel is played doubles. Always. Much of the game involves strategizing in tandem.
“Move up with your partner,” says Guerra as he sends balls toward the front of the net for us to volley. “Partners move in to volley together and back to the baseline together.”
I played tennis competitively in high school — not very well, but I held my own in some matches. But on this day I am struggling to hit any good shots whatsoever. The game feels a little slower, more reliant on careful lobs than power; it reminds me a little of billiards, though squash is probably padel’s closest relative.
Guerra tells me to twist my body into a closed position that feels counterintuitive to the open stroke of a tennis swing. Padel swings are short and precise — and extremely awkward. I know I look stupid as I smack a return into the net.
“I have friends who are older people in the country club where they start playing that have tennis experience that find it hard to learn after you are bonded to your ideas,” Guerra later tells me in the clubhouse after the clinic. “It all depends on how much you are able to forget.”
The sport began in 1969 when Mexican businessman Enrique Corcuera modified the squash court at his holiday home in Acapulco. He initially named the game “Paddle Corcuera.”
In 1974, Corcuera’s friend Alfonso de Hohenlohe-Langenburg, a Spanish prince and hotelier who dated Ava Gardner and Kim Novak, imported the game to his tony Marbella Club Hotel in Marbella, Spain. It quickly spread as a country club sport due to its foursome nature — many liken its companionship quality to golf. Today, Spain has more than 16,000 padel courts, making it the second most-played sport in the country behind soccer.
Despite its country club roots, padel is competitive. It’s more dynamic than pickleball, and the curve to learn it is a little steeper. By the time I finally punch a backhand onto the other side, it’s been a few tries. I do feel triumphant. The next volley pongs off my racket and lands just in front of the base of the glass wall, making it difficult for my opponent to return.
“Perfect shot,” says Guerra. I am overjoyed. My teammate and I touch rackets to celebrate as if we’re Agustin Tapia and Arturo Coello (the co-No. 1 players in the world).
Padel is still most popular in Spain, where Guerra is from, as well as Argentina, but it’s surging in the States. There were fewer than 20 courts in the U.S. in 2019 — now there are nearly 500. Houston and Miami are hotbeds. Floridian rapper Daddy Yankee opened the 10by20 Padel Club (courts are 10 meters wide by 20 meters long) and owns a pro team, the Orlando Florida Goats.
L.A. is a little slower on the uptake but that is sure to change as padel’s popularity grows. There’s a professional team called the Los Angeles Beat in the Pro Padel League (PPL), the American circuit, that is mostly made up of internationally ranked Spanish and Argentine players. And the Los Angeles Padel Club’s new Culver City location will be the home of the first youth development academy on the West Coast.
“Los Angeles has the perfect ingredients to stake its claim as one of the most important cities in the world for padel with its strong tennis and racquet sports heritage, ideal weather, international community and emphasis on wellness and social interactions,” says Christ Ishoo, co-owner of Los Angeles Beat, which also will be housed at the Los Angeles Padel Club clubhouse.
Still, the idea that padel will follow the path of pickleball is questionable. The sport doesn’t have the same accessibility as tennis and pickleball, which can be played for free on the many municipal courts in the city. Time at the Padel Courts is $100 per hour (which isn’t too bad when split four ways) and should be reserved about a week in advance.
Yet Guerra sees great promise. “I feel with pickleball, it’s like when you see an entrepreneur that becomes a billionaire,” he says. “You don’t see the 20 years that he had to struggle to hustle.”
There was chatter that padel might become a competitive sport for the 2028 L.A. Olympics, but that effort fell short (it will be a demonstration sport). Yet there’s still hope that it will be accepted for the 2032 Summer Olympics in Brisbane, Australia.
Most importantly, padel is challenging and fun. During a demo, my partner and I are making a few nice shots and getting into a groove. I return a ricochet in a way that surprises even me. I work up a sweat. And I feel like I’ve made a little progress.
Maybe an old tennis player can learn some new padel tricks. Guerra points his racquet at me and looks pleased. “The earlier you lose fear and you forget, and you are less aware of how you look, the earlier you stop feeling stupid, the better,” he says.
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