padel

What does padel mean?

Padel (also spelled pádel) is a racket sport played on an enclosed court, combining elements of tennis and squash. Players usually play doubles (two to a side) and use solid, perforated rackets, hitting the ball off walls surrounding the court.

Examples of padel

Padel is best described as a combination between squash and tennis—where your goal is to volley over a net and win points, but the court is fully enclosed, which allows players to hit off the sides.”
—Washingtonian, 26 Nov., 2024

"OK, when I hit a lob, we both come to the net," George Russell instructs me. "But stick to your side. Force them to play down the middle." It is late Wednesday morning at the Centro Deportivo Chapultepec in Mexico City and I am getting a brief taste of what it is like to be Russell's team-mate over a game of padel.
—Tom Cary, _Telegraph (London, Eng.), 26 Oct. 2025

Padel and pickleball are both easy-to-learn racket sports that exploded in popularity during the pandemic. But many Americans have only heard of pickleball, even as padel has become one of the fastest-growing sports in the world.
—The New York Times, 11 May 2023

Where does padel come from?

Padel is thought to have been invented in the late 1960s by Mexican businessman Enrique Corcuera, who built the first court at his home in Acapulco by adapting his squash court with elements from platform tennis and surrounding it with walls to keep the ball from escaping onto his neighbor's property.

How is padel used?

Padel is used to refer both to the sport itself and to the place where it's played (as in "playing padel" or "going to the padel court”).