Padel is the new bouncing racquet sport on the grounds of the

The ball appears in the air and hovers in a bow, drifting against the blue sky, then descends with a hide On the glass wall behind Jon Guerra. Out.

“Your swing is too hard,” Guerra tells me.

Guerra, who goes through coach Jon, sends lobs through the net to me and three other students with short padel, a refuge right next to the Sunset Boulevard in Little Armenie. We learn Padel, a racket sport played with foam snowshoes on a terrain similar to a tennis surrounded by tempered glass walls. And it turns out to be a whole challenge.

“Do not go to the ball, let it bounce,” said Guerra after a ball of the boomerangs on the wall towards me and I miss it completely.

A sport that started in the 1960s in Mexico in the 1960s, Padel has already exploded through Europe and South America, and fans hope that it will do the same in the United States, it regularly wins in Los Angeles, with new Padel centers on the county: there is Padel in Westfield Century City, Padel Padel. This summer, the Los Angeles Padel Club, co-founded by the real estate developer of the Steve Shpilsky, will open a clubhouse in Padel in a restored mansion of the Hollywood era in Culver City. Later, the king of Padel, an interior club of Padel and Pickleball, will join the development of San Pedro West Harbor.

The courts Padel, where I try sport, looks like a country club the size of a thumb. It has a comfortable atmosphere – there is a fireplace in the clubhouse and a record player with Tyler, the album “Igor” of the creator, alongside a wall full of palel rackets in fiberglass and wood inducing trypophobia.

Guerra, who reached a classification of n ° 13 in the United States in 2023, began the clinic of the day by explaining the difference between Padel and tennis – the obvious being the playable walls surrounding the court. You can either fly, play on a rebound or leave the ball ricochet on the tempered glass walls before hitting it. If your return first hits the wall, it came out.

The blurred ball looks like a tennis ball but has a slightly lower PSI, which means that it is a little more flat and less bouncing. The services are devious and the aces are slow and complex blows that bounce at an angle of the side glass. It is a game of errors, Guerra tells her students – you are waiting for your opponent to make a bullet in a way that allows you to make a blow that they cannot come back.

The padel bullets have a psi slightly lower than a tennis ball, which means that they are a little more flat and less bouncing.

(Chiara Alexa / For time)

And there is an important rule: Padel is played in doubles. Always. A large part of the game involves tandem strategies.

“Go up with your partner,” explains Guerra as he sends the front bullets of the net for us in Volley. “Partners move into volleyball together and go back to the basic line together.”

I played tennis in competition in high school – not very well, but I held the blows in certain games. But that day, I find it hard to hit good shots. The game feels a little slower, more dependent on prudent lobs than power; It reminds me of a little billiards, although Squash is probably the nearest parent to Padel.

Guerra tells me to twist my body in a closed position which seems counter-intuitive to the open blow of a tennis swing. Padel swings are short and precise – and extremely clumsy. I know I look stupid by slamming a return to the net.

“I have friends who are elderly people in the country club where they are starting to play who have tennis experience that has trouble learning after being linked to your ideas,” said Guerra later in the clubhouse after the clinic. “It all depends on the quantity you can forget.”

Padel started in Acapulco, Mexico, in 1969.

(Chiara Alexa / For time)

Sport began in 1969 when the Mexican businessman Enrique Corcuera changed the Squash court in his holiday home in Acapulco. He first named the game “Paddle Corcuera”.

In 1974, Corcuera's friend, Alfonso de Hohenlohe-Langenburg, a Spanish prince and hotelier who went out with Ava Gardner and Kim Novak, imported the game into his Tony Marbella Club Hotel in Marbella, in Spain. He quickly spread as a Country Club sport because of his quartet nature – a lot compares his quality of company to golf. Today, Spain has more than 16,000 courts Padel, making it the second most played sport in the country behind football.

Despite its country club roots, Padel is competitive. It's more dynamic than pickleball, and the curve to learn that it is a little more steep. As I finally struck a back on the other side, it was a few attempts. I feel triumphant. The next volley arises from my racket and landed just in front of the base of the glass wall, which makes my opponent's return difficult.

“Perfect Shot”, explains Guerra. I am delighted. My teammate and I touch snowshoes to celebrate as if we were Agustin Tapia and Arturo Collo (Le Co-No-. 1 players of the world).

Padel is still the most popular in Spain, where Guerra is from Guerra, as well as in Argentina, but he skyrocketed in the United States. There were less than 20 courts in the United States in 2019 – now there are nearly 500. Houston and Miami are households. Florida rapper, Daddy Yankee, opened the 10by20 Padel Club (the courts are 10 meters wide by 20 meters long) and has a professional team, the goats of Orlando Florida.

The is a little slower on adoption, but it will certainly change as the popularity of Padel increases. There is a professional team called The Los Angeles Beat in the Pro Padel League (PPL), the American circuit, which is mainly composed of Spanish and Argentinian players classified international. And the new Los Angeles Padel Club City City location will be the home of one of the first youth development academies on the west coast.

Research interest in 2025 so far for pickleball, Palel and tennis sports in Los Angeles.

(Google Trends)

“Los Angeles has the perfect ingredients for playing its claim as one of the most important cities in the world for Padel with its sports and racket sport, ideal weather, an international community and an emphasis on well-being and social interactions,” explains Christ Ishoo, co-owner of Los Angeles Beat, who will also be accommodated at Los Angeles Padel Clubhouse.

However, the idea that Padel will follow the path of pickleball is questionable. Sport does not have the same accessibility as tennis and pickleball, which can be played for free on the many municipal courts of the city. The Padel courts time is $ 100 an hour (which is not too bad during the division in four ways) and should be reserved about a week in advance.

(Chiara Alexa / For time)

However, Guerra sees a great promise. “I feel with pickleball, it's like when you see an entrepreneur who becomes a billionaire,” he said. “You don't see the 20 years he had to fight to jostle.”

There were chatter that Padel could become a competition sport for the 2028 Olympic Games, but this effort failed (it can always be a demonstration sport). However, there is still hope that he will be accepted for the 2032 summer Olympic Games in Brisbane, Australia.

More importantly, Padel is difficult and fun. During a demo, my partner and I make a few good shots and let's go into a groove. I return a ricochet in a way that even surprises me. I sweat. And I feel like I have made a little progress.

Maybe a former tennis player can learn new palette stuff. Guerra points her racket on me and looks happy. “The sooner you are afraid and you forget, and you are less aware of your appearance, the more stupid you stop feeling, the better,” he said.