Padel’s rapid development in the USA has hit its latest significant milestone – and has leveraged the gigantic success of pickleball in doing so.
Taktika Padel is about to open the first ever padel and pickleball facility on an American college campus – a key battleground for growing sports participation in the States.
Construction has begun at the Eve Zimmerman Tennis Center at the University of the Pacific to create a 12-court complex – eight courts for the USA’s fastest-growing sport of pickleball and four for padel, the fastest-growing sport in the rest of the world.
The venue, equipped with lights and video cameras for live streaming, is expected to be completed in early autumn.
Pickleball has nearly doubled in a year in the USA from 4.8 million players in 2021 to 8.9 million last year and expanding from an activity popular among seniors to growing among younger adults, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association. Padel has until recently remained little known in the US with only around 200 courts.
The Pacific venue would be only the fourth public padel courts in California and the first in Northern California. Taktika opened its first padel centre, inside the award-winning Barnes Tennis Center in San Diego, in 2021 and earlier this summer opened its second padel location at the home of MLS team LA Galaxy at the Dignity Health Sports Park in Los Angeles.
Ryan Redondo, CEO of Taktika Padel, said the Pacific partnership is central to the company’s plan to open 200 publicly accessible padel courts on the West Coast within the next two years.
“Since Taktika’s inception, we have said that our driving motivation is to bring padel to as many different communities as possible, so that everyone has the opportunity to experience this exhilarating sport for themselves,” he said.
“Central to our vision has been to develop padel among young people and introduce the sport into the college system in the U.S. This unique Pacific partnership provides us the springboard to do just that, and to embrace the popularity pickleball has already had in the United States with the popularity padel has had overseas.
“Our partnership with the University of the Pacific is an American first, and I’m confident will pave the way for other college campuses to embrace these two insurgent racket sports as they gain popularity across our country.”
Gabriel Perez Krieb, Chairman and Co-Founder of Taktika Padel, asserts that the Us may have 30,000 courts by 2029 and that padel may be an Olympic sport by the Brisbane Games in 2032.
He said: “We are delighted by the vision and ambition of Pacific to see the potential power of these two sports combined on one campus, and hope it will prove a model to be rolled out in other universities in the years ahead.”
The majority of Taktika Padel’s ownership group has also invested in the San Diego Stingrays, one of the original seven franchises of the newly formed Pro Padel League (PPL), which had its debut season in Tampa, Florida this summer.
Pacific women’s tennis head coach Mike Erwin brought the idea of a partnership with Taktika Padel to President Christopher Callahan, and an agreement was reached with Redondo, who served as Pacific’s Director of Tennis and Head Coach for men’s tennis from 2010 to 2019. Taktika Padel will construct, operate and maintain the new complex.
“This unique and powerful partnership will serve the Pacific community by providing two exciting new sports for our students to play while filling a great need in the Central Valley for more pickleball courts and getting people excited about padel,” the university president said.
“The addition of the padel and pickleball complex is a game-changer for our tennis programmes,” Erwin said. “Having access to these fun, exciting and easy-to-learn sports on campus also will have a tremendous impact on Pacific as a whole.
“Increases in fundraising, student and community engagement and attendance at home contests are all expected outcomes of creating this racket sports eco-system. I believe, together with our partners at Taktika, we’ve blazed a trail that other institutions will follow.”
