History
The history of padel
A certain mystique surrounds the history of padel. No one knows exactly how the sport originated. But at least the story leads us to the year 1962, Acapulco, where the wealthy Mexican Enrique Corcuera built a padel court (due to lack of space for a tennis court) in his garden. Because the court was a lot smaller, Enrique Corcuera figured out that it would be better to play not with regular tennis rackets, but with smaller wooden rackets. Over the years, this was adapted to the rackets as we know them today. The 'paddles' take us even further back in history, to the year 1890 and to English ships. To make the trip to America more enjoyable, people started looking for 'fun'. So they began to 'play tennis' with the paddles of the lifeboats. In other words, 'padel'.
A surprising start to the sport you might say. Which first became really big in South America, especially among the Mexican elite and in Argentina. From there the ball blew across the ocean to Spain. Through the Spanish royal family, padel was introduced in 1970 and subsequently grew to become the country's second most popular sport, after, of course, soccer.
Currently, padel is one of the fastest growing sports in the world, with about 18 million practitioners worldwide. The social racket sport also gained a foothold in the Netherlands. Thanks in part to Guus Hiddink, who had a padel court built at the PSV training center in 2006. Although the court did not meet official requirements, it served an important purpose: to have fun. The first official courts in the Netherlands were built in Vijfhuizen and Spijkenisse. The first clubs with padel courts came in Den Bosch and Enschede.
NPB and KNLTB
Padel in the Netherlands was initially supported by the Dutch Padel Sport Federation. In 2011, the Dutch Padel Association was founded and recognized by international padel federation (FIP).
The KNLTB has represented padel in the Netherlands since 2016. Since the NPB and the KNLTB announced a joint competition calendar in early November 2019, talks between the two organizations have intensified. As of July 1, 2020, the NPB and KNLTB have merged. All padel activities will continue under the banner of the KNLTB.
