The first time I met Robert Gurolnick, the Director of Padel at Parker Racquet Club just outside Denver, and told him about The Padel State, he immediately said, “You’ve got to talk to this guy Ruben who just played here. He couldn’t be nicer… he’s super passionate about padel… and he’s building a bunch of clubs down in Texas.” And when I finally had the chance to speak with U-Padel founder Ruben Gonzales, I saw that Robert was 100% right on all accounts.
U-Padel’s first location, an air-conditioned, seven-court indoor facility in The Woodlands (about a 45-minute drive northwest of Houston), opened in early December 2023, and is the only indoor padel club in all of Texas at this point.
In addition to padel, the club also offers “an original juice & snack bar concept featuring light menu items curated to support healthy living,” locker rooms complete with showers, complimentary wellness sessions, a pro shop, and perhaps most importantly, a branch of the M3 Padel Academy.
Ruben tells me, “We believe M3 is the [world’s] biggest padel academy. Of the top 50 padel players in the world, they probably have 20 or 30, including Juan Lebron, Ale Galan, Delfi Brea, and a lot of the other big-time names. They were trained and formed by them.
So, our conclusion was if they have that many great players and they have built them from the ground up, they have to have a good system in place. You cannot get that many great players by luck.”
Same story, different day, huge goal
Like so many other padel club owners I’ve spoken with around the country, Ruben comes from a tennis background in Latin America.
In fact, he tells me he ran the largest tennis pro shop in Monterrey, Mexico — where he’s originally from — if not the entire country. What’s more, he also ran the largest public tennis facility in all of Latin America, with a total of over 30 courts.
Given his propensity to be involved in such big operations, it’s no surprise he dreams big, too …
When I ask him about U-Padel’s expansion plans beyond opening their second, five-court outdoor location in San Antonio later this spring, he tells me without hesitation, “Right now, the plan for the next three years is to get 10 clubs up and running — or at least start opening a club every semester/[six months].”
Of this ultra-ambitious growth goal, he says, “Originally the idea was to open San Antonio and then organically start expanding, but when we started looking into the market, we saw huge potential. I think it’s too big for any one company, but you make your best effort to get as much as you can.”
So, how does one go from running the biggest tennis pro shop in one country to building one of the biggest padel club empires in another?
First, tennis to padel …
Of his eventual transition from one racket sport to another, Ruben tells me:
“Around 15 years ago, padel started to go mainstream in Monterrey. Although padel was invented in Mexico, it hadn’t been very popular because there were not enough courts to play on.
Finally, one of the private clubs in Monterrey put in two padel courts and someone invited me to play, but I was still too much into tennis and I thought, ‘How much more fun could this be than I’m already having in tennis?’ So, I never paid too much attention to it.
Then around five years ago, it became much bigger and all of my tennis friends back in Mexico started playing padel. So, then I’m thinking, ‘Okay, now I don’t have anyone to play tennis with. I guess I’ll start playing padel.'”
His verdict?
“The moment I started playing padel I just fell in the love with the game,” he says, before adding, “I actually don’t play tennis anymore because I’d rather play padel big time.”
… then player to club owner …
Eventually, Ruben moved to the U.S. because he felt there would be, “so much more opportunity here for [his] daughters in so many respects.” But along with this move came a big decision about what to do next professionally.
In Mexico he had run a successful pool construction and maintenance business (which is still operating), and for a time he considered just expanding that business to Texas. But then he got to thinking maybe he should try something else …
“And that’s where padel comes in,” he says. “I wanted to come back to my love for sports and especially racket sports. First tennis and then padel. We’re living at the explosion of a new sport, which I never thought would be possible even five years ago.
The other big thing is that the U.S. is actually lagging behind the rest of the world. Usually it’s the U.S. that is leading, but with padel it’s the other way around. This is a real phenomenon, so I started looking at the numbers, and it made a lot of business sense,” he explains.
Ultimately, he says, “I decided if I was going to start something new, I wanted to do something I was big-time passionate about and have always loved. So that’s where the idea came from.”
… with blueprints for building a true “padel heaven.”
When I ask Ruben if he modeled his first U-Padel club after anything he says, “We tried to look into what other clubs — especially in Europe and Sweden in particular — were doing, which is where most indoor clubs are. And we tried to get the best ideas and put them into what we have. I think we did a pretty good job with that.
The club isn’t perfect, but it has great playing conditions. People are happy. Actually, we have had a few ‘wows.’ When people come in the doors they say, ‘Wow! This is great. We didn’t expect this.’ Which makes us really happy.”
Ruben also tells me that they chose to work with some unique partners including:
- Populous — the design firm behind the rapidly expanding Chicken N Pickle concept, who also designed the retractable roof over Centre Court at Wimbledon …
- Sky Padel — which manufactures its laser-cut, laser-welded courts in Ruben’s hometown of Monterrey …
- MATCHi — whose revolutionary court-booking and club-management app is used in thousands of padel clubs around the world …
- RedPadel — which is the official player rating system of the United States Padel Association as well as a major U.S. tournament operator …
“In the end, the idea was to get the best of the best of everything, so we can have a true ‘padel heaven’,” he says of these partnerships.
While U-Padel undoubtedly has some lofty long-term goals, Ruben tells me that it all starts with offering, “good academies, good tournaments, good ambiance, good social aspects, and a good community. Because the padel community sort of becomes a clan. Once you play with someone a few times you make a bond that’s not usual.”
And it’s on these special bonds that U-Padel plans to build and grow its empire one club at a time.
You can visit U-Padel’s Woodlands location daily between 6am and 12am at 28408 Sweetgum Rd Building E, Magnolia, TX 77354. For further information, please call them at (346) 525-4010, find them on MATCHi, or visit their site.
