As the co-founder and editor of the first-ever website 100% focused on the U.S.-padel market, the only question I may get more often than, “Where can I play padel in the U.S.?” is undoubtedly, “How do you actually pronounce ‘padel’?”
The answer is: it’s complicated…
Case in point, I recently reached out to the padel entrepreneurs, experts, influencers, players, and pros who follow us on LinkedIn to get their take on this growing “controversy” and even amongst this core group there was no real consensus.
PA-del, Paddle, or Pa-DEL?
Within minutes of posting this poll, a connection in the U.K. — where the sport is commonly pronounced in the same way Americans would pronounce “paddle” — pointed out that the second option should have been “Pa-DEL” instead of “PA-del”, with the emphasis on the second syllable, as that’s how most Americans pronounce it. (Yes, I flunked phonics in Kindergarten, but somehow still managed to figure out how to read and write!).
To his point, that is definitely how I hear most Americans pronouncing it, including in this introductory video from the U.S. Professional Tennis Association. Then there are other videos like this one, featuring the former president of the United States Padel Association (USPA), Mike May, that clearly call the sport “paddle.”
Meanwhile, in a television interview with New York Live, Mexican-born, U.S. padel pioneer Santiago Gomez — who is the visionary behind Padel Haus in Brooklyn — calls it both “PA-del” and “pa-DEL”, but points out that it is most definitely not called “paddle ball.” And on a recent segment of NBC’s The Today Show, the hosts wound up pronouncing it both ways throughout the piece.
The first time I ever heard of the sport, from a former Spanish pro, I understood him to pronounce it “paddle.” But then the first time I ever was ever invited to play, it was by friends who most definitely called it “pa-DEL” at “PADELphia” — which is a clever name that only works if you pronounce it like my friends did. No wonder there are even multiple contentious Reddit threads about the subject!
So, Why All the Confusion?
Again, it’s complicated…
According to the Lawn Tennis Association of Britain, the sport’s investor, Enrique Corcuera, originally called it “Paddle Corcuera.” Then in 1993, after spreading rapidly across the Spanish-speaking world in Europe and South America, the Sports Council of Spain recognized paddle as a sport, but changed its spelling to padel for pronunciation purposes in the Spanish language.
While that was all well and good in places like Spain and Argentina and some English-speaking countries like the U.K., here in the U.S. we already had numerous other racket sports that people occasionally referred to as “paddle” or “paddle tennis” including the primarily cold-weather game of platform tennis and the primarily warm-weather game now known as “pop tennis.”
Thus, some American racket sports enthusiasts felt the need to start pronouncing it “pa-DEL” to differentiate it from these other sports — and that caught on quick. Many U.S. players I’ve talked to said they are going to continue calling it that no matter what simply because they think it sounds cooler.
Patricio Misitrano, the co-founder and Chief Sports Officer of Sports Haus in Norwalk, CT (which recently debuted 5 indoor padel courts) may have summed up the ongoing controversy best with his LinkedIn post that stated:
“The correct name and pronunciation is pádel. It is a ‘grave’ Spanish word, which means that the ’tilde’ (accent) and emphasis is on the letter a. I refuse to call it padEl but people can call it whatever they want 😂.”
Another poster responded with, “For the sake of platform tennis players, Californians, and racquets pros everywhere, let’s call it anything other than ‘paddle’.”
For now, it looks as though U.S. padel players may never be able to come to a consensus on how to pronounce it. But if there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s how much we all love playing it — no matter what we call it.
