When I first spoke with Ruben Gonzales, the ever-affable, extremely experienced racket-sports pioneer behind U-Padel, he had just opened the first indoor padel club in Texas — a seven-court, air-conditioned facility about 45 minutes outside of Houston. Now he’s getting ready to open his second U-Padel club, which will be a five-court outdoor facility a short drive from downtown San Antonio.
“I’d Rather Play Padel — Big Time”
As mentioned in our first article about U-Padel, Ruben originally hails from Monterrey, Mexico, where he grew up as a tennis player and actually ran the largest tennis pro shop in 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.
Of his eventual transition from tennis to padel, he explains, “Around six years ago, padel became much bigger in Monterrey and all of my tennis friends back started playing. So, then I’m thinking, ‘Okay, now I don’t have anyone to play tennis with. I guess I’ll start playing padel.'”
“The moment I started playing 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.”
Doing What You Love and Loving What You Do
In Mexico, Ruben 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. 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 [to launch U-Padel] came from,” Ruben explains.
Always Looking Forward
After successfully getting a seven-court club, M3 padel academy, pro shop, and e-commerce site up and running at his original Woodlands location, Ruben is now turning his attention to expanding the U-Padel footprint to San Antonio.
He says this new club — which should open by early December and is an easy 15-20 minute drive from many places in San Antonio — will be, “100% focused on padel and helping players to get better at the game while also enjoying an amazing community in an easy relaxed ambiance.”
“Our pros will teach the latest and best techniques (results-wise), which is something we plan to focus on a lot. Our goal will be for our players to keep improving while also loving the game. And even if winning is not the main focus, we believe it will come as a result,” he adds.
Ruben also notes that the club’s courts, which are manufactured by Sky Padel, are getting lots of attention from players. He tells me, “Our courts are very nice, and people are starting to notice the difference in court quality.”
While getting this second club open is obviously Ruben’s primary focus for now, he also tells me about all sorts of other projects he has in the works, ranging from new clubs and groundbreaking tournaments to potential collaborations with the likes of the U.S. Padel Association and A1 Padel.
So, something tells me this will be just the second of many, many articles I will be writing about him and his contributions to U.S. padel over the coming years.
Once open you can visit U-Padel’s “Judson Club” at 14630 Judson Rd, San Antonio, TX, 78233, daily between 6am and 11pm. For updates, please be sure to follow their Instagram page.
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