Focus on…Venezuela. Courts grew by +700% in one year

In Venezuela, where the Puerto Cabello Premier P2 – the fourth event of the season of the professional circuit governed by the FIP – is being played this week, a real ‘padel mania’ has broken out in recent years. According to FIP Research & Data Analysis Department, from 2022 to 2023 the number of courts has grown by 700% (from 30 to over 200, more than 100 of them in the capital Caracas). A strong contribution to the growth of the sport in the country has been made by the Federación Venezolana de Pádel (FVP) born in February 2019 and since July 2023 an official member of the International Padel Federation (FIP). The FVP has more than 1,500 members, but the amateur movement is of several hundred thousand players: last year, one of the largest tournaments by membership in the whole of Latin America was held with the participation of 1,440 players (Padel Fest Venezuela) and the ‘Primera Liga Universitaria de Pádel’, a tournament approved by the FVP that aims to promote the sport in the country’s universities, has just been born this year.

At the professional level, development is also evident: in October 2023 the fifth edition of the ‘Panamericano Absoluto de Pádel APF’ was held, and in December the first CUPRA FIP Tour tournament in history, the FIP Rise Caracas. The country’s best player in terms of FIP ranking is Juan Andres Perez Rios (No. 508 in the world), thanks to the final reached at the FIP Rise in Caracas: in the FIP ranking there are another 52 players in the men’s and six in the women’s rankings.

The first FIP Tour tournament in history, the FIP RISE TPC Alkmaar (Netherlands) in June 2019, was won by Venezuela’s Roberto Rodriguez paired with Argentina’s Fermin Ferreyra: it was the only FIP tournament won by a player from this country. In Venezuela, according to Sebastián Rodríguez, one of the pioneers of the sport in the country, the first padel court was built in 2006 in La Cinta de Las Mercedes, in Caracas. Being the oldest court, it is surrounded by walls and not glass like the current ones, but it is still working. Then, on 12 October 2015, Francisco Ferreira inaugurated the Venezuela Padel Club, located on Calle La Florencia, 500 metres from the Santa María University in Miranda.