This week sees the Cervezas Victoria Marbella Masters 2023 padel tournament as part of the World Masters tour being held in Finca La Caridad (Marbella Arena) in San Pedro de Alcantara.

The tour features the top players in the world and is coming fresh from their competition in Vienna and the weeks before in Copenhagen as part of the Masters padel tour.

PADEL GROWTH

Padel is one of the fastest growing sports on the planet with over 25 million players in over 90 countries worldwide.

It is a modern sport, having been invented in Mexico in 1969.

The International Padel Federation (FIP) is the world governing body of the sport of padel, whose goal is to promote all forms of padel worldwide. The FIP recognises 300,000 federated padel players and there are over6 million active padel players in Spain and more than 20,000 padel courts, making it the second most popular sport in Spain behind football. It’s estimated around 15,000 new padel courts were registered in Europe in 2021.

The current mens world champion is Fernando Belasteguin, the ageless king of world padel from Argentina, who was crowned world champion once again in November 2022.

In the rankings for this particular tournament, there are many Spanish contesting for the titles – see world tour rankings.