¿Padel, paddle or paddle-tennis? Clarifying the use of terms for padel teaching and researching

Abstract

With less than half a century of history, padel has consolidated like one of the most growing sports in Spain and Latin America, making a significant leap to non-Spanish speaking countries in recent years. Proof of its popularity is the recent exponential development of handbooks and scientific publications, especially written in Spanish. There is however an alarming confusion when translating this knowledge of padel into the international language par excellence: English. This is a major stumbling block in its expansion around the world, and making difficult the search of literature in electronic databases. Hence, this paper acclaims the need for consensus, proposing the use of the term "padel", accepted by the International Padel Federation and adopted by the different federations in Non-Spanish-speaking countries. To this purpose, we have reviewed the history of racket sports with similar terminology as well as taking as an example a recent review of the literature including 53 studies on padel. Adopting a common term will result useful and make easier the work for teachers, technicians and researchers when searching for literature about padel to avoid confusion with similar sports.