Editor’s note: The following (lightly edited) feature article is from regular guest contributor, Scott Matulis, a former PR Director for the Worldwide Senior Tennis Tour who discovered padel in Vegas two years ago and can now hit balls off of the glass occasionally. He is the author of the LinkedIn and Substack serial novel The Applicant.
Since I’ve started writing about padel, Scott Colebourne has been one of the most gracious, helpful and cool-to-talk-to people I’ve met. He’s knowledgeable, connected, has a sweet accent and introduced me to Angel Espadas.
I caught up with Scott as he was driving to Toronto for the FIP World Cup North and Central America qualifier and asked him to lay out how the domestic padel tournament circuit works and to explain the USA National Team setup.
Here’s what he told me…
How exactly does the Nox USA Padel Circuit by Psycho Bunny work?
There are two aspects to our domestic circuit. First, we have the USA Padel Circuit which includes more than 250 tournaments around the country. These are 100-, 250-, 500-, 750-, 1000-, 2000- and 2500-level tournaments. The number reflects the number of points that the winning players receive. We also have the US Open Padel Championships, our flagship event, and our end-of-year championship as well.
Typically every tournament has Division 1 through 4 or 5 for men and Division 1 through 3 or 4 for women. You can find your level, enter a tournament, see how you compete against your peers, and earn a national ranking. These tournaments do not have age groups. They are created by divisions based on level.
Our tournaments feature a mix of amateur, semi-professional, and professional players. The US Open Padel Championships has a prize pool of $40,000 that is split across Division 1 men’s and women’s.
The 750-, 1000-, and 2000-level tournaments have varying degrees of prize money and some of the 500s do also. A 2000-level tournament has a minimum prize pool of $25,000. A 1000 has a minimum prize pool of $10,000 and a 750-level has a minimum prize pool of $7,500. We anticipate these numbers will continue to go up as higher-level players enter our tournaments and clubs invest more in the tournaments they host.
At USA Padel we are extremely lucky that we have many amazing clubs that choose to be Premier Members of the Association. This means that they have contributed financially through their membership and that gives them the right to host USA Padel circuit tournaments.
Those clubs that are hosting high-level tournaments are experienced operators delivering amazing events, creating a great on-court and off-court experience for the players. The clubs are financially responsible for all aspects of the tournament and the majority of them have made the tournaments feasible through entry fees, sponsorship, and increased food and beverage sales over the course of the event.
To sign up to play in a 100 level tournament, players are required to have a USA Padel registered player account, which is free. If you’d like to play in a 250-level or higher, it does require an adult membership, which costs $50 per year, or a junior membership. All the tournaments are listed at www.padelusa.org/calendar where players can find all the relevant information and links to register.
The USA Padel Competition Committee assigns tournaments based on an annual application period that allows all clubs the ability to host tournaments of varying levels. Clubs that do not submit applications during this time period can add small-level tournaments throughout the year. However we are committed to publishing our main tournament schedule well in advance to allow players and clubs to plan.
What about the USA Padel Seniors Circuit?
The second part of the domestic circuit is our senior tournaments. Next year, these senior tournaments will follow the official FIP senior categories of 40+, 45+, 50+, 55+, and 60+. And this is for pairs where both players are over the category age. So, in the 40+ category they could be 41 and 42.
We have senior tournaments around the country for those age groups. It’s a great way for players to compete against players of their age group and find people of a similar age group to hang out with and socialize with.
We also have senior national championships, which were recently won in the 55+ age group by former pro tennis players, Alex O’Brien and Jared Palmer.
Is the U.S. Padel Senior Nationals only for Americans?
So yeah, good question. To be a member of USA Padel, you just have to purchase some type of membership. You can be from any country in the world. All of our tournaments are open. We have no tournaments that are restricted to US citizens only.
So in the Senior Nationals, we had Palmer and O’Brien, who are both American, playing together. They played in the final, against a Canadian team. All of our tournaments at the moment are open to anyone from any country. And frequently, in the top tournaments, the 1000s, the 2000s, we have top 100 FIP ranked players from around the world coming to play, both men and women.
How many of the players playing USA Padel tournaments and playing on the national teams are pros vs. amateurs with day jobs?
Whether or not the person is a pro is maybe not the best question. The better question would be, are they playing full-time? And I would say on the men’s side, maybe like five or six are playing full-time. So that’s their job, they’re playing, they’re competing and they’re training. Others are still trying to maintain a full-time job or a part-time job, and then play.
For the women, it’s about the same, half of them have got full-time jobs and play as well, and the other half are, you know, dedicated to playing full-time.
Let’s move on to the various U.S. National Teams. How many are there and how are they selected?
We have over 250 athletes traveling every year to represent the U.S. It’s an amazing opportunity to play padel internationally and to spread the love of the game.
There’s a team for most levels of competitive play between seniors, juniors, “Absolute” and “Cat Libres,” and we’re super excited to have the clothing company Psycho Bunny as our official apparel partner and major sponsor of our USA National Teams.
Our national team program is overseen and governed by the USA Padel National Teams Committee, which is a committee of dedicated volunteers. The committee chair is Tomas Galvez Santaella from San Diego, and that committee sets the procedures and policies for the national teams.
The committee appoints volunteer coaches and a delegate (manager) for each team. USA Padel is able to cover the coach’s travel and accommodation expenses, but they are volunteering their time. They’re usually appointed for a two-year term, which lines up with the World Cup happening every two years.
Historically, there are two types of international competitions. There are the global competitions, which are governed by FIP, and then there’s the Padel America, or Pan American competitions, which include countries from North, Central and South America playing against each other.
About 12 weeks out from each tournament, we open up registration for players that want to play for the USA National Teams to indicate their interest. The coaches evaluate everybody who’s registered, they make selections, contact the players, the players sign a commitment letter, and then they’re on the team. We do hold scouting and training sessions for certain teams but we do also rely on the national rankings and performances on the USA Padel Circuit.
What can you tell me about the “Absolute” team?
That’s a padel term: “Absolute.” Essentially, it’s the top team, the professional team, the top-level national team. We have men’s and women’s teams but they compete separately.
This team has eight players on it. The coaches are less focused on tryouts and more about identifying the top players on the different circuits, whether it’s a USA circuit or the Premier Padel circuit.
The women’s Absolute coach is Richy Bailey. The assistant coach is Mariana Talarico. Richy played for the U.S. 10+ years ago, has coached for different federations around the world, and is a world-class coach. Mariana has coached and played on the U.S. women’s team for many years. They actively communicate with the top players from the U.S. throughout the year.
The men’s Absolute coach is Jacobo Blanco. Jacobo is from Spain originally and is a former World Padel Tour top-30 player. He’s a former number one on the USA circuit as recently as three years ago, still a regular player on the circuit, a great mentor and supporter of many of the players on the circuit.
His assistant coach is Jose Pablo Arizpe, who’s from San Antonio, Texas, has played for the USA many times at the Absolute level.
We just recently played in a World Cup qualifier against Canada and Mexico to qualify for this year’s World Cup. The way that the World Cup works is, to qualify, the men have to finish in the top two against Canada and Mexico, and the women have to finish first.
This year the World Cup will be held in Qatar in early November, and it’s known as the pinnacle of the sport. Only the top 16 nations in the world compete and it features all of the best players, including those playing professionally on the Premier Padel Tour. In the past the USA has played against Federico Chingotto, Juan Lebrón, Alejandro Galán, Agustín Tapia and Arturo Coello.
The World Cup, as I mentioned, is held every two years and the other years our teams play the Padel America Championship against the best teams from North, Central, and South America.
And how is that different than the “Cat Libres” team?
The next team is what they call the “Cat Libres” team or what we call the amateur team. It’s open to non-professional players. Coaches select players in categories 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. It’s loosely based on the Argentinian category system, and it’s a great opportunity for players that are not playing professionally to apply and to represent the U.S.
Nico Agritelley has played on this team. Vinny Di Francesco has played on this team when he was younger. It’s a great opportunity to wear the stars and stripes, experience international travel, represent the U.S. and compete against other countries.
That tournament is every year in Central or South America. We actually won the Cat Libres in 2023 in Cancun. That was such a high for that team. Registration for all the teams is at www.padelusa.org on the National Teams homepage. For each team, USA Padel provides a coach and delegate. We strive to fully fund the Absolute team but all our teams receive varying degrees of financial support.
What about the Senior National Teams?
We also have Senior men’s and women’s teams. The senior teams also compete in the FIP Senior World Cup every two years, as well as in the Padel America Championships and the Pan American Seniors Veterans Championships.
The age groups are 40+, 45+, 50+, 55+, 60+. This is the team that Angel Espadas coaches, the World Cup team is very, very competitive to get into. There are a lot of great players on the team. For example, we have players on the men’s and women’s side that are current or former members of the Absolute team and now playing on the World Cup Seniors team. So it’s super, super competitive. Both of our teams finished inside the top 10 at the last Senior World Cup and we’re very, very hopeful of competing for the top 8 at this year’s World Cup.
Every year we also field a team in the Pan American Championships which is in November of this year. It is still very competitive, although not as competitive as the World Cup. We take a team of 50 to 60 players. We can have multiple teams per age group. You could have an A team, B team, C team, competing in the different age groups. It’s a really big, exciting, fun tournament, with lots of opportunities for people to play. We encourage people to register online for that team.
So, for the Senior National Team you register online and then try out — where are the tryouts and how do people find out about them?
We hold them (tryouts) in different places around the country. We’ve done them in San Diego before and also in Miami, Connecticut, and Texas. It’s not always easy to see or evaluate every player. So that’s why playing on the USA Padel Circuit is super important. We can look at results and see how players are doing. That’s a big part of it. There are also players playing internationally that are U.S. citizens that want to play on that team and those players are considered as well.
Finally, let’s talk about the juniors. How does that work?
The fourth team is our junior program. It also plays a World Cup, and every other year, the Padel America Cup. When we compete in that, we send three age groups, under-18, under-16, and under-14 and they play country versus country.
The coaches for that team are a brother and sister from Spain, Jaume “Tato” Rouillon Jimenez and Lorena Rouillon Jimenez. They’ve been coaching the team for three years now. We competed in the World Cup in Spain last year, and this year, we have the Padel America Cup, which is the continental championship, and that’s going to be in Mexico.
For the junior team, players are selected based on their play in USA Padel Circuit Tournaments, FIP Promises Tournaments, and other play opportunities. We are looking forward to launching a Junior National Championship and Junior Circuit in 2027.
There are also international tournaments that the junior team plays in, so for instance, we have 30 athletes going to Mexico this month to represent the U.S., this is a pairs competition rather than a country versus country.
While that’s certainly a lot to digest, should you have any further questions about U.S. padel tournaments, national teams, or competitions, please be sure to visit USA Padel.
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