Málaga hosts padel's first FISU World University Championship

Padel made its FISU World University Championship debut in Málaga, with 121 university athletes from 20 countries contesting men’s, women’s and mixed draws at PSM Fantasy Club. The first official edition ran from 7 to 11 July and immediately gave the sport a place on the university-sport calendar that it had never held before.

The scale mattered as much as the setting. The championship was staged at PSM Fantasy Club, also identified locally as Fantasy Padel SL, a venue with 12 indoor courts spread across two adjacent buildings. Free admission, subject to capacity, was designed to keep the atmosphere full without losing control around the courts, while the layout gave organizers the room needed for a multi-draw event.

FISU’s competition structure showed the debut was built as a true championship rather than a showcase. The official format allowed up to 32 teams per competition across women’s pairs, men’s pairs and mixed pairs, with delegations capped at 12 athletes, six men and six women. Mixed pairs could be formed from athletes also entered in the men’s and women’s tournaments, a setup that encouraged roster flexibility and made the team event feel closer to the way university programs actually operate.

The institutional significance is hard to miss. FISU officially recognized padel as a FISU-recognised sport on 6 February 2025, clearing the way for a championship that now places the sport inside the university sporting framework alongside longer-established disciplines. For padel, that recognition is more than a badge: it creates a pathway for federations and campus programs to connect young players to international competition in a way that isolated club events cannot.

Málaga suited that ambition. Spain remains one of padel’s strongest markets, and the University of Málaga co-organized the championship with FISU and the International Padel Federation, giving the launch local authority as well as global reach. The city’s official launch placed the event at the center of a broader push to make university padel a meaningful development route rather than a symbolic add-on.

FISU’s own description of the sport points to how far that route has already come. Padel was invented in 1969 by Enrique Corcuera in Puerto de Acapulco, Mexico, and it has now moved from its origins into a fully sanctioned world university championship. In Málaga, that shift was visible in the numbers, the venue and the competition format all at once.