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In Argentina, a country where padel is both a cultural institution and a highly profitable enterprise, choosing to dedicate your career to a virtually unknown plastic-ball sport is not a conventional move. Yet, every week, Fernando Piazzese gets into his car and drives 100 kilometres across the province. There is no lucrative broadcast deal waiting at the end of this journey, nor a grand stadium. Instead, he travels this distance simply to teach introductory pickleball classes to absolute beginners.
Piazzese is not a novice looking for a gap in the sports market. He is a seasoned padel coach and the owner of La Chimenea, a traditional racket club in Buenos Aires. Today, however, he holds a very different title: the first official coach of the Argentine national pickleball team. His transition from the heavy rubber of padel to the perforated plastic of pickleball is the story of how a grassroots movement is slowly carving out space in a fiercely traditional sporting landscape.
From a Miami mix-up to the national team
The origin of Piazzese’s obsession is now a well-known piece of local sporting folklore. In 2018, a friend returning from a shopping trip to Miami brought back pickleball paddles and balls instead of the requested padel gear. Initially laughing off the strange equipment as a practical joke, Piazzese and his friends taped makeshift lines onto a padel court at La Chimenea and quickly found themselves playing for up to seven hours a day.
The critical turning point in his coaching journey arrived three months later. Corinne Carr, an American professional then ranked third in the world, visited Buenos Aires and found La Chimenea via a Google search. She recognised the group’s raw striking skills, shaped by years of tennis and padel, but saw they lacked tactical structure. Over several days, Carr introduced them to the soft game and, crucially, taught Piazzese the formal methods of coaching the sport.
Armed with this technical foundation, Piazzese helped orchestrate Argentina’s first international tournament. When the Brazilian Pickleball Association unexpectedly confirmed they were sending fifteen mixed doubles teams, Piazzese and his small group of male players famously had to recruit local women from a nearby tennis club at the last minute to form competitive partnerships. That chaotic weekend ended in a carnival-style celebration, cementing Piazzese’s commitment to growing the game.
The engine room of Argentine pickleball
Eight years later, Piazzese is the driving force behind the sport’s domestic growth. Twice a week—on Tuesday and Saturday evenings from 6 to 9 p.m.—he runs a cancha abierta (open court) at Sportium Alcorta in the Retiro neighbourhood of Buenos Aires. Operating with endless enthusiasm, he carefully organises matchups for players of varying abilities, distributing high-level tactical advice to those willing to listen.
This is a project entirely driven by passion, not commerce. As the Argentine Pickleball Association notes, dedicated infrastructure remains scarce, and the sport cannot currently compete financially with padel or tennis. “None of us earns money from this,” as fellow advocate Julieta Gambarte plainly states. Piazzese’s 100-kilometre commutes are not a business strategy; they are a community-building exercise. “I do it so people can learn, grow, and get excited about the sport,” he explains.
For Piazzese, the fundamental appeal lies in the sport’s unique social mechanics. He views it as a great equaliser, observing that it is the rare discipline where a grandfather, son, wife, and grandson can all share a court and genuinely have fun together. It is this inclusivity that he believes will eventually secure pickleball’s place in Argentina, offering an accessibility that other traditional racket sports often lack.
The road ahead for the sport
As the sport continues to spread from the capital out to provinces like Tucumán, Córdoba, and Santa Fe, the demand for structured coaching will inevitably rise. The Argentine Pickleball Association has made training more coaches a primary objective for the coming year, alongside strengthening the tactical awareness of their competitive players.
Until that wider coaching network is fully established, the foundation of the sport rests heavily on the pioneers willing to put in the hours. For the padel veteran who accidentally stumbled into a new calling, those weekly drives across the province remain essential. Piazzese knows that every new player he introduces to the game is another small step toward building a self-sustaining sporting community in Argentina.
Explore more global stories in our pickleball news hub, follow event developments via the tournament calendar and results, and track emerging talent through the world rankings and player profiles. For regional growth, visit South America pickleball development.
To understand global governance structures, visit the International Federation of Pickleball.
Further Reading
- Latest global pickleball news
- Tournament calendar and results
- World rankings and player profiles
- South America pickleball growth
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Chris Beaumont
Founder and Editor-in-ChiefChris Beaumont is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of World Pickleball Magazine. Chris follows the global game closely, reporting on the latest news, developments, stories and tournaments from all five continents. He also hosts the World Pickleball Podcast, interviewing people at…
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