Alex O\u2019Brien Tennis Foundation<\/a> to make this project possible. <\/p>\n\u201cPadel is the fastest growing sport in the world right now. They have 20 million players and they have about 40,000 courts worldwide, and so we\u2019re excited to bring this sport to Amarillo,\u201d said Alex O\u2019Brien, founder of the Alex O\u2019Brien Tennis Foundation and owner\/president of BOC Bank.<\/p>\n
Parks and Recreation Director Michael Kashuba says the new addition reflects the city\u2019s commitment to expanding local recreation.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur goal is just to continue to improve racket sports in Amarillo, and I think that\u2019s why this partnership is so important with Alex O\u2019Brien,\u201d said Kashuba. \u201cYou know, the city\u2019s invested almost $1,000,000 in the facility between the lights, court resurfacing, some renovations on the actual clubhouse, and then the addition of these courts.\u201d<\/p>\n
The project took less than a year to complete through collaboration between the city and the Alex O\u2019Brien Tennis Foundation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe paid for half, they paid for half. It was a great project to get more excitement around racket sports,\u201d said O\u2019Brien. <\/p>\n
O\u2019Brien described padel as a combination of tennis, pickleball, squash, and racquetball played on a smaller court with walls in play.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy prediction is these courts will be packed and be full. I would say within probably a couple of months because it\u2019s such a fun, interesting, unique, intellectually stimulating game,\u201d said O\u2019Brien.<\/p>\n
The ribbon cutting event took place at 11:30 a.m. Sunday, followed by padel\/learn-to-play instruction to give attendees a chance to experience the sport firsthand.<\/p>\n
Kashuba says the courts are open under normal hours of operation. <\/p>\n
Copyright 2025 KFDA. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AMARILLO, Texas (KFDA) – A new sport is swinging into Amarillo as the city celebrated the grand opening…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":241559,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[72],"tags":[132961,40119,132964,108337,132962,132963,132960,26518,3714,23134,1079,99,63699,428],"class_list":["post-241558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-tennis","tag-alex-obrien-foundation","tag-amarillo","tag-antc","tag-city-of-amarillo","tag-combination","tag-michael-kashuba","tag-national-tennis-center","tag-padel","tag-parks-and-recreation","tag-pickleball","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-squash","tag-tennis"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=241558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/241558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/241559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=241558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=241558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=241558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}