Where does the famous EVA foam, most often integrated into our rackets, come from? Our colleague, Emilio Forcher, found the trace of Carlos Perez, the inventor of Eva foam in padel. An incredible story for this Argentinian.

Let's go back in time to the origins of padel and padel rackets...

From the air hole to the padel racket

The story begins in a small factory in Argentina. Carlos Perez works in a company and finds himself with a multi-colored piece of Eva foam that he uses to plug an air hole. Although he knows nothing about padel, tennis or any other racket sports, he prepares a prototype of a pala for a friend of his.

It is at the end of the afternoon, in rainy weather, that Carlos takes out his “baby” in order to have it tested by his friend Mario. Out of sight, the test does not last long. It is a success, Mario is delighted. It is therefore necessary to refine the pala and launch a production. With 300 dollars in his pocket, Carlos launches Sane, the brand of palas, and inserts on the wooden palas of his friend Mario personal inlays which will make him known.

The first sponsored will be a pair formed by a right-handed and a left-handed. During their first tournament, Carlos was there, in the audience, to see the reaction of people and players to this noise so different from that of wooden palas. The match took place at dusk and the opponents gave up due to the efficiency of these Sane players.

Several people like Ricardo Cano of Adidas came to the Sane factory to create an Eva rubber pala. Impossible to create a tailor-made product for other brands because Carlos Perez did not have the funds to supply production.

A success story that costs too much

It was thanks to the Argentine Federation that the story would really take shape. One of the coaches at the time, who came from martial arts and had suffered many infiltrations in his arm, could not play padel properly with wooden palas. The Sane palas were the best for him. The watchwords of the time being “protection of students” and “rapid search for performance”, the Sane pala fit perfectly into the objectives.

Carlos Perez files the patent in 8 countries to protect his invention. An incredible adventure during which the pala gets thicker without gaining weight. Bad luck for him and his palas because this patent will cost him the business. Large investments to have his invention recognized in the 8 countries, then too great a cost to the courts to charge the fees for the new brands that use this manufacturing process, will create disgust in Carlos.

The sums to be committed being much too large, it will be the end of Carlos Perez, in the mid-90s, time of the crisis of padel in Argentina. He sells Sane for a song to a friend passionate about the brand, Ricardo Rácaro.

Today Carlos Perez is working on the development of palas and is always looking for new technological advances.

Julien Bondia

Julien Bondia is a padel teacher in Tenerife (Spain). Columnist and advisor, he helps you play better through his tutorials and articles on padel tactics/techniques.

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