Let us share an amazing story of one of the most successful Padel players – Marta Marrero. She has been a big inspiration for multiple younger Padel players and will continue to be. At PADEL1969 we also admire Marta’s hard work for success and we are glad to share her journey with you.
What are Marta Marrero’s Achievements?
Marta Marrero is a professional tennis player and a professional Padel tennis player. She is considered a pillar in the padel world as she is both a great athlete and an investor.
Marta has played a total of 400 World Padel Tour matches, of which she won 297, bringing her winning percentage to 74%. According to WPT standards, she is currently ranked 14 after a year of inactivity. Marrero has gathered 4872 points and an impressive 16 consecutive wins.
Marta is known for the aggressive attacks she inherited from her professional tennis days; she also brought over her dominance and easy coverage of a large part of the padel court. She is also known to counterattack quickly.
Marrero succeeded in qualifying in the Roland Garros French Open at 17 years old as a young professional tennis player. A few years later, she won two number-one WPT titles as an adult professional padel player.
In 2020, Marta announced her temporary retirement and expressed a desire to take care of personal objectives. If you want to know why and whether she’s back, join us on this trip through her many achievements and setbacks, and keep on reading.
Marta Marrero’s Statistics
| Name | Marta Marrero |
| Date of birth | January 16th, 1983 |
| Place of birth | Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Spain |
| Height | 5’8’’ (173 cm) |
| Sport | Tennis (1998-2009) (quite due to injuries) Padel (2013-2022) (retired from WPT and now again active at Pro Pagel League since 4/2023-) |
| Playing position | Reverse (Backhand) |
| Active Years | Tennis 2000-2013 Padel 2013-2022, 2023- |
| Partners | Alejandra Salazar (2013-2018), Cata Tenorio (replaced Salazar in 2017), Martita Ortega (2019- 2020), Paula Josemaría (2020- 2021), Lucía Sainz (2022) |
Marrero’s Beginnings in Tennis and Padel
Marta’s interest in sports started at a very young age. She was influenced by her home environment; she comes from an athletic family. Both her parents played tennis as amateurs, and her brother was already competing locally. By the time she was 9 years old, it was clear in Marta’s eyes that she would become a professional tennis player.
She started playing tennis professionally at age 15. She had a successful tennis career, which she had to give up after a string of injuries that weighed on her and her performance. However, Marrero could not stay away from professional sports. In 2013, three years after putting her tennis racket down, Marrero picked up a new one. After distancing herself from any form of extreme sport, the Spanish player could not satiate her thirst for competition, mental challenges, and physical exertion.
It is partially thanks to Elisabeth Durán that Marrero became a renowned Padel player. Duran was the one who encouraged her to try competing in the World Padel Tour (WPT). Padel tennis appealed to Marrero as no other sport has. Its similarity to regular tennis was enough to revive her spark.
Marta Marrero’s Tennis Career
Marta Marrero began her athletic career in tennis. She began playing it professionally in 1998. Moreover, in 2000, she reached the quarterfinals of the Roland Garros French Open at the young age of 17. She proceeded to win two WTA doubles titles, the first in 2004 in Sopot, Poland, and the second in 2005 in Istanbul, Turkey.
As a professional tennis player, she had a 61% win rate in the singles and preferred playing on clay. She won 16 ITF singles and doubles championships overall. She attained the world No. 47 singles ranking on the WTA Tour in 2004. In July 2005, she achieved her highest doubles ranking of No. 47. Marrero has also competed for Spain and been a finalist across all its divisions, won the World U16 Championship, and finished eighth at the 2001 Australian Open.
At 26, Marta put her tennis racket down. Discouraged, she thought it was the end of her professional career in sports. Throughout her previous years as a tennis player, Marrero suffered her first major injury in 2004, after which she retired for a few months and lost her ranking. After moving back up to the 150th position, she injured her ankle, which made her stop to have surgery, it debilitated her temporarily and hurt her potential success immensely. She had thought she had given everything to tennis, and she would not be able to get any higher than where she was. Sick of the constant flux of injuries, Marta chose to withdraw from professional tennis competitions.
From Tennis to Padel
After a year of retirement from tennis, a friend invited the Spanish player to play padel tennis. She liked the game; however, she was not interested in any sort of career or competition in it. Little by little, she began playing more at a certain padel club; until one day she was invited to play in a tournament on the Catalan circuit, which in turn resulted in her training to improve. After a few months, she found herself taking it seriously and eventually competed in the World Cup in Barcelona.
Coming from playing on tennis courts, Marta found Padel easy. She only had to adjust to the smaller distances of a padel court, and because tennis demanded higher physical ability, Marta has had no serious injuries so far.
In 2016, Marta and her then-partner Salazar won six titles and first place in the WPT rankings, a title she won again in 2019 alongside Martita Ortega, with whom she won seven titles. The Spanish Padel player ended up winning a total of 25 professional Padel titles.
The End of Marta Marrero’s Career
During her tenth professional paddle tennis season and after her tenth straight Final Master. Marta Marrero made a very deliberate decision to pursue personal goals that sports prevented her from achieving. She said that this halt slightly complies with the urge to become a mother. Seeing as she was ranked number 7 in the WPT rankings, many were shocked to hear the news. Yet, the Spaniard has expressed the desire to retire at some point in her career to dedicate herself to motherhood in interviews that date back to 2017. Nevertheless, Marrero maintains that her life will not be cut off from Padel.
Effectively in 2017, Marta Marrero launched a company called Aurial Padel with her husband; their focus is to create a “disruptive, efficient, and innovative management model”. The goal is to create a professional academy for players who want to go “pro”. The idea behind this business is to consolidate this sport further in the country and internationally.
Marrero chose to follow this business path as she struggled while playing tennis, not knowing what the future held once she became a young retiree. She has also invested in the sport and bought five Catalan clubs, including Augusta Padel -Sant Cugat del Vallès-, Aurial Padel -Vic-, Aurial Padel -Cornellá- and Indoor Padel Sabadell -Sabadell-, hoping to expand in the future as padel tennis is finding popularity nowadays.
She has also explicitly said she would not stop training in order to come back to the padel court unchanged whenever she is ready to.
Why is Marta Marrero Back?
Yes, Marta will be back on the Padel courts soon. She announced this past Wednesday, April 12th, that she was signing with the Miami Padel Club to compete in the new American Padel League. This Pro Padel League will begin on May 13th under the guidance of Juan Martin Del Potro. This new team includes Ruben Rivera, Anna Cortiles, and Sergio Icardo. Her choice to come back to the Padel courts seems to stem from her intrigue by the project and her desire to be part of the spread of Padel as a professional sport in the USA, as well as her motto of never closing the door on new opportunities.
