rances Tiafoe is ranked No. 17 in the world in men’s tennis and has twice reached the semifinals at the U.S. Open, so it might be hard to imagine the 27-year-old American ever struggling with a racket—let alone this year. But that is exactly what happened when Tiafoe tried padel for the first time this spring, while he was in Spain for the Madrid Open and as he continued to play every day for weeks, sometimes against the sport’s pros.

“It’s actually pretty tough to be good at, even for former tennis players or current tennis players,” Tiafoe recalls. “I was horrendous compared to them.”

Yet the steep learning curve didn’t diminish his enthusiasm for the sport, a hybrid between tennis and squash that is played in a glass-encased court and is growing quickly in Europe. And while padel (traditionally pronounced pah-DEL’ but often said like “paddle” in English-speaking countries) currently has only about 100,000 recreational players in the United States, Tiafoe believes the sport’s combination of athleticism and strategy has it ready to go pro.

On Tuesday, the New York Atlantics of the two-year-old Pro Padel League announced the addition of Tiafoe as a strategic advisor and an investor, with a roughly 3.3% stake in the franchise. Tiafoe—who wrote a check and was not simply gifted the equity, as is sometimes the case with athlete partnerships—leads a broader funding round exceeding $2 million that also includes investments from goalkeeper Maarten Paes of Major League Soccer’s FC Dallas and former professional tennis player Gordon Uehling. The deal values the Atlantics at more than $10 million, up from the $200,000 fee that franchises had to pay to join the league in 2023.

“New York is obviously the biggest market in sports for anything,” Tiafoe says. “So it was a no-brainer.”

The Pro Padel League launched with seven teams across the U.S., Canada and Mexico and expanded to ten—including the Atlantics—last year. This season’s schedule includes five tournaments, running from June through the championship in New York in October, and employs a franchise format, with rosters of four men and four women per........

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