When people talk about the American padel boom, the conversation usually revolves around macro numbers—court counts, capital funds, and high-net-worth real estate. But a sport doesn't scale on real estate alone. It scales on the culture built on the court and the operational infrastructure built behind the scenes.

Dhanielly Quevedo happens to be building both.

A former Division I and professional tennis player who thought her competitive athletic chapter was closed, Dhany picked up a padel racket in the summer of 2024 and never looked back. 

Today, she isn't just a top-10 U.S. athlete representing Team USA on the glass; she is the founder and CEO of Elite Sports Management (ESM), the first female-owned, padel-focused sports agency in the country.

Through ESM, Dhany is bridging the gaps that currently fragment the U.S. market—connecting athletes with brands, helping clubs execute real storytelling, and partnering with platforms like World Padel Rating (WPR) to create a trusted, standardized system for organized play.

We sat down with Dhany to discuss her athletic comeback, mastering the back glass, the truth about the padel vs. pickleball debate, and what it really takes to live the ultimate founder-athlete hustle.

Let's start at the very beginning. You went from competing in Division I and professional tennis to picking up a padel racket in the summer of 2024. Fast forward, and you're a top 10 U.S. padel athlete representing Team USA. What was it about padel that reignited your competitive fire, and how did you conquer the dreaded transition of learning to play off the glass?

"I honestly thought I was done competing. Tennis was my whole life for a long time. I played Division I and then I went pro, and by the time I stepped away I had made my peace with that part of my life being over. Then someone got me on a padel court in the summer of 2024, and something in me woke back up.

Padel brought out the competitive side of me again. Having something that I could constantly improve in and be able to compete in was something that tennis had given me, and I found it again in padel once I started competing. From there I just kept getting more and more hooked.

The glass is still the hardest part of the sport for me to this day. But with every match and every practice, I stay conscious enough to try to use it and try to get better at it, because that is the key to improving in this sport. Early on, my tennis instincts were telling me to do the wrong thing. In tennis a ball off the back wall is a dead ball, but in padel that ball is still in play. I had to learn to trust the bounce, be patient, and let the ball come off the glass so the court could do some of the work for me. The more I leaned into it instead of fighting it, the more the game opened up for me."

You didn't just stop at competing; you launched Elite Sports Management (ESM)—the very first female-owned, padel-focused sports agency in the country. What was the exact moment you looked around the U.S. padel ecosystem, realized it was fragmented, and decided you needed to be the one to bring structure to athletes, clubs, and brands?

"There was never one big moment where it all clicked. It was more of a slow build of me noticing these little things. The athletes did not really know the brands, the brands did not fully understand the sport, and every club seemed to be figuring things out from scratch.

The real turning point came once I got to the point where I was a top ten American player and I was looking for my own sponsor. That is when I realized there was not anybody out there helping athletes with their sponsorships. I have a background in communications, marketing, and PR, so at first I wanted to do this as a side project while I kept my corporate job.

But once I saw the demand, and not just on the sponsorship side but on the marketing side too, I decided to go all in. Being the first female-owned padel agency was never really my goal. It just happened because I kept seeing a need and decided to build the thing I wished already existed."

ESM recently inked a massive strategic partnership with World Padel Rating (WPR) to accelerate organized play in the U.S. With clubs expanding so rapidly, how does this partnership actually help build the sustainable infrastructure behind the sport, rather than just adding to the hype?

"There is a lot of hype in padel right now. Everyone is excited and new courts are opening everywhere. But excitement on its own does not last very long. What WPR gives the sport is a real backbone. It is one rating system that everyone can trust, on a scale of 0 to 21, so a player in Miami and a player in Austin are finally measured the same way, and every match you play actually counts toward a real ranking.

Our part of this is the piece that people tend to overlook. We handle the storytelling and we help people actually start using it. You can build the best rating system in the world, but if athletes and clubs do not understand it or trust it, it just sits there. What we brought to the table was the content and the communication to introduce WPR to the whole country and get players to buy in.

Infrastructure is not just software. It is people believing in something and using it. A rating system only creates real organized play if the community actually adopts it, and that is the part we are helping with. We are taking a great system and helping it become the standard that everyone plays by."

As someone deeply embedded in both the business and athletic side of racquet sports, you have a front-row seat to the U.S. market dynamics. In a country currently obsessed with pickleball, what do you think is the biggest misconception about padel's growth trajectory right now?

"The biggest misconception is that padel is just the next pickleball. People assume it will grow the exact same way, on the same timeline, and that the two sports are fighting for the same spot. Pickleball is so successful because it is easy to start. You can paint a parking lot and be playing in ten minutes. Padel is different. It needs a glass court, which means it takes more money, more space, and a slower, more careful build.

A lot of people see that slower build and think padel is losing the race. I see it as the foundation being laid the right way. Pickleball grew out wide and fast. Padel is growing in a steadier way, with clubs, coaching, ratings, and tournaments. That takes longer, but it lasts.

The truth is they are just different sports, and there is plenty of room for both of them to be successful. The mistake is comparing a sport that is still building its foundation to one that was made to be easy from day one. Give padel five years and people will stop asking which one wins."

Between training, traveling for the USPA circuit, and scaling a groundbreaking agency, you are living the ultimate founder-athlete hustle. What is the most challenging part of balancing these dual roles, and looking ahead, what is your absolute top priority for ESM through the rest of 2026?

"The most challenging part is that it is really hard to try to do both of them really well at the same time. I have been lucky that the business has grown in a way where I have been able to bring people onto the team to help support that growth. That has let me keep scaling the agency while still having enough time to train.

At the end of the day, I want to compete as much as I can, whenever I can. But I am putting the agency first right now. There are plenty of nights where I am working late, and plenty of early mornings too, just trying to make it all work.

Through the rest of 2026, my top priority is to keep growing ESM into a full digital marketing padel agency. That means continuing to bring on more clients, expanding my team, and growing the marketing side of the business, not just the athlete side. I would also love to add maybe one or two more athletes to the roster. The bigger goal behind all of it is for ESM to become the place U.S. padel talent trusts, so that when the sport really takes off, we are ready for it."