Two years ago, Andi Neugarten-Maio was at the World Championships in Alicante, surrounded by women from all over the world who were obsessed with the same sport. And she noticed something kind of weird.

Nobody actually got to know each other. ”You competed, represented your country, and then everyone went home.”

So she asked the obvious question nobody else had: ”What if we created something different?” An international competition that was ”absolutely competitive on court,” but also gave women the chance to connect off it, build friendships, see the host city and get celebrated as athletes.

That question became the Athena Padel Cup. This month, teams from Great Britain, Mexico and the USA finally lined up together at Padel X in Miami. ”Something that had lived in my head for two years was suddenly real,” she says.

Neugarten-Maio built Athena through 6 Love Sports, talking to players, working out the format and ”thinking through every detail of what I wanted the event to feel like.” Eventually she brought it to Nalle Grinda and Padel X to make it happen in Miami.

The plan changed shape plenty of times. The point never did. ”I wanted every woman walking into the Athena Padel Cup to feel that she mattered and that this event had been created for her.”

Anyone who’s played a tournament knows the drill: show up, play your match, go home. Neugarten-Maio calls the athlete experience ”probably the part I obsessed over the most,” and you can tell.

The week’s lineup: team apparel, welcome gifts, breakfast and lunch every day, wellness experiences, skincare, Pilates, a welcome dinner, a yacht cruise through Miami, a closing celebration ”and, of course, great padel.”

Rough life.

GreenOak backed the vision. Osaka World dressed every team as official apparel partner. Padel X gave the event its Miami home. A long list of brands pitched in too, including Tremble, Paris Baguette, Pura Vida, Rodilla, Dr. Dennis Gross Skincare, Christina Cosmetics, Miami Chains & Co., Coconut Stock and Gold Club Jewelry.

And no, she isn’t into logo wallpaper. ”For me, partnership is not about putting logos around a court,” she says. ”Every partner needed to add something meaningful to the athletes’ experience.”

Ask for her favorite memory and she won’t pick a match. It’s the welcome dinner, with women from Great Britain, Mexico and all over the U.S. at the same tables, laughing and getting to know each other.

”That was the Athena Padel Cup.”

Don’t get it twisted, though, these women came to compete. ”Once we step onto the court, we want to win,” she says. But over the week she watched players who’d never met swap numbers, cheer each other on courtside, share meals and start making plans to meet up again. The heat didn’t scare anyone off either. ”It was hot, the days were long, and yet the players stayed, laughed, cheered for one another and genuinely enjoyed being together.”

Her prediction: ”the friendships created during the Athena Padel Cup will last much longer than the results.”

It came down to the wire. Team Britannia and USA Stars finished level on points, and the tiebreaker was their head-to-head from Day One, which Britannia won. That made Team Britannia the first-ever Athena Padel Cup champions. USA Stars took second, and USA Stripes and Mexico shared third.

So what did the visiting teams make of playing in the States? The thing she heard over and over was ”how different the Athena Padel Cup felt from a traditional tournament.” By the end of the week, players were already talking about coming back and who else they could bring along in 2027.

”For me, that was one of the greatest measures of success.”

The Athena Padel Cup returns to Miami October 12–15, 2027, and it’s growing from four teams to eight. She says people were asking about 2027 before the first one had even wrapped.

Here’s the twist: she’s protective of the size. ”I never want the Athena Padel Cup to become so large that we lose what made this first year special.”

Teams will come by invitation. She’ll look at countries that can put competitive teams together across the Athena divisions, but she wants the right attitude too: women who want the whole experience and want to connect with the other teams. Her wish list includes Spain, Argentina, Italy and France, plus more teams from Europe and Latin America, with Great Britain and Mexico back again.

The dream is big. She wants Athena to be ”an event women around the world want to be selected for,” because they know ”they are going to experience something very special when they come to Miami.”

Most tournaments hand out a trophy and empty the parking lot by dinner. Athena handed out a trophy and left behind a group chat that runs across three countries. Next year it doubles, and the founder already knows what comes next.

”Year one was about turning an idea into reality. Now we get to build it.”