Growing the Game in Cuba: How Carlos López Toledo Is Expanding Pickleball Across the Island
By The Pickleball Weekly Editorial Team • Apr 22, 2026 • 14 min read
One man’s mission to grow the game in the heart of the community
IN THE SUN-DRENCHED streets of Lawton, Havana, the rhythmic thwack of a plastic ball against a paddle is becoming a new local soundtrack driven by one man’s relentless vision.
Lawton, a traditional working-class neighborhood in the Diez de Octubre municipality, offers a raw and authentic look at daily Cuban life. Unlike tourist destinations such as Old Havana, it reflects a city shaped by resilience, where early 20th-century buildings, narrow streets, and weathered, sun-faded homes reflect generations who have lived, adapted, and endured.
Life spills into the streets, onto sidewalks and doorways, where neighbors gather, stories are shared, and community remains at the center of everything. It is here, in a neighborhood shaped by time and routine, that something entirely new is taking root.
“Children are motivated when you bring sports to schools, especially something as accessible as pickleball.” — Carlos López Toledo, Pickleball Coach and Promoter, Sports Entrepreneur
At the heart of Lawton is Carlos López Toledo, a man whose life reflects the history of Cuban racquet sports and whose vision is actively reshaping their future.
López Toledo is a prominent sports entrepreneur, well-loved coach, and self-appointed historian of tennis in Cuba. He has dedicated himself to developing and preserving racquet sports across the country and is most notably recognized as the founder of Eco Tennis Cuba, a free development program aimed at increasing sports participation among children and local communities in Havana.
Now, López Toledo is growing pickleball in Cuba.
Where It All Began
López Toledo’s journey began at the young age six at the Ferroviario Club (Club Ferroviario), a historic venue founded in 1921 that has a long-standing tradition of tennis and is known for hosting tennis activities and fostering local talent.
The club, located less than 44 yards from López Toledo’s childhood home in Lawton, is where he quickly excelled as a junior player in the 10 and under division after first learning how to play tennis from his father, a coach at Ferroviario.
López Toledo stepped away from tennis because he briefly lost interest as a teenager, choosing to play baseball instead, but returned to tennis while attending the University of Cuban Sport (Universidad de La Habana).
After his father accepted a coaching job in the Dominican Republic, López Toledo stepped in to lead his father’s junior team in Lawton, a moment that permanently redefined his relationship with the sport.
“Sports don’t require major resources. they require innovation, inclusion, and opportunity.” — Carlos López Toledo, Pickleball Coach and Promoter, Sports Entrepreneur
From that moment on, he realized he loved teaching and shifted his focus from playing for himself to coaching and growing the sport in Cuba. Soon after, he launched Eco Tennis Cuba to make the sport accessible in public spaces like schoolyards and parks for all to play.
In addition to founding and leading Eco Tennis Cuba, López Toledo is a Level 2 coach for the Cuban Tennis Federation, where he specializes in youth development. His influence extends across multiple disciplines as the founder of Padel Cuba and an official ambassador for Thirty30 Tennis. He has also advanced inclusive sports on the island, introducing blind tennis, beach tennis, and specialized programs for children on the autism spectrum.
The Pickleball Frontier
The pivot from the “classic” centuries-old racket sport to the new plastic “pop” sound of pickleball happened for López Toledo during the global stillness of the COVID-19 pandemic. For a man whose life revolved around the court and teaching children, the lockdown was a challenge to his mission of inclusion.
While scrolling through social media, López Toledo first learned about pickleball and immediately saw its potential as a natural extension of his Eco Tennis philosophy. It required less space, was easier for beginners to learn than traditional tennis, and could be played on the very church patios and streets where Lawton’s community already gathered.
What started as a digital discovery turned into a national movement. In 2022, he helped make history at the Nguyen Van Troi School, the same school he attended as a first grader. It became the first Cuban institution to integrate pickleball into its curriculum, a full-circle moment proving that sports don’t require fancy stadiums to build opportunity. Because equipment isn’t manufactured in Cuba, every paddle and ball used by his students comes through international donations.
While López Toledo has become a driving force behind the sport’s expansion, pickleball’s roots in Cuba trace back to Lucy Mejías, a Cuban-American widely credited with first introducing the game to the island in 2019 right before COVID’s outbreak. Bringing early equipment and hosting informal clinics, she laid the foundation for what would follow. That early momentum has been sustained by advocates like Raudel Hernández, who continues to promote the sport across Cuba while representing the country in international competition.
Since helping drive pickleball’s growth by transforming schoolyards and streets of Lawton into improvised courts, López Toledo has taken on a broader leadership role in the sport’s development. He is the founder and President of the Cuban Pickleball Association and leads the Latin Junior Pickleball initiative aimed at helping young athletes earn international sports scholarships. He has also represented Cuba at international events, including the Pickleball World Cup in Peru, building global awareness while securing critical support and equipment for players on the island. With that foundation in place, López Toledo is now pitching a revolutionary future: converting existing tennis courts into multi-functional hybrid spaces capable of holding up to 16 portable pickleball courts. His goal is to create a “natural extension” of the U.S. racquet sport boom just 90 miles away, opening doors for sports tourism and “people’s diplomacy.”
Q&As — Inside His Mission
I spoke with López Toledo to learn more about one of Cuba’s pickleball pioneers, who is expanding the sport across Havana by making it accessible in everyday community spaces.
Q: Havana is a beautiful city. Growing up in Havana, what role did sports play in your early life?
López Toledo: “Since my father has a degree in physical education, I grew up around sports. He played tennis, squash, and baseball. I practiced from a young age at our local club, which is over 100 years old and just 40 meters from our home. After graduating, my father worked as a tennis coach with experience in the Dominican Republic, Colombia, and Saint Lucia.
From a young age, I was always at our club playing as many ball and racquet sports as possible. At age six, I started tennis and joined the municipal team alongside my friends Randy Blanco, now a professional pickleball player, and Roberto Cruz, currently a tennis and padel coach.
Around age 10 or 11, I joined the municipal baseball team and achieved strong results. This helped me later when I attended the University of Sports, where I joined the baseball team and competed in the National University Baseball Tournament.”
Q: The local club you are referring to is the Ferroviario Club, known throughout Cuba as the community tennis hub in Havana. What did the Club mean to you as a young player?
López Toledo: “The Ferroviario Club represents tradition; it means continuing the legacy of players who have been part of it for over 100 years. Representing the club was very important to me and it was the foundation of my later work developing tennis and pickleball in Cuba. It was where I first learned that sport is more than just a game. It’s about belonging to a community that supports your growth every step of the way.”
Q: What is Eco Tennis Cuba and why did you create it?
López Toledo: “Eco Tennis Cuba is a non-profit I founded, dedicated to popularizing tennis by making it accessible to everyone, regardless of skill level or resources. I was inspired while working on my university thesis about the environmental dimension of tennis in Cuba. Tennis had little visibility in Havana, so I set out to popularize and promote it in smaller spaces such as public parks and streets. Children embraced the clinics with huge enthusiasm, and parents, grandparents, and siblings often participate alongside the children. It’s been a great success.”
Q: How did your “tennis anywhere” philosophy develop?
López Toledo: “By using low-pressure balls, I was able to introduce something new in Cuba. My main motivation was to increase participation and make tennis accessible. Since the tennis industry here is bare-bones and equipment is scarce, I realized we didn’t need massive stadiums; we just needed a way to get a racket into people’s hands.
I wanted to show that tennis belongs wherever people are willing to play, whether that’s a schoolyard, a park, or even a low-traffic street. By focusing on ‘mini tennis’ with portable nets and low-pressure balls, I could create a recreational pathway where the sport is shared and built by the community. Ultimately, I want to preserve the tradition of Cuban tennis while transforming these everyday spaces into hubs of opportunity for the next generation.”
Q: Was it important to keep the program free and accessible?
López Toledo: “Yes! If I had charged, no one would participate. Offering it for free was the only way to implement it, grow it, and make it popular. It was the foundation of the program’s success. By not having a financial barrier, it allowed everyone to play.”
Q: Switching to pickleball, what made you decide to bring pickleball to Havana and what made you believe it could work? Why was introducing pickleball in schools such an important step?
López Toledo: “Children are motivated when you bring sports to schoolyards and community parks, especially something as accessible as pickleball and the fact that the schools welcome structured programs. I knew it could work because of my experience with Eco Tennis Cuba. Having already gained strong national and international acceptance and support, I knew that pickleball would thrive since it can be played in the same places. It felt like a natural next step.”
“Schools are essential because they allow for inter-school tournaments, which encourages growth.” — Carlos López Toledo, Pickleball Coach and Promoter, Sports Entrepreneur
Q: How did you start without paddles, balls, nets, or courts?
López Toledo: “We owe our start to Lucy Mejías, a Cuban- American who jump-started our efforts by donating eight pickleball paddles and several balls. She was instrumental in bringing the game to Cuba, introducing it anywhere she could find space—from alleyways and church courtyards to public parks and tourist centers.”
Q: How do you see Cuban youth progressing in the sport?
López Toledo: “Some are standing out, but we need international tournaments to keep them motivated and show them that their hard work has a global destination. We’ve turned streets and patios into courts, but the dream doesn’t stop there. By hosting international events, we give our young players a reason to stay in the sport and the chance to represent Cuba on the world stage. It’s about building a bridge between their everyday practice and their ultimate potential.”
Q: What are the biggest challenges for pickleball’s growth in Cuba today?
López Toledo: “Right now, our biggest hurdles are purely resource-based. Players struggle to find proper footwear for training and tournaments, and without consistent funding for transportation, getting to events is a constant battle. We are also operating without the support of major brands, sponsors, or investors, which means our coaches and instructors are essentially working for free. Finally, even when we have the talent, passport and travel restrictions often keep us from showing what Cuba can do on the international stage.
Beyond equipment and travel, the challenges run deeper. Access to proper nutrition remains a daily obstacle for many players, where even a simple post-training snack can make a meaningful difference in performance and recovery. Limited access to technology further restricts the program’s ability to grow, from editing video and photo content to building a consistent digital presence. High internet costs and infrastructure barriers make it difficult to share their work with the world, leaving initiatives like Pickleball Cuba and Latin Junior Pickleball without the visibility and web development support needed to scale.”
Q: Where do you see pickleball in Cuba in the next 5–10 years and what role do you hope Cuba will play in the global growth of the sport?
López Toledo: “I see pickleball becoming a fundamental part of the Cuban sporting identity. We started in a schoolyard at Nguyen Van Troi with nothing but a dream and the belief that passion outshines resources. My goal is to see our ‘street pickleball’ evolve into a professionalized movement, where Cuba is not just a destination in the Caribbean for sports tourism but a powerhouse of talent competing on the world stage.
I also see Cuba as the natural extension of the multi-billion- dollar racket sports industry growing just 90 miles away. We just need more opportunities, training, and education to position itself.
For brands, investors, and sports agents, our island is no longer a risk, it is an untapped opportunity to build the future together. I envision a professional ecosystem where international sponsors and talent hubs collaborate with us to transform our concrete schoolyards into world-class venues. This isn’t just about playing a game. It’s about opening a gateway for strategic investment that connects cultures and develops the next generation of professional talent.”
Q: What message would you share with the global pickleball community?
López Toledo: “What we are seeing globally is a movement that transcends sport. My message to the global pickleball community is simple: keep working the way you are. You have turned a simple game into a tool for innovation and social change, proving that with passion, we can transform any space—from a schoolyard to a stadium—into a community for everyone.”
Q: Looking ahead, what legacy would you like to leave?
López Toledo: “To be that the people of Cuba continue to champion this sport long after me. I want to prove that you don’t need massive stadiums to make an impact. All you need is community and passion. My dream is to see every schoolyard, like the one where I first played, transformed into a space for opportunity and friendship.”
A Game Without Borders
Today, the sound of a plastic ball striking a paddle has become part of the rhythm of daily life in pockets of Cuba. What began as a single idea, sparked during a moment of global stillness, has evolved into something far greater.
Carlos López Toledo is not just growing pickleball in Cuba, he is redefining how sport can exist without infrastructure, without funding, and without barriers. From schoolyards to streets, his work continues to expand what is possible, building something both deeply local and increasingly global.
The Pickleball Editorial Team produces in-depth reporting and cover features that examine the sport’s growth, innovation, competition, and culture. With contributors who understand both the strategy of the game and the forces shaping its future, the team is committed to telling the full story of modern pickleball.
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