HEAD

Heritage

Howard Head worked as a riveter and then engineer at the Glenn L. Martin aircraft company from 1939. After a first, frustrating ski trip to Stowe, Vermont, in 1946 he set out to build a better ski using aircraft techniques, and in 1947 began his 'honeycomb' project: two layers of aluminium bonded to plywood sidewalls around a plastic honeycomb core. He left Martin in January 1948 to work on it full time.

In 1950 he incorporated HEAD Ski Company, Inc. Take-up was slow at first, but according to company records HEAD was the leading ski brand in the United States and Europe by 1955, and Olympic wins on HEAD skis in the 1960s ended the era of hickory skis. Patents on metal ski construction gave the company a strong position.

HEAD started a tennis division in 1968 and in 1969 showed the first metal (aluminium) tennis racquet at the US Open. The same year Howard Head sold the company to AMF and retired. HEAD-sponsored Arthur Ashe won Wimbledon in 1975, beating Jimmy Connors.

AMF was taken over by Minstar in 1985. In 1989 management bought out HEAD, Tyrolia and Mares to form HTM, which was sold to Austria Tabak in 1993. Johan Eliasch gained control in 1995, focused the business on winter sports, tennis and diving, added licensing, and returned it to profit in 1997. HTM introduced a titanium and graphite racquet in 1997, bought Dacor in 1998 and Penn tennis balls in 1999.

HEAD N.V. was formed and listed in 2000, and HEAD became a privately owned company again in 2013. Its tennis roster has included Grand Slam champions such as Novak Djokovic, Andy Murray and Maria Sharapova (all 2012 Grand Slam winners with HEAD), and Jannik Sinner, who won the 2024 Australian Open with a HEAD Speed. In 2025 HEAD acquired the Aqualung group, adding Apeks and Aquasphere to its diving brands.

HEAD's padel story began in Argentina. In 1989 the entrepreneur Billy Mosche produced padel racquets under licence, and in 2000 HEAD Padel officially started, led by Eduardo Vieytes, then HEAD's commercial manager in Argentina. Early racquets were made of lightweight Kiri wood from the Misiones forests with a fibreglass resin coating. Gustavo Maquirriain recalls that HEAD signed him and his brother Javier, the top Argentine pair, in the 1990s; Daniela Álvarez and Jorge Nicolini were among the other early HEAD players.

As padel grew in Spain, HEAD built a series-based range. The Alpha series ran for about six years until December 2022, when it was replaced by the Speed series, led by Ari Sánchez. The diamond-shaped Delta series launched in 2020, and its December 2021 update was the first to carry HEAD's Auxetic construction in the bridge. The round, control-focused Gravity series followed in 2022, and the Extreme series became the power line, with the Extreme Pro named best power racquet of 2024 at the Best Padel Awards (as reported by Padel Addict).

In 2024 HEAD players held the world No. 1 positions in both tours: Arturo Coello on the men's side, and Ari Sánchez and Paula Josemaría, who set the record as the most successful women's pair. HEAD players won 29 FIP tournaments that year. In January 2025 Coello launched his own Coello collection of five racquets and two bags in Madrid, and his contract was extended to 2028.

2025 marked HEAD's 75th anniversary and HEAD Padel's 25th. During the year HEAD was official ball at the Gijón, Santiago and Bordeaux Premier Padel events (and official racquet in Bordeaux), extended its deal as official ball of the Asia Pacific Padel Tour, and launched the single-hole ONE collection, the Radical padel range and the Motion Pro BOA 1.5 shoe. Coello finished 2025 as world No. 1 after winning the Barcelona Finals.

In 2026 HEAD updated the Extreme Pro and Extreme Motion (the latter endorsed by Paula Josemaría) with Auxetic 2.0 and unidirectional carbon, released a 2026 Coello collection, was official ball at the Gijón P2 and Valencia P1, and was named official accessories partner of the London Premier Padel P1 at Olympia (2 to 9 August 2026), the first Premier Padel event in the UK.