More where did these famous strange bounces go which annoy us so much when the ball hits the side grids or the baseline grid?

More and more, whether on the World Padel Tour, Premier Padel and A1Padel, the tracks installed for the occasion no longer seem to offer these famous irregular bounces of the grids which made it possible to have a complicated bounce and sometimes even impossible to recover.

The further we advance, the closer the grid gets to the bouncing of the windows, and it's very sad. Because the grid and its famous indecisive and capricious rebounds which once caused so much talk disappear for a clearer, unsurprising, flavorless bounce.

What a pity ! Touching the grid was also a game strategy: playing diagonally, obtaining the grid to surprise the opponent and, a bit like the lottery, hoping for a favorable rebound which destabilizes the opponent, it was good. But be careful, this rebound could turn against the sender with a rebound which, instead of surprising, will allow the opponent to take the game into their own hands.

Diestro grill
Leal grid
Leal grid
kuikma grille melendez
Victor led lying down track
lamperti grill
Paris Premier Padel 2023

But in Malmö, or even in Menorca, we keep seeing these same rebounds, with some exceptions, which no longer surprise the players on either side.

And if this desire of the organizers did not ultimately harm the richness of the game and the very essence of the padel ? This irregular grid, which is part of the DNA of our sport, where is it?

In Sweden, the game was very slow, with sometimes points lasting very (too?) long. This option of playing the grid to try to disrupt with an indecisive rebound could have spiced up the game... It was not, except for a few rare exceptions, nothing. And it's very sad. Even more so when there is play, the track is slow and strategy takes on all its importance.

So as always, the idea is not to go from one extreme to another, but a slightly less smooth grid would be nice. This evolution of the impact of the grid in the game on the professional circuits is certainly a shame.

Franck Binisti

Franck Binisti discovers the padel at the Club des Pyramides in 2009 in the Paris region. Since padel is part of his life. You often see him touring France going to cover the major events of padel French.

On the same subject