Just like padel, beach tennis is one of those emerging racket sports that is growing in popularity around the world. It is very similar to its counterpart tennis but also has some similarities with padel. We will see how beach tennis skills can greatly help you become a future padel player.

Beach tennis technical shots

FFT enlightens us a little more about the technical moves of this sport:

The service : It is carried out a little in the same way as in tennis except that the players have only from a single service for the face-off. If the player makes the fault, that will be the point for the opponents.

Return of service : Attitude of attention goes hand in hand with maximum concentration. The main mistake we tend to make when starting out is to position ourselves too far from the net.

Forehand / backhand volley : The technique remains relatively the same as in tennis, however, there will be a little less preparation for playing the shots due to the speed of the ball and the close combat on the fly.

Amortization : It is carried out a bit like badminton, the racket is rather placed at the top of the net to come and drop the ball just behind the net. The ball is therefore caught quite early. There is also a variation with the cushioned smash which consists in making a fake smash to finally drop the ball gently.

There is a good tennis base in this sport. The tennis players will therefore have a great advantage to start there. Beach tennis still has some specific moves that allow it to have its own culture:

The dives: They can be sideways / back / forward, to get a ball in defense.

The rolled arm: This gesture allows you to hit the ball behind you with a circular gesture while jumping. You could think of it as a little ticking smash.

Rainbow shot: This is the shot that surely requires the most technique. To put it simply, this is a backhand made with the forehand face.

The similarities between beach tennis and padel

Land size: They are not quite the same but almost, the size of a beach tennis court is 8 meters wide by 16 meters long, the padel court is played on 10 meters wide by 20 meters long. Beach tennis players will have a kind of spatial reference when they start padel since the measurements of the court are relatively the same.

The fly : This is the main element of this sport since there is no rebound. Players will therefore have to serve like in tennis and then stick to the net to make a certain number of volleys. Technically this is very similar to the volley in padel, however due to the height of the net, players will tend to place their elbows a little higher, at head level. It is a sport that is played very quickly with many reflexes so players often just put their racket in opposition to block the ball.

The lob : To change the rhythm during the point, players tend to perform lobs that destabilize the volleyball players a little. We obviously don't find the lob after rebound like in padel but just a blocked volley whose trajectory goes high. It is more of a finesse shot with ball touch rather than a technical shot with a preparation phase. It looks a bit like the lobbed volley in padel.

Reflexes: If there were two parameters to remember in beach tennis, they would obviously be volleys and reflexes. Indeed, players sticking to the net receive a tennis serve while they are only 8 meters away from the server. Reflex is therefore one of the most important skills to have when practicing this sport. To give an example of a comparison of reflexes between these two sports, we can imagine a padel player performing a bajada as the opponents stick the net to intercept. The reflexes will therefore be put to the test to counter the ball. In addition to reflexes, beach tennis is undoubtedly an even more explosive sport (in terms of the duration of the match) since the exchanges are faster between the opponents. It will therefore be necessary to use reflexes and explosiveness to win the points!

 

There are a number of similarities between these two sports with a large base of volleys. Beach tennis players will probably have no trouble adapting to the playing conditions of padel. However, there remains one parameter that could be destabilizing, which is the bounce. If they do not have a tennis base, it will take them a little time to master the shots after the bounce, and more particularly the balls that hit the windows.

 

Alexandre Cifuentes

Alexandre Cifuentes studies economics. He decided to intervene on the padel business and the sports market in general. He allows us to know about padel in its entirety.

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