Could we resume the tournaments?

It's been a week since the padel resumed in France in leisure mode. Would it be possible to resume tournaments quickly? Let's try to find arguments.

Could we resume tournaments from padel before summer ?

We are not at all decision makers, people who can weigh in the balance, but we have our say as practitioners and especially as enthusiasts of padel.

The subject is not the padel professional, but the padel amateur. We are not talking about WPT tournaments, P2000 or even P1000 which attract in addition to top players, spectators.

We would like to talk about all these tournaments that bring life to clubs padel during the summer, and which attract local players. We are talking about the P500, P250 and P100. Would it be possible to put them back on the road from July 1?

We have just resumed the activity that we already want to do tournaments ... But why wait if we respect the sanitary conditions. Obviously, everyone will have their opinion, here are our arguments:

The public

In these tournaments, generally, only the players present themselves. Sometimes the spouses but it is rather rare. To relaunch the tournaments, it would be necessary to authorize the access to the installations only to the actors.

Schedules

Some tournaments take place over several days. In this case, no problem. You have a match date and time. You introduce yourself, you play, and you leave as for a leisure match.

For tournaments in a shorter time, on a day or an evening, instead of focusing on the score, it might be better to focus on time. After one hour or 1 hours, all players are spinning at the same time.

Access to the slopes

When coming to the club, players can wear a mask and gloves. Once installed on the edges of the field, at a prescribed distance from their opponents, they can leave their protections. Whenever you change sides (if there are any), you can ask them to disinfect their hands.

At the end of each match, everyone puts on their protection. Access to the changing rooms remains prohibited.

The balls

This is one of the major concerns during a padel. We are talking about marked balls which could be an idea for tournaments. Another idea could be that each player has in his possession 2 balls which he would only use during his service plays.

End cleaning

The disinfection of the windows after each match can be carried out without worries.

The final word

Would it be possible to resume tournaments quickly? It's up to you to see and answer because we give you the arguments. Of course, you have to be reasonable. We are not going to directly revive big tournaments which require players to cross France and which include the public, but to start with local tournaments and behind closed doors, without public.

And as it is summer, it would be better to favor outdoor matches, not by preference, but by logic.

What do you think ?

Julien Bondia

Julien Bondia is a teacher of padel in Tenerife (Spain). Columnist and advisor, he helps you play better through his tutorials and tactical/technical articles padel.