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    All About Padel: The Complete Guide for Beginners
    All About Padel: The Complete Guide for Beginners
    All About Padel: The Complete Guide for Beginners
    Ebook105 pages1 hour

    All About Padel: The Complete Guide for Beginners

    By Kim Feldmann

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    About this ebook

    Padel is the fastest growing and most exciting sport in the world. All About Padel: The Complete Guide for Beginners will tell you everything you need to know about padel. The book covers the rules, techniques, equipment and etiquette of padel. You will also learn how to use court positioning to your advantage and how to make most of teamwork in doubles play. The guide also features several interviews with international padel players. Among them are enthusiastic amateurs as well as one of the top female padel players in the world. Pick up this book and you are on your way to being proficient in padel!
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOppian
    Release dateAug 9, 2021
    ISBN9789518777802
    All About Padel: The Complete Guide for Beginners

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      Book preview

      All About Padel - Kim Feldmann

      Chapter One

      What is Padel?

      Woman playing padel

      Among the genealogy of all sports, Padel (from Spanish pádel meaning paddle) belongs to the family of racquet sports. And like any racquet sport, it is a direct descendant of tennis. As such, padel embodies its predecessor’s rules and regulations, its tactical mentality, its jargon and etiquette. Both practices essentially follow the same objective: to use the racquet, or paddle, to hit a ball over the net and onto the opponent’s side, attempting to make it bounce twice to avoid committing a fault. Even the scoring takes the same 15s, game, set, match format. These similarities corroborate why padel is often seen as a version of tennis, but one might also call it a cross-pollination between tennis and squash, since it boasts the latter’s fast pace and dynamism. Still, padel has idiosyncrasies that distinguish it from its close siblings and render it a sport of its own.

      Anyone watching or playing a match of padel will notice its main distinguishing feature straight away. Instead of serving above-head – one of the most physically and technically restrictive moves in conventional tennis – padel players serve underarm, bouncing the ball and hitting it below the waistline. This aspect alone makes for a less intense start, allowing the opponent to easily return the serve and the point to carry on. This means that almost anyone, regardless of technical know-how, can begin playing at once. The stringless racquet – or paddle – used by padel players is shorter and lighter than a tennis racquet and has a solid, perforated surface. The ball is akin to that of tennis, only slightly depressurised. With this more elementary equipment, players needn’t apply powerful strokes to get the ball over the net, making it an overall less strenuous practice ideal for all physical conditions.

      Likewise influencing the facility of play is the layout of the pitch. As in squash, a match of padel takes place on an enclosed court, and shots can be hit off the (usually glass) walls. An extra dimension makes the game more dynamic, with the average rally lasting between 10-15s, compared to 3-5s in tennis. The playing area is roughly a third of the size of conventional tennis. Single-format games, carried out on a 6×20m court, aren’t unheard of. Yet, padel is mostly a doubles game played in pitches of 10×20m. Such a significantly smaller area means players need to cover less ground during the point, therefore avoiding the explosive moves and short-distance dashes ever-present in tennis. Being closer together also encourages social interaction – an integral quality in padel – rendering the sport popular for its cooperative and strategic inclinations.

      If tennis is checkers, padel is chess, says Lee Sponaugle, President of All Racquet Sports USA, the country’s leading padel-related institution. What Sponaugle refers to is one of the subtle, underlying differences between tennis and padel. The first draws largely on the player’s expertise to finish off the point. The latter draws on the player’s ability to keep the ball at play until the point finishes. Or, as the professional player and tournament director, Kendall Osbourne, puts it, [At padel] you should never drive the ball with the intention of ending the point. Use the drive only to set yourself up for a better opportunity. Incidentally, this strategic tendency makes padel less reliant on strength and power and more on vision and cooperation between partners.

      Partnership, cooperation, and inclusiveness are indeed the main factors responsible for attracting so many players. Padel is often regarded as a family sport, popular among male and female, youth and senior. It invites everyone to play together without skill level and physical strength making or breaking the match. American pro John Milbank describes padel as A game of will [rather] than skill. He remarks that the sport is More about the mental aspect of competition than it is about the talent/physical aspects, and that You don’t need to be a young, great athlete to excel at the game.

      Beyond being inclusive, padel is a great aerobic exercise. Several studies have been conducted to assess its benefits on improving overall fitness, as well as coordination and reflexes in different age and gender groups. Psychologically, the sport stimulates goal-setting and paced evolution, both of which foster a personal commitment to achieving your best and knowing your limits. Teamwork is a cardinal part of padel, and when observed collectively, the dynamics involved in succeeding in a match hone intrapersonal and interpersonal values to be carried outside the court. Whether playing with family members, co-workers, friends, or strangers, the level of co-dependence in actions and responsibilities allows for unique types of bonding, all of which is compounded by the sheer fun and active lifestyle the game promotes.

      Though often associated with platform tennis or paddle tennis (aka Pop Tennis) to the point of being used interchangeably, padel is a sport of its own. Firstly, it is unique because of fundamental elements such as a walled perimeter around the court and the use of an actual tennis ball as opposed to a soft sponge rubber. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, unlike its American counterparts, the Mexican origin of padel bore particular motifs, directing its evolution toward a distinct track which, despite their shared heritage, led to independent governing bodies.

      Padel has currently about 18 million active players in more than 54 countries, out of which 300 thousand are part of one of the 43 national federations. Padel is the second-most-popular sport in Spain, with around 6 million players and 20 thousand courts. It has been considered one of the fastest-growing sports in the world, with names like footballer Lionel Messi, British tennis professional Jamie Murray, and Liverpool F.C. manager Jurgen Klopp as avid advocates. Though not yet an Olympic sport, the International Padel Federation has a development programme in place to expand the sport and meet the eligibility threshold. One thing is certain, however: it may have taken longer than tennis to popularise, but padel is here to stay.

      Chapter Two

      The History of Padel

      Padel racquet and ball

      As a by-product of other racquet sports, the history of padel is somewhat hazy. Although documents and literature confirm that the current version of the sport is less than a hundred years old, it wouldn’t be far-fetched to say that its history began in the 12th century. It surely makes sense to relate the origin of padel to that of tennis, whose modern edition (officially known as lawn tennis) became popularised in the late 19th century in England. Likewise, it wouldn’t be unfair to affirm that its inception branched off from the two American inventions of similar name and rules created in New York in the 20th century, which remain its closest siblings.

      From hand to racquet to paddle

      Back in the 1200s, the Jeu de paume (game of the palm or palm game) set forth a novel branch of ball-and-court games. It began in northern France and was soon introduced to Paris by Louis X, where it picked up momentum. The game had its own set of rules and regulations, with at least three players on each side whose objective was to strike the ball with the palm of the hand over a net and onto the other side of the court. It was played both outdoors (as longue paume or long palm) and indoors (as courte paume or short palm).

      The game spread across Europe, and in the 16th century, the first racquets were introduced. Around the same time, Jeu de paume metamorphosed into tennis. The name was adapted from the French tenez (take in English), which players commonly called out to their opponents before serving. Tennis underwent a boom in Britain, where it was played mainly on enclosed, indoor courts, with the possibility of hitting the ball off the walls – thus bearing the first vestiges of contemporary padel. It eventually became known as real tennis or royal tennis.

      New iterations of the game emerged

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