Things You Need to Know About Padel Sport

In competition, padel is only played as doubles - two against two - and also as one against one for training purposes. The padel court is a rectangular playing field ten meters wide and 20 meters long, usually with an artificial turf surface. As in tennis, a net divides the court into two halves halfway along the long side. As in squash, the court is surrounded on all sides by walls three to four meters high, which can be included in the rally.

The game begins with a serve "from below". The ball may hit the ground a maximum of once. Volleys are of course allowed, but the ball can also bounce against one or more side walls after touching down in the court and then be played on. This often results in long and exciting rallies that make for great fun. You hardly ever see boring baseline duels in padel, but you do see serves and volleys, lobs, smashes and spectacular rallies.

As with tennis or squash, padel is played with balls and rackets. However, these are slightly different. Visually, the balls look like tennis balls. However, their internal pressure is slightly lower to prevent the ball from bouncing too high.

You can see the difference directly in the rackets: in contrast to a tennis or squash racket, the padel racket is not strung with strings, but has a solid hitting surface. This has a core made of a slightly elastic foam-rubber mixture, which is covered with a layer of plastic. Its paddle-like appearance gives the sport its name.

Padel is still a young sport that was invented in Mexico. The first padel court was built there in Acapulco in 1965 by Don Enrique Corcuera.

Because he didn't have enough space, Corcuera is said to have built a smaller version using exactly half of a doubles tennis court, which fitted perfectly on his property. Because of the smaller court, he also made some changes to the rules of the game and inspired friends and acquaintances with his new sport.

In many countries in Central and South America, padel has already established itself as an extremely popular popular and competitive sport. From South America, padel began its triumphal march to Europe. First to Spain and Portugal, then to Italy, France and Sweden. Padel is also booming in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Padel has been the fastest growing sport in the world for some time now. In Spain, padel is now the second largest sport after soccer. Padel courts can be found there both in the numerous municipal multi-sports facilities and in publicly operated sports centers, some of which have more than 25 padel courts.

Many tennis clubs and hotel complexes have also long since recognized the attractiveness of the sport and expanded their sports offering to include padel. There are more than five million players in Spain alone.

Incidentally, one of the most prominent padel fans is probably the coach of Liverpool Football Club, Jürgen Klopp. He first came into contact with padel a few years ago and was completely hooked, immediately arranging for two courts to be installed at his club's training ground.

With padel courts, a commercial tennis venue can consolidate and very likely significantly increase its turnover, as at least two courts fit on the surface of one tennis court.

The same applies to the number of members in a tennis club. Normally, tennis is played in pairs. Padel, on the other hand, is played exclusively by four players. After the conversion of one tennis court into two or sometimes even three padel courts, there are now 8 to 12 people playing padel on the same surface instead of two people playing tennis. This quickly generates a significantly higher turnover. In addition, padel courts are usually equipped with floodlights, which leads to longer playing times in the evening.

The sources of income for a padel court are the same as for tennis: court rental, courses, tournaments, equipment sales and sponsors. However, as the outdoor areas of the padel court can also be rented out as advertising space, more advertising space is available. Sponsors are easier to find if their advertising is visible.