The former Spanish player Ferrer, ranked third in the world, recently participated in a professional Padel competition and reached the final in one fell swoop. When the media thought he was going to enter the sport, Ferrer said that this was just his new hobby and had no plans to become a professional player.

So what is padle tennis?

Padle tennis combines the technical characteristics of tennis, squash, table tennis, badminton, etc. It is a ball game played on a fully enclosed dedicated court.

The field is 20 meters long and 10 meters wide. The distance between the net and the bottom line is 6.95 meters, and the center line is 5 meters on each side of the square.

At the bottom of the court, toughened glass is used as a defensive wall, surrounded by metal mesh.

Rules:

Doubles use the entire field, and singles only use a 6×20-meter field.

The serve must be sent diagonally to the opponent’s diagonal field after the line of service. However, the serve must be below the waist, that is, the start serves.

After the ball hits the glass or fence after it hits the ground, the player can continue to hit it.

The scoring rules are the same as tennis.

Origin and development

Paddle tennis originated in Acapulco, Mexico in 1969. At first it was popular in Spain, Mexico, Andorra, and Argentina and other Hispanic countries, but now it is beginning to spread rapidly to Europe and other continents.

The paddle tennis professional circuit was created in 2005 by the tournament organizers and professional players’ associations and the Federation of Spanish Women’s Associations. The most important paddle tennis event at the moment is the Spanish Tour.

Paddle tennis is popular with many British tourists on the Costa del Sol in southern Spain and the Algarve in southern Portugal. This has made paddle tennis more and more important in the UK. The UK established the British Paddle Tennis Association in 2011.

The U.S. Cricket Association was established in Tennessee in 1993 and opened two courts in the Chattanooga area.

In 2016, China introduced paddle tennis; the 2017 paddle tennis tournament was held at the Beijing Tennis Sports Management Center; in 2018, the first Chinese paddle tennis tournament was held in Shandong Dezhou; October 2019, the China Tennis Association joined the International Paddle Tennis Federation .

At present, paddle tennis has been launched in 78 countries, of which 35 countries have joined the International Paddle Tennis Federation. In the Asia-Pacific region, Japan, Australia, India, Thailand, and China have become full member states.