Tennis and volleyball combination
For the sport called "beach paddleball", see Matkot.
For other sports called "paddleball", see Paddleball (sport).
Beach tennis is 🧲 a game combining elements of tennis and volleyball and played on a beach.
Overview [ edit ]
Beach tennis is played in 🧲 over 50 countries and by more than half a million people, with its greatest popularity occurring in Italy, Brazil and 🧲 Spain.
Beach tennis offers a highly aerobic cardio workout with low impact to the knees and joints because it is played 🧲 on sand.
The sport preserves most of the rules and scoring of traditional tennis, though modifications have been made to adapt 🧲 to movement around the sand court and to the faster pace of the game.
As the ball may not touch the 🧲 ground, the game is played entirely with volleys, which makes for a quicker game than does traditional tennis.
Points start with 🧲 a serve and end when the ball touches the ground, forcing players to dive to reach difficult plays in a 🧲 similar manner used by volleyball players.
The objective is to return the ball with only one hit so that it reaches 🧲 the opposing side of the net.
A depressurized tennis ball, which travels more slowly through the air than does a regulation 🧲 tennis ball, is used for beach tennis to allow for longer rallies.
The sport is usually played by two-person teams on 🧲 a regulation beach-volleyball court with a 5-foot-7-inch-high net.[1]
Beach tennis rackets and ballsHistory [ edit ]
Beach tennis emerged in Italy in 🧲 the early 1970s when tennis players on vacation in Lido degli Estensi, in the Ferrara town of Comacchio, played using 🧲 their rackets and the existing volleyball nets already installed on the beach.
[2][3] The game was played for the first time 🧲 with its current set of rules in Torredembarra, Spain in 1976.
The first championship was played in Torredembarra in 1978.
Since then 🧲 (with few interruptions), it takes place on the same beach every year.
Over the years, the sport spread to the beaches 🧲 along the coast of Italy, and it is estimated that there are now more than 1,600 beach-tennis nets along the 🧲 Italian coast in addition to a growing number of inland and indoor courts.
There are an estimated 250,000 Italian beach tennis 🧲 players.
The international spread [ edit ]
Beach tennis arrived on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro around 2008, and the sport 🧲 now dominates about one-third of the beach-volleyball courts along the Brazilian coast, and there are more than 50,000 beach tennis 🧲 players in Brazil.
Most Brazilian tennis clubs have converted, or are converting, at least one traditional tennis court into a few 🧲 beach-tennis courts.
Though originally played only on beaches, beach tennis is now played at tennis clubs, indoor beach tennis/volleyball warehouses, country 🧲 clubs, resorts, gyms and sand arenas.
Some believe that the sport is entering its golden age following its recognition by the 🧲 International Tennis Federation (ITF) in 2010.
The ITF now manages the most well-known and reputable international ranking of beach-tennis players.
The ITF 🧲 is allocating resources to the development of the sport and has set up exposition sand courts at professional tennis tournaments 🧲 such as the Japan Open, Roland-Garros, the Australian Open and the US Open.
Top tennis players who have played beach tennis 🧲 include Maria Sharapova, Serena Williams, Victoria Azarenka, Andy Murray, the Bryan brothers, Rafael Nadal and Gustavo Kuerten.
The ITF also supports 🧲 beach tennis by sanctioning tournaments.
In 2013, the ITF began to organize regional and world championships.
By 2015, 89 official sanctioned tournaments 🧲 were held worldwide annually, and thousands more unofficial tournaments are held around the world each year.
In 2015 the Pan-American games 🧲 were held in Santos, São Paulo, Brazil, with participants from 16 countries.
Also in 2015, a team championship tournament was held 🧲 in Moscow with participants from 28 countries, with adult, junior, male and female teams
In the United States [ edit ]
Beach 🧲 tennis was formalized in the United States in 2005 by Marc Altheim,[4] who discovered the sport on a trip to 🧲 Aruba in 2003.
[4] The sport had been played there since 2000,[4] having been introduced by a Dutchman.
[5] As of 2007, 🧲 beach tennis had made progress toward acceptance as a mainstream sport, with an official standards organization known as Beach Tennis 🧲 USA (BT USA).
In 2007, BT USA reached television deals with the Tennis Channel and SNY, but the organization is no 🧲 longer active.
The Beach Tennis Association currently maintains player rankings and operates tournaments in Southern California.[6]
ITF Beach Tennis World Championship [ 🧲 edit ]
ITF Beach Tennis World Team Championship [ edit ]
Event Gold Silver Bronze 2013 Brazil Italy Russia 2014 Italy Brazil 🧲 Russia 2015 Italy Russia Spain 2016 Russia Italy France 2017 Italy Brazil Russia 2018 Brazil Italy Russia 2019 Brazil Russia 🧲 Italy 2021 Brazil Italy 2022 Italy BrazilNotes [ edit ]
a b Each year is linked to an article about that 🧲 particular year's draw.
a b The dash means that the result or score is unknown because there are no available sources 🧲 for this information.
† indicates 1 ranking.
