Tuesday, March 22, 2011

AUSTRALIAN PADEL FEDERATION - GREAT PADEL NEWS FROM DOWN UNDER

CHECK OUT THEIR WEBSITE.
GREAT WORK ...
http://www.australianpadelfederation.org.au/

And read their article....

What is Padel?

21st Century Racquet Sport

The game of Padel has been likened to ‘tennis with walls' and 'squash in the sun’.
It is a sport that combines the best elements of tennis, squash and racquetball.
It has gained tremendous popularity due to its simplicity and similarities to already existing racquet sports.
Padel is played in doubles on an enclosed court measuring 10m wide by 20m long.
The rules allow for the use of the back and sidewalls, resulting in longer rallies.
The balls used are tennis balls, the scoring the same as tennis, all the serves are underhand.

Padel is a fun game to play and appeals to a wide population.
Children enjoy playing as it is easy to learn, promotes teamwork, whilst improving their hand-eye coordination.
It is a family game.
Men and women and youth can compete together without physical strength being the sole determinate of the winner.
The smaller court size brings everyone closer, making social conversation a much more integral part of the game.
In short Padel is a great game for players of all ages and skills as it is both quick and easy to pick up and is less physically demanding than similar sports like squash.
Most players get the grasp of the game within the first 20 minutes of playing and find it easy to achieve a level of proficiency so that they can enjoy it because the game is not as dominated by strength and serve as tennis.

Rules Of Play - Brief Padel Rules

Format

All play is doubles format

Scoring

Padel has the same scoring system as in Tennis.

Service

In Padel, all play begins with an underhand serve from the right service court into the opponents court. This is played diagonally as in tennis.
The server must allow the ball to bounce once before hitting it and the ball must be hit below waist level.
The serve must land in the opponents service box. If the ball bounces in the service box and strikes the side or back wall, it is a valid serve and must be played by the opposing player. If the ball lands in the service box and hits the wire fencing, it is considered a fault.
The server must keep at least one foot on the ground when hitting the serve. The server’s feet must not touch or cross the service line when serving.
In Padel, as in tennis, the server has two opportunities to complete the serve.

Play

The following are considered fair play situations in the sport of Padel:

The court lines are considered in play only during the initial serve. After that they are not a factor in determining the outcome of each point in the game between opposing players.
All players are permitted to play a ball off any of the walls on their own side of the court.

Loss of Point

The opposition wins a point when any of the following events occur:

The ball bounces twice in any area of your side of the court.
The ball hits the wire fencing, posts or any other fixture before going over the net or landing on the opponents court.

Out of Bounds

The ball is considered out of bounds and a point is given to the opposing players if the ball hits the wire fence or walls before bouncing on the opponents side of the court.

Overhand Strokes

The ball can be taken in the air by any player except on the initial serve and return of serve.

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IKER CASILLAS - REAL MADRID´S STAR GOALKEEPER PLAYS PADEL

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WE LOVE PADEL ....

PADEL´S SPECIFIC GLOSSARY -

Though Padel's Glossary is very similar to tennis, there are some specific words which attain this sport.

Common words with tennis
Backhand – hitting the ball with the back of the racquet hand facing the ball at the moment of contact.
Drop shot – a play in which the player hits the ball lightly enough to just go over the net; designed to catch a player who is away from the net off guard.
Forehand or Drive – the player hits the tennis ball with a stroke that comes from behind their body with the front of their racquet hand facing the ball.
Lob – a stroke in padel where the ball is hit high above the net. In Padel, lobs are played deffensively, when opponents are at the net, in order to force them to chase down the ball.
Smash - a situation when the player is hitting the ball over his/her head, with an extra amount of strength, in order to make the ball leave the court after bouncing or come back to his own part of the court.
Volley – a forehand or backhand shot executed before the ball bounces in the court.

Spins

Topspin – spin of a ball where the top of the ball rotates toward the direction of travel; the spin goes forward over the top of the ball, causing the ball to dip and bounce at a higher angle to the court. When the ball hits the wall with this spin, it bounces higher and with less speed.
It's also known "lift" in Spain.
Backspin – (also known as slice or underspin), is a shot such that the ball rotates backwards after it is hit. The trajectory of the shot involves an upward force that lifts the ball.
Flat – a shot without spin.

Since topspin performed with a backhand is very rare and hard to perform in Padel, players tend to use spin for the topspin made with the forehand (or drive).

Specific Padel words

Bandeja( Ban-dae-ha:) - Fig." to do the tray". A kind of smash shot, used mainly to win the net and define the point from there. The main difference with the usual smash is the bandeja shot is made with less power, more spin and consequently has more safety. It is mainly pointed to the side wall and corner, in order to have more time to recover our attack position and make things difficult to our opponent. The ball is not hit overhead but by the side.

Counterwall - A deffensive hit performed with the player facing the wall. The ball is hit from below, it bounces on the wall and finally goes over the net making a lob.

Dormilona ( Door-mee-lon-ae ) - fig." to do the sleepyhead" Action consisting in a smooth shot in the ball when returns to our side of the pitch, after hitting our back wall when our opponent has executed a smash. When this happens, the ball is coming like floating next to the net, and we take advantage of this fact by rapping the ball at its back side with a smooth slice on it, which will make it returning to our side in a spectacular and soflty way after rebound in the court, with no option of replying for our opponent.

Viper - A kind of smash inbetween a power smash and a bandeja. Performed overhead, it combines a certain amount of strength with bandeja's spin.

Now, let's get down to the hardests expressions when it comes to the ball leaving the court.

Padel's fences measure 3 meters at both sides and 4 meters at the extreme of the court.
One of the purposes of smashing is to make the ball leave the court.

Depending on the height, we can call it "take the ball off the court by 3 meters or by 4 meters".

Shortly, this expression is shortened to "take it out over 3" or "leave over 3".

PADEL MONITOR COURSE IN SANTANDER

Monday, March 21, 2011

WAS IST PADEL?

Padel ist eine dynamische Mischung aus Tennis und Squash und verbindet die Vorzüge beider Sportarten. Gespielt wird auf einem tennisähnlichen Spielfeld (20 m x 10 m), das durch ein Mittelnetz in zwei Hälften geteilt und von Glas- und Gitterwänden umgeben ist.

Padel hält sich an die Grundregeln des Tennis, wie beispielweise der klassischen Zählweise. Spielerische Besonderheiten sind vor allem die Angabe von unten bzw. unterhalb der Hüfte sowie die systematische und strategische Verwendung der Glas- bzw. Gitterwände.

Die Padelschläger unterscheiden sich von den Schlägern anderer Racketsportarten. Sie verfügen über keine Bespannung sondern bestehen aus einer stabilen glatten Kunststoffoberfläche, die von einer nicht limitierten Anzahl von Löchern vervollständigt wird. Im Gegensatz zu den Schlägern lassen sich die Padelbälle optisch nicht von Tennisbällen unterscheiden. Sie verfügen jedoch über einen geringeren Luftdruck, so dass die Padelbälle langsamer sind.
Geschichte des Padel

Im Jahre 1965 beginnt in Acapulco (Mexiko) die einzigartige Erfolgsgeschichte des Padel-Sports.

Enrique Concuera (Begründer des Padel) baute damals eine ca. 3 Meter hohe Wand an das Stirnende eines an seiner Hauswand anliegenden Tennisfeldes und schloss die Seiten mit Maschendraht ab. Gespielt wurde zu diesem Zeitpunkt noch Holzschlägern, die ihren Ursprung im Paddle-Tennis haben, das um 1915 in New York entstanden ist.
Die Trendsportart Padel breitet sich seither auf dem gesamten Südamerikanischen-Kontinent aus und hat sich in sämtlichen Nationen etabliert. Der enorme ,,Boom‘‘ brachte Padel schnell nach Europa und etablierte sich vor allem in Spanien. Hier gibt es mittlerweile über 250.000 Padel-Courts und etwa 2 Millionen Spieler. Der Boom hält weiter an und so rechnet der Spanische Padel-Verband mit einer Verdopplung der Spieler auf 3 Millionen in den nächsten Jahren.

Neben Padel als Fun-Sportart steht auch die Professionalisierung der Sportart immer mehr im Mittelpunkt und so richtete die Padel Pro Tour (PPT) mittlerweile etwa 30 internationale Turniere über das Jahr verteilt aus.