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Highest governing body | International Federation Beach Tennis, Also International Tennis Federation |
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First played | c. 1972 in Italy |
Characteristics | |
Contact | none |
Team members | singles and doubles |
Mixed-sex | yes, separate tours and mixed doubles |
Type | racket sport |
Equipment | rackets, balls and net |
Venue | outdoor |
Presence | |
Country or region | Worldwide |
Beach tennis is a game combining elements of tennis and volleyball and played on a beach.
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, but the ball is not allowed to touch the ground, and other modifications have been made to adapt to movement around the sand court and to the faster pace of the game. 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 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.
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[ who? ] 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.[ citation needed ]
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
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]
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 | Spain |
2022 | Italy | Brazil | Venezuela |
2023 | Italy Brazil | Spain |
Tennis is a racket sport that is played either individually against a single opponent (singles) or between two teams of two players each (doubles). Each player uses a tennis racket strung with a cord to strike a hollow rubber ball covered with felt over or around a net and into the opponent's court. The object is to manoeuvre the ball in such a way that the opponent is not able to play a valid return. If a player is unable to return the ball successfully, the opponent scores a point.
A tennis court is the venue where the sport of tennis is played. It is a firm rectangular surface with a low net stretched across the centre. The same surface can be used to play both doubles and singles matches. A variety of surfaces can be used to create a tennis court, each with its own characteristics which affect the playing style of the game.
Volleyball is a team sport in which two teams of six players are separated by a net. Each team tries to score points by grounding a ball on the other team's court under organized rules. It has been a part of the official program of the Summer Olympic Games since Tokyo 1964. Beach volleyball was introduced to the program at the Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics. The adapted version of volleyball at the Summer Paralympic Games is sitting volleyball.
Beach volleyball is a team sport played by two teams of two to four players each on a sand court divided by a net. Similar to indoor volleyball, the objective of the game is to send the ball over the net and to ground it on the opponent's side of the court. Each team also works in unison to prevent the opposing team from grounding the ball on their side of the court.
Real tennis – one of several games sometimes called "the sport of kings" – is the original racquet sport from which the modern game of tennis is derived. It is also known as court tennis in the United States, royal tennis in England and Australia, and courte-paume in France. Many French real tennis courts are at jeu de paume clubs.
The International Tennis Federation (ITF) is the governing body of world tennis, wheelchair tennis, and beach tennis. It was founded in 1913 as the International Lawn Tennis Federation by twelve national tennis associations. As of 2016, there are 211 national and six regional associations that make up the ITF's membership.
Paddle tennis is a racket sport adapted from tennis and played for over a century. Compared to tennis, the court is smaller, has no doubles lanes, and the net is lower. Paddle tennis is played with a solid perforated paddle, as opposed to a strung racquet, and a lower pressure tennis ball.
Footvolley is a sport that combines aspects of beach volleyball and association football.
Sports in Brazil are those that are widely practiced and popular in the country, as well as others which originated there or have some cultural significance. Brazilians are heavily involved in sports. Football is the most popular sport in Brazil. Other than football, sports like volleyball, mixed martial arts, basketball, tennis, and motor sports, especially Formula One, enjoy high levels of popularity.
Beach soccer, also known as beach football, sand football or beasal, is a variant of association football played on a beach or some form of sand.
This page is a glossary of tennis terminology.
Traditionally, tennis is played between two people in a singles match, or two pairs in a doubles match. Tennis can also be played on different courts, including grass courts, clay courts, hard courts, and artificial grass courts.
Chile's Nicolás Massú defeated the United States' Mardy Fish in the final, 6–3, 3–6, 2–6, 6–3, 6–4 to win the gold medal in Men's Singles tennis at the 2004 Summer Olympics. In the bronze-medal match, Chile's Fernando González defeated the United States' Taylor Dent, 6–4, 2–6, 16–14. Massú became the only man to win both the singles and men's doubles gold medals at the same Olympic Games. The two medals were Chile's first in men's singles, and Massú's gold plus the Chileans' doubles gold were the only two gold medals for Chile at the Olympics, until shooter Francisca Crovetto's gold obtained at the 2024 Summer Olympics.
Sitting volleyball is a form of volleyball for athletes with a disability organized by World ParaVolley. As opposed to standing volleyball, sitting volleyball players must sit on the floor to play.
Several sports related to volleyball have become popular. Indoor volleyball and beach volleyball are both events at the Olympics, and sitting volleyball is an event at the Paralympics. Other varieties are localized, or are played at an amateur or informal level.
The racket sport traditionally named lawn tennis, invented in Edgbaston, Warwickshire, England, now commonly known simply as tennis, is the direct descendant of what is now denoted real tennis or royal tennis, which continues to be played today as a separate sport with more complex rules.
In tennis, an official is a person who ensures that a match or tournament is conducted according to the International Tennis Federation Rules of Tennis and other competition regulations.
World ParaVolley, formerly the World Organization Volleyball for Disabled (WOVD), is an international organization that is for people with physical disabilities. It is affiliated with the International Paralympic Committee (IPC). The World Organization Volleyball for Disabled was established in 1981 and was part of the International Sports Organization for Disabled (ISOD). In 1992 the WOVD became its own separate Organization in Barcelona, Spain. The WOVD Headquarters were also established in the Netherlands.
Snow volleyball is a winter team sport played by two teams of three players on a snow court divided by a net. The objective of each team is to score points by sending a ball over the net so as to ground it on the opponent's court, and to prevent the same effort by the opponent. A team is allowed up to three touches to return the ball across the net, and individual players may not touch the ball twice consecutively.