Raving success for padel courts opening
The courts are open Mondays to Sundays 07:00-19:00.
The newly built padel courts at the Parys Golf & Country Estate officially opened on Saturday with about 70 odd players participating throughout the day. “Courts were fully booked for the grand opening,” said Claire Woods, co-owner of the padel courts.
She explained that rackets are available for hire at R50 per racket, and balls are also for sale at R150 per sleeve. A shop with padel items to purchase will open at a later stage.
The facility consists of two padel courts.
Players can book the Parys padel courts online on the Playtomic app, or join the WhatsApp group Hello, Padel. The courts are open Mondays to Sundays 07:00-19:00.
Padel is described as a mixture of squash and tennis. The sport was found in the late 1960s by a Mexican, Enrique Corcuera.
He built a court to play a racket-based ball game at his home in Acapulco. The court was smaller than a tennis court due to property constraints.
He found that if tennis balls were overhit, they would go all over the place, so he surrounded the court with walls on all sides.
From this humble beginning the sport, now known as Padel, is considered an outdoor social sport, played like squash in an enclosed court sharing similarities with tennis. Players must pass the ball over the net into the opponent’s side by hitting it with a racket, smaller than a tennis racket and not strung. Players are allowed to hit the ball after it bounces off a wall/fence to keep the ball in play. Serving is underarm, and not overhead like in tennis.
Padel is mostly played by four people in a game of doubles, but can be played individually. SA’s first two padel courts were built in 2020.
As of this year, players have a choice of 400 courts all over the country. Within the next three years, it is anticipated that South Africa will have 2 500 courts.
