Achari Murabba Or Pickle Ball?
Contemporary versions of Tennis Underway at Panchshila Club
Have you heard of Pickleball and Padel (or Paddle) Tennis? These are possibly the ODI/T-20 equivalent versions of the classic 5-day cricket, being applied to Tennis to make it more interesting, exciting, and to speed up the result.
Both these sports are amongst the fastest growing in the world. Whilst Pickleball’s popularity is exponentially increasing in the US, Padel is more popular and growing in Europe, led by Spain.
Pickleball is played on a court size of 6.1m x 13.4m, which is appx. thirty percent of the size of a conventional tennis court (23.8m x 11m). Padel Tennis court is an in-between size at 10m x 20m. Padel is conventionally played only as Doubles whilst Pickleball can be played either as Singles or Doubles. The scoring system in Padel is exactly like in Tennis, whereas in Pickleball, only the serving team can get a point and the side that gets to 11 points first (with a difference of minimum 2) wins the “set (or game)”. Serving in both is done in the diagonal court. Special racquets and balls are used which vary in the two versions. One key difference is that a Padel court is enclosed with a metal cage and glass walls, with a door on either side of the court, and it is possible to keep the ball in play by using the glass walls, a bit like squash. This makes the rallies a lot more exciting.
Panchshila Club is building 1 Padel Court and 3 Pickleball courts on half of the West side lawn (which, in old times, had grass courts till they were removed and merged with the lawn) and they are expected to be made operational by August 2024, as reported by Jasjit Singh, Vice President of the Managing Committee and Chairperson of the Sports Subcommittee.
These additional courts will hopefully bring down the waiting list for Tennis courts and create more opportunities for an exciting play way workout for the young and youthful alike.
