Beach tennis

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.

Beach tennis was formalized in 2005 in New York City by Marc Altheim. He discovered beach tennis on a trip to Aruba in 2003. The sport had been played there since 2000, having been introduced by a Dutchman. 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 signed two television deals: one with SNY in New York City and one with the Tennis Channel. The Tennis Channel agreed to televise three major BTUSA or National Beach Tennis / Beach Paddle Ball Association tournaments. The Miami BT USA open featured 40 teams, including several formerly highly ranked pro tennis players, including Jay Berger and Pablo Arraya. In 2007, Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf played the sport.

Beach tennis merges the world of beach volleyball and tennis. It is related to beach volleyball but played with a tennis ball and paddle or racket. The court is a standard beach volleyball court that is 30 feet wide and 60 feet long. There is a center line that splits the court lengthwise. At the center of the court is a 5-foot-10-inch-high (1.78 m) net. A standard tennis racquet or a paddle and a slightly depressurized tennis ball (6 oz instead of 12 oz) are used.

Sanctioned Beach Tennis USA events are different depending upon the number of entrants, number of courts available and time. Typically, the preliminary rounds are round-robin, or pool-play. This means that there is a pool of four, and one would play all the other teams in the pool (three matches). The top one or two teams from each pool advance to the elimination rounds (single-elimination).

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