Join Gulf News and Adel Sajan of Danube Group in the fascinating journey to explore this unique game.
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#UAEnews #Dubai #padeltennis
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NewsTranscript
00:00Hello from the glitzy Ritz-Carlton in Abu Dhabi.
00:18No I'm not here for a staycation, I'm here to find out more about paddle tennis, the
00:21new sport which is sweeping the nation.
00:23To tell me more about it is Adil Sajjan, Group Managing Director of Danube Group.
00:30Adil, first of all tell us about the new show Paddle with Adil.
00:36Well first of all I would like to thank Gulf News for coming in over here.
00:40So I'm so happy and so excited to be introducing our new show, Gulf News Paddle with Adil.
00:46The show is going to be very interesting because I'm going to be teaching the audience about
00:51paddle tennis, how the game works, trying to interview both international and local
00:56people so that people who don't know what paddle tennis is, they get aware about the
01:00sport because trust me guys, this is a lot of fun.
01:04Okay so Adil, tell us just briefly what is paddle tennis?
01:06So paddle tennis is basically a combination of tennis and squash.
01:11It's a smaller sized tennis court, it's about one third the size, 20 by 10 is the court
01:17size which is 200 square metres and it has glass walls around it.
01:20So that's what the sport is.
01:23You have similar sized tennis, similar format of tennis where you have four boxes and generally
01:29the sport is played with a racket like this which is without a string.
01:35It's very easy to play, it's played with a ball that looks like a tennis ball but it's
01:38a paddle tennis ball and it's a pretty straightforward sport.
01:42Tell us why there's so much buzz around this sport right now?
01:46You know, the kind of buzz around paddle tennis is amazing and not only regionally
01:52but also globally.
01:54The way paddle has exploded, especially over the last 3-4 years, especially during COVID
01:58has been unbelievable.
01:59I think COVID had a big role to play because a lot of the contact sports like football
02:03and cricket were avoided during the COVID era.
02:08So racket games had a boom and I've seen paddle tennis in the UAE, in the Middle East has
02:14really, really exploded because it's a lot of fun, it's easy to start and anyone can
02:18start it.
02:19It's played on a court behind us like this.
02:22Just tell us a bit about this court, what's it like?
02:24As you can see the court is 20 by 10, there's a combination of glass and mesh.
02:30The glass, the reason is because unlike tennis, if the ball passes you back, it's a point
02:34for the other team but here the ball is still active, similar to squash, it hits the back
02:39court and comes back in so a player can continue the rally.
02:42That's the reason why the glass walls are there and that's the reason what makes the
02:45sport so much more interesting.
02:48You have a net in the centre that divides the two courts and generally you have the
02:53service line which is behind the first square.
02:57So generally you start off the game by having an underserve.
03:02The game has to be played 2v2 so it's a 4 people game, cannot be played 1v1 unless it's
03:07played in a singles court which is unlikely so you need 4 people to play.
03:12And that's what the game is about.
03:13Just tell us briefly about the pointing system, how do you score the points in padel tennis?
03:17It's the same like tennis, generally you play a 3 set game, a 3 set match and each set has
03:256 games so the person who reaches 6 first wins the set.
03:30Again if it's 5-5 then the game goes on to 6-6, at 6-6 there's a tiebreaker for 7 points.
03:37Also during the serves, some of the WPT tournaments, they have a rule for golden points so generally
03:43if it's a deuce, they don't play the advantage, they have a golden point where whoever wins
03:46that point wins that particular game.
03:48But the format is exactly like tennis.
03:50So if you've watched tennis before then you'll be very familiar with the pointing system
03:55in padel tennis.
03:56And just tell us about the age group, I'm seeing a lot of young people playing padel
03:59tennis but it's for everybody right?
04:01Yes, you know that's another reason why the sport is so popular.
04:04You could have young kids, I mean I have 3 kids, I'm going to be putting them very
04:08soon at an early age, at 4, where you can start off the sport and there are people who
04:13are 50, 55, 60 who are still playing decent.
04:16In fact I will be having an interview with Bella very soon and he's 42 years old and
04:22he just won the tournament in Miami.
04:24So that speaks volumes, so it doesn't matter if you're 50 plus or if you're very young,
04:30it's a sport which you can start off very easily.
04:33It does look like a very physically taxing game, you're running around, smashing the
04:36ball around.
04:37How many calories do you think you'd burn in a match?
04:39Depends on the level and the intensity you're playing at.
04:42I play at an intermediate level, which is somewhere in the middle and generally when
04:47me and my friends play we try to track it down.
04:50We burn anywhere between 800 to 1000 calories, typically a game lasts about 90 minutes.
04:57So yeah that's a lot of calories, that's what keeps me fit, it's not my diet, it's padel
04:59tennis.
05:01And roughly what does it cost to play padel tennis?
05:03That's a very good question.
05:04Now this depends on where you play, so padel tennis can be either indoor or outdoor.
05:10Obviously when it's hot or if it's too windy or if it's raining or during the day, indoor
05:15is the preferable option because there's no movement of the wind, the weather is better.
05:19But generally in Dubai you can get outdoor courts starting for about 200 dirhams a game,
05:25for a 90 minute game, which comes out to be about 50 dirhams a player.
05:30And it goes all the way up to about 450 dirhams a game, which comes out to about 115 dirhams
05:36a player.
05:37So it really depends on what's the quality of the facility, is it indoor, is it outdoor,
05:41what kind of court they're using, what is the buzz around it, all those factors.
05:44But anywhere between 50 to 150 dirhams per game per person.
05:48So I'm super excited about this show which is Gulf News Padel with Adil and the reason
05:53is because hopefully we'll be getting a chance to interview a lot of people coming from different
05:57backgrounds both locally and regionally and everyone is going to be giving their bit of
06:01advice about Padel.
06:02Padel is a new sport, it's a growing sport, in fact it's the fastest growing sport in
06:07the history of sports.
06:08You know I was speaking to somebody and they were telling me that there are 3000 clubs,
06:12clubs not courts, that have been launched in the last two years and even in the UE we've
06:17had a tremendous growth from 10 courts three years ago to more than 350 courts in the UE.
06:23So that speaks volumes, definitely there's something good about this sport and please
06:27stay tuned, watch out the space and you can get more information about the show at gulfnews.com
06:31because there's going to be some interesting things following regarding Padel tennis.
06:35Ok so there you go, that is Padel tennis, if that sounds like fun to you why not give
06:39it a try.
06:40My name's Imran Malik, Gulf News Reporter, signing off.