A sand sport that mixes tennis with beach volleyball, played with a racket and adapted balls, in doubles or singles. This is Beach Tennis (BT)! Felipe Poffo, a high performance athlete (24th in the Brazilian ranking and 56th in the world) and BT teacher, explains the exponential growth of the sport:
“Beach tennis is fun and democratic. A sport that is easy to learn, different from tennis which is very difficult to play, in BT people with little motor coordination can already play in the first contact with the modality. In addition, as it is generally practiced on the beach, a lighter environment makes it more pleasurable. In fact, it is a sport that the whole family plays.”
Poffo also points out that the sports environment allows the construction of networking between people, one of the observed reasons that leads people to join the modality: professional contacts.
Being an easy practice to play in a pleasant environment, these are characteristics that allow the wide participation of the public. With BT, people can feel competent in sport, something that many of them never felt before in their lives and this allows them to increase their physical activity levels.
Beach tennis: a democratic and fun sport.
What is the origin of Beach Tennis?
The sport was born in mid-1987 in the province of Ravennana, Italy. It is recognized that it was derived from tennis, but on beach volleyball courts and only in 1996 were rules defined for the sport.
The Brazilian Tennis Confederation, the entity that administers the sport in Brazil, estimates that today (2023) there are about 1.1 million practitioners in the country.
What do the studies say about the sport?
As a recent sport modality, it is expected that we do not have many scientific works yet. When searching the databases, very few studies were found. But let’s go to what we have so far in literature!
Brazilian researchers investigated the effect of BT training on blood pressure in recreational practitioners. Forty-five minutes of BT elicited significant reductions in blood pressure when compared to a day without any exercise. With high practitioner satisfaction (above 90%) and no reported adverse events, it seems that there is potential in this sport to improve the cardiovascular profile in individuals with hypertension.
Another available article deals with injuries in this sport. French researchers analyzed injuries in a sample of 206 elite but also recreational TT players from Réunion Island, which is a region of the French Republic and an island in the Indian Ocean in Africa.
A total of 178 injuries were found in 92 players (44.7% of players, this is an injury prevalence figure). The incidence was 1.81 injuries per 1000 hours of beach tennis. What cannot be considered a high value.
What was the most injured body region? The shoulder, followed by the elbow, thigh and foot. The most common injuries in the upper limb were chronic tendinopathy in the shoulder and elbow, injuries considered chronic. Acute injuries were more prevalent in the lower limbs, thigh muscles, hallux and ankle ligaments.
In Beach Tennis, sudden movements can contribute to bodily injuries.Source: GettyImages
As BT is mostly played overhead, including serves, defensive moves, and attacking, this could have contributed to rotator cuff tendinopathy (a group of muscles in the shoulder region). Strength training, such as bodybuilding, is recommended as a protective factor for injuries, as in any sport.
With the increase in demand, there has been concomitant the increase in the price to practice the sport: more expensive rackets and balls, as well as lessons and court rental. The number of public and private sand courts for the practice is increasing, mainly in cities with beaches.
In many of them, there is the so-called “racquet rotation” in which practitioners of all levels compete in sets, often in mixed doubles. This is a good opportunity for someone just starting out.
If you haven’t tried it yet, it’s worth getting to know beach tennis. A new sport that can help your levels of physical activity and health, so that you feel competent having fun.
