As an avid tennis player, I never imagined an injury would lead me to discover a new sport. But just a few months ago, forced to take a break from tennis, I picked up a padel racket for the first time. I assumed that years of playing tennis would give me a head start; after all, how different could two racket sports really be? To my surprise, the answer was “very.”

Padel, which originated in Mexico in the late 1960s, is an enclosed-court racket sport typically played in doubles. Combining elements of squash and tennis, it uses solid, stringless bats, lower-compression balls and glass or mesh walls off which the ball can rebound. While it has long been a sporting obsession in Spain and Latin America, its explosive global growth has recently made it the fastest-growing racket sport worldwide.

While tennis and padel share many technical similarities, they require somewhat different ways of thinking. I soon discovered that some of my tennis instincts were actually holding me back. Hitting harder wasn’t always the answer. Attacking too early often left me exposed, while patience, positioning, and anticipating my opponents’ next move proved far more valuable than a powerful shot.

Read more: How padel disrupted the genteel world of lawn........

© The Conversation