Thursday, April 10, the Somme de Tennis committee organized an initiation to the pickleball, a tennis variant, at the Monchy-Lagache Tennis Club. An alternative that could seduce young and old.
The Padel has been exploding in France for a few years. What if pickleball followed the same trajectory? In any case, this is what the French Tennis Federation (FFT), which has multiplied free initiations open and open to this new discipline since March 2024, hopes.
This was for example the case at the Monchy-Lagache Tennis Club Thursday April 10. Charlotte Pierrel, from the Somme de Tennis committee, had installed two pickleball fields on half a short tennis.
What is pickleball?
Pickleball is a less traumatic tennis variant for the body.
It is played on a classic quarter, with a full racket in hard, a little larger than a table tennis racket.
The players refer a hollow plastic ball, much slower than a tennis ball.
“It is more user -friendly and easier to access than tennis. It can perfectly suit children and the elderly. ”underlines Jean-Baptiste Gru, president of the Tennis Club of Monchy-Lagache
“This can also allow clubs whose shorts are saturated to receive more players at the same time. In the United States the pickleball develops especially among 40-50 year olds“, Specifies Charlotte Pierrel.
An alternative for winter
At Tennis Club, which has only a short outdoor, the winter season is reduced to four months of inactivity. So he got a pickleball kit, helped financially by the committee. Committee which can support clubs up to € 100 for the purchase of two kits.
“We can offer, in winter, interior pickleball and set off the machine.”rejoices Jean-Baptiste Gru
The club now has around 80 members, half of which are licensees. But unfortunately he saw players heading to other structures to continue to practice winter.
This while he owns the only short outside of the surroundings, renovated at the end of 2024 by the community of communes in eastern Somme, on which Péronne licensees play for example.
The President also plans to organize an additional discovery afternoon outdoors and welcome the children of the leisure center during these school holidays.
If pickleball competitions already take place in Hauts-de-France, this is not yet the case in the Somme. The objective therefore, for the Somme de Tennis committee, is now that a group of clubs seizes the discipline and sets up dedicated competitions.
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