Close to tennis

Why? Because padel is a perfect complement to tennis! Starting with Rafael Nadal, countless tennis pros have outed themselves as padel fans in recent years. ÖTV Sports Director Jürgen Melzer also has a lot to say about the game in the glass cage: “I like playing myself. It’s close to tennis, you quickly get to a halfway decent level.” The parallels to tennis are obvious. You can’t take away so much in terms of training, but “you can train a little volley.” At the 2022 Vienna Padel Open, Melzer mixed it up in the ProAm.

Also in attendance was Lucas Miedler, Austria’s current parade doubles player and three-time tournament winner, who has also taken a liking to padel. “It’s just fun, in that it’s played as doubles and you’re always playing with three other people who maybe aren’t that good at tennis but have the right touch for padel. There’s a certain charm to it and it’s just really fun.”

Alex Erler, doubles partner of Miedler, finds padel “attractive, especially with the inclusion of the walls. Otherwise, it’s similar to tennis, although tennis is much more difficult overall. In padel, there are a lot of stops, a lot of slice, it’s just mega fun. The only negative thing is that I don’t get to play as often as I would like.”

Misolic enjoys the freedom

Filip Misolic, Austria’s 2022 shooting star, has also been caught by padel fever: “I think it’s so much fun for me because on the one hand it’s similar to tennis, but you still enjoy more freedom and it’s a bit of a change. As a tennis player, you know from the beginning how to handle the racket and the ball, a lot of things are familiar.”

Jurij Rodionov has been playing padel for a while: “It’s fun because you always play it in a group. Tennis is very complex, but padel is much easier for beginners. As a good tennis player, you get along well from the beginning because the strokes are very related.”