Legend has it that back in the 1970s, some tennis players that were on vacation somewhere in Italy decided to try out tennis using tennis rackets on the volleyball nets that were already installed at the beach. As a result of that test, a new sport was born: Beach Tennis.
Paddle-like rackets, a slightly depressurised tennis ball and a beach volleyball court is all you need to enjoy this sport with more than 10 million players worldwide.
Since 2008, the International Tennis Federation recognised the sport, established rules and started promoting the sport by announcing the ITF Beach Tennis Tour with more than 300 tournaments per year in the calendar.
The sport has gained since then a lot of traction and specially here, in the Mauritian beaches of Tamarin and Flic en Flac, we can see people of all ages playing beach tennis almost everyday.
Fabrice Nayna and Etienne Fleurie
These two amazing players will be part of the team representing Mauritius at the 1st African Beach Games, to be held in Sal, Cape Verde, from the 14th to the 23rd of June 2019, which will also serve as qualifying for the ANOC World Beach Games happening in San Diego, CA, in October 2019.
Here in SPIEGELPHOTO, we had the pleasure of sharing one of their training session in Flic en Flac and we’re very happy to bring you some pictures we took during the session, hoping to bring them the best of luck for the competition!