Sport
The sport of padel tennis is booming, which is why more and more padel courts are being built in Burgenland and the number of members in the clubs is also growing steadily. The first Burgenland padel state championships were held on Saturday.
Padel tennis originally comes from Spain, where it is the second most popular sport after football. These are games similar to tennis or derived from it, which are played on smaller fields with short rackets. With a few exceptions, the courts have the court markings that are used in singles tennis.
In addition, in some variants, the walls of the playing area or playing field border are partially or completely included according to the rules.
“You get hooked from the first ball. Because this ball keeps coming back through the glass and you have the motivation that you always catch the ball, that’s the big difference to tennis. You can start padel relatively quickly, even as a beginner,” explains Christian Ludwig, Vice President of the Burgenland Padel Association.
Ex-soccer pros love padel tennis
At the first open Burgenland state championships, non-Burgenland teams are also allowed, although they are denied the state championship title. Nevertheless, everyone is ambitious, including the ex-soccer professionals from SVM Alois Höller and Matthias Lindner or Mark Janko.
They now love this trend sport. “Because it’s a lot of fun, because supposedly weaker players can win against stronger ones, a game also comes about more quickly, I can only advise everyone to try it,” says Janko. “I do it because I enjoy it. I saw a lot of good players today, so I still have some catching up to do,” said Höller.
Spring Women’s State Championships
The best Burgenlanders and thus the first state champions in padel tennis are Christian Kodydek and Manfred Ollram. So far there are padel courts at three locations in Burgenland and there are more and more. First place was in Mattersburg, and that’s where the first women’s national championships will be held in the spring.
