I decided to look for new racket sports and was wondering if there is too much differences between Beach Tennis and Paddle Tennis, but then I discovered that there is a lot of sports with similar names and here in this post I will share with you what I found about these 2 sports.

The biggest difference between Beach Tennis and Paddle Tennis is the court, on Beach Tennis you play on a sand surface with a suspended net while on Paddle Tennis you play in a hard surface in a smaller area and with the net touching the ground.

Believe it or not, there is a lot of sports that players use rackets with hard materials without strings in smaller courts then the traditional Tennis courts and this could get very confusing.

Important: Do not mistake Platform Tennis with Paddle Tennis, those are different sports, but is important to know that some Platform Tennis players call this sport Paddle Tennis.

Beach Tennis x Paddle Tennis – Comparing the popularity

Beach Tennis is a more popular game than Paddle Tennis, this is because the original Paddle Tennis is not played much anymore, it was rebranded as Pop Tennis and now is played in a different court size.

Over the years, Beach Tennis has been growing more and more, it is a sport in ascension, other very similar sports to Paddle Tennis have gained way more players over time, is really hard to find any books or information about Paddle Tennis and easier to find about Padel Tennis or Pickleball for example.

Beach Tennis and Paddle Tennis court and equipment

According to the 2021 ITF book of rules, the Beach Tennis court size is 52 ft long and 26 ft wide (16m x 8m) for doubles matches and 52 ft long and 15 ft wide (16m x 4.5m) for singles.

The Paddle Tennis rules determines that the court have to be 50 ft long and 20 ft wide (15m x 6m), unlikely Beach Tennis, in Paddle Tennis you use the same size of court for singles and doubles.

The Net: The Paddle Tennis net has to be 22 ft (6.7m) long and be 2.6 ft (0.79m), the Beach Tennis net must be suspended by two posts with the minimum height of 1.8m for some Men’s tournaments and 1.7m for Women’s and child’s tournaments.

The racket: For Paddle Tennis the players have to use a paddle, is like a Tennis racket but without strings and made of solid material with max size of 9.5 inches x 18 inches (24cm x 46cm), is allowed to have little holes on the striking zone of the paddle.

Beach Tennis players also have to use a paddle with max size of 10 inches x 19.6 inches (26cm x 50cm) and holes in the paddle is also allowed.

The ball: In Paddle Tennis the ball must be the same as the Tennis ball with less pressure, in Beach Tennis you should use the Tennis ball stage 2, that orange ball that kids normally use to play Tennis.

The rules for Beach Tennis and Paddle Tennis compared

Some of the rules applied for Paddle Tennis and Beach Tennis are very similar to the rules of Tennis, for example, if the ball fall in any part of the line it is considered in, to be considered out the ball most fall off the court completely.  

The point score for both sports is also the same as for Tennis. The first point is 15, the second 30, the third 40 and the fourth is called game.

Tennis has a lot of categories and different ways to play, you can know more about that on this post here that I’ve wrote on this same blog.

The differences in rules between Beach Tennis and Paddle Tennis can be seen more when the players have to serve, as you can see listed below:

• The serve in Paddle Tennis is done underhand, you don’t have to toss the ball and strike it above your head and you can choose to bounce the ball one time on the ground before striking if you want, the serve in Beach Tennis is similar to Tennis, you can serve underarm or overarm.
• In mixed doubles the male has to always serve underarm in a Beach Tennis match.
• In Paddle Tennis if the server hits the ball and it touches the net, he or she loses the point, but in Beach Tennis the ball of the server can touch the net without penalties for the server.
• Different from Tennis, in Paddle Tennis you just have one chance to serve, if the ball doesn’t fall on the court or if it touches the net, the server loses the point. For Beach Tennis you also have just one chance, except that the ball can touch the net.
• In Beach Tennis the server must be behind the baseline and must not step in the line during the serve movement. He can also be anywhere he wants and send the ball to any side of the adversary court.
• There are some cases in Paddle Tennis that is used a line close to the net to restrain the players to get too close to the net until the receiver of the server hits the ball.