I am tennis player. The classic, passionate, crazy, tennis player. I do, talk about it, watch it, very often - too often - since I was a kid. I am a great sports fan in general, all sports, but tennis doesn't leave much room for the show to be stolen.
And yet, yet! 8 years ago I had discovered padel, and it was… love at first sight!
In fact no, it is completely wrong. To tell the truth, it is even the opposite. I hated the sport more or less straight away. Too much like tennis in appearance, but so different in the end that I couldn't find my marks. Impossible to play after the windows, I drank ¾ of my smashes, I did not know how to measure the lobs… Zero pleasure.
But there is something about the padel that made me want to dig, to fight to get to against my tennis player reflexes. I sensed the huge potential of the game, the feel of 4-a-side play, the unlikely points that you can't find anywhere else. Besides, I couldn't let myself be tamed by this damn racket with a hole, it's not in the family's genes to give up in the face of difficulty.
It took a little while, I didn't have much of a chance to play, but I tried to keep some consistency and started to feel my first good sensations. Here and there there has been the first symptoms of acute padelitis. The pride of a defense after the glass, the satisfaction of a bandera crashing down nicely, the joy of a volley glued to the grid. Small, simple pleasures I tell you. In short, the padel addiction had indeed started.
I also started to refine those sensations. As with tennis, I chose my weapons according to my type of game, I tried rackets, I figured out what I liked best in terms of equipment to allow me to have as much fun as possible. And of course to win. Because hey, we can say that the padel is above all funIt’s all the more fun to use the best of yourself to poke your opponents.
Right player t-shirt
Casually, I played on a lot of courts, in a lot of countries, with very different conditions. Indoor, outdoor, carpets in all possible colors, slow, fast, without sand, with sand, panoramic, classic. It allowed me to get to know better the padel player in me despite the 26 years of tennis practice that I sometimes drag like a ball.
My companion, Michael, also being very involved in the middle of padel (creator of Twenty By Ten, a very nice brand of padel textile, in all fairness), I play mainly in mixed doubles, which made me a right-wing player by definition.
I think I could also enjoy myself on the left, trying to send some by 3, but I imagine that the good raton that I am finds its account on the right. For a long time I played with the racket Bullpadel Vertex Woman, I liked the control it gave me, the comfort on the hitting.
But it turns out that recently I fell in love with the news Head Graphene 360+ Alpha Pro. More explosive, she brings me a little extra power which, even for right-wingers that we are, is no luxury.
Second essential thing for me, the shoes. No matter the sport, I always expect the same qualities from a shoe: flexibility and lightness. Qualities that I found inBabolat Jet Ritma (Babolat Jet Premura for men), with a special mention for my tennis equipment supplier who took on the challenge of making good padel gear, and which I find, succeeded.
With these weapons of padelista, I'm ready to go on a mission in my little rectangle of tempered glass, whether in Paris, Dubai, Madrid or Mougins.
But between us, my little personal kiff remains above all padel games that I do regularly in the beautiful complex of ’Padel spirit, in Saint Priest, in the company of his founder, and incidentally my brother, Sébastien. When we talk about perfect conditions, I think we are not far from the best. And there, I'm even ready to lose while having fun. This is to say.
Alizé Cornet, professional tennis player
