São Paulo, Belo Horizonte, Aquiraz, Vila Velha, Balneário Camboriú, and Ribeirão Preto. What do these Brazilian cities have in common? They all hosted beach tennis tournaments in 2023, the sport gaining popularity from the coast to the countryside.
Beach tennis originated in Italy in the 1970s but has seen a huge surge in popularity in Brazil, which is already the world’s second-biggest beach tennis-playing country. The number of players in Brazil nearly tripled from 400,000 in 2021 to 1.1 million in 2023, according to the International Tennis Federation (ITF) and the Brazilian Tennis Confederation (CBT).
In most of its iterations, beach tennis is a doubles sport, with two teams of two players on each side of a central net. To score points, the ball must touch the sand on the opponent’s side of the court or if the opposing team hits the ball out of bounds or into the net. Beach tennis uses a net 1.70 meters high, almost double the height of the one used in tennis played on grass, clay, or ash. Beyond that, the scoring system is the same, with matches consisting of the best of three sets with six games each.
Introduced to Brazil in 2008 in Rio de Janeiro and gaining traction with the hosting of the...
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