Spotted on a local Facebook feed this morning:
What? No. That’s simply not right.
You know that I’m not the biggest fan of padel. But that’s neither here nor there in this instance.
Because I’m not really into squash either, but I do know enough about it to know that hitting the wall is very much part of the game there. It’s pretty much the entire way of playing the game.
Ask Google about padel and it says:
Padel is often described as a cross between tennis and squash. It’s played on a court similar to tennis but smaller and enclosed by walls, which are used as part of the game like in squash.
“Squash”, you say?
“Walls”? Hmm.
It’s hardly subtle stuff. The clues really are all there.
What makes this even funnier (for me, but then I’m still recovering from that meeting) is that ironically, Bredasdorp (where this padel tank is) is very much an Afrikaans speaking area (83.1% first language), and the Afrikaans word for squash is Muurbal, which literally translates as “wall ball”.
I actually only worked this out this a few years back when driving past the Bredasdorp Muurbalklub, and they’d cut the trees back.
See?
I’m just waiting for Miskey’s to open their 10-pin bowling business: “the only sport where rolling a ball is actually part of the plan!”. Although I’m sure that the Bredasdorp Rolbalklub (yes, seriously) would have something to say about that.