Claire DuMont
Online Sports Editor
Mira Costa sophomore Lexi Howard has found the best of both beach volleyball and tennis by following her passion of playing beach tennis.
Beach tennis is similar to regular tennis, but with a few differences. The game is played on a beach volleyball court with smaller paddles and a de-pressurized tennis ball. The technique when playing and the objective also differs from regular tennis.
“The technique is different because there is no swinging arm movements,” Howard said. “In beach tennis, there are mainly volleys trying not to let the ball bounce, so it is different than regular tennis.”
Even though Howard has only been playing beach tennis for a year, she has already played in the International Federation of Beach Tennis (IFBT) tournament that took place in Florida earlier this month. Howard has made it to the semifinals in all tournaments that she has competed in, but has only won one of them so far.
“I traveled to Florida because it was an IFBT tournament so you get a lot of points for playing,”
Howard said. “I competed in this tournament because I haven’t been playing beach tennis for very long.”
Howard will be traveling to Barcelona, Spain in July to compete in the World Championships of Beach Tennis. She will be competing against players from around the world, mainly from Greece and England but in the future, Howard hopes to travel to many more places to play and compete in tournaments.
“I’m super excited to play in Barcelona and learn the new techniques that people have in Spain and just play my best,” Howard said.
Howard practices in Hermosa Beach twice a day for two hours during the week. On the weekend, Howard practices for eight hours. She hopes that the sport builds in popularity at Costa and the United States.
“There aren’t many students from Costa that play beach tennis because the sport isn’t as popular in the United States, but it’s very popular in Europe,” Howard said.
Howard hopes to one day play beach tennis in the Olympics. Currently, Howard wants to continue training and advancing to be able to compete in more national tournaments.
“I enjoy playing because I love the fun and challenging environment,” Howard said. “I also love the objective of the game.”
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