Description
Coffee Table Book of: Padel is a large format book of padel, printed edge to edge in colour, one picture to a page and the widest carried across two: solid paddles pierced with small holes, yellow balls, courts of blue turf walled in glass and wire mesh, the kit being made and cared for, the early days of the game, and a few players seen far off in plain dark clothing.
The kit is laid out plain: a paddle on blue turf and the face of another seen close, round, teardrop and diamond shapes side by side, a paddle with clear tape along its rim and one hanging by its wrist cord from the mesh, a ball at the foot of the glass, a white service line on the turf, a sealed tube of three and an opened one, a roll of overgrip, the zigzag sole of a court shoe, a pair hung from the mesh by their laces, a sun visor and a long padded bag.
The making follows foam blanks cut to the outline of a paddle, an open mould, rolls of carbon and glass fibre cloth, a paddle sawn through to its foam core and the small plugs drilled from its holes, turf unrolled on a bare slab, sand spread and brushed in, a white line glued into the turf, mesh panels and glass waiting on pallets and the bare steel frame of a new court. The past runs from old wooden paddles to the concrete walls and floors of early courts, rusted mesh, an old frame lost in wild grass and a ball worn bald.
Short notes run through the book, on the rules and how the game is played off the walls, the paddles, balls and courts and how they are made, and the history of the sport: a court is 20 metres long and 10 metres wide, walled in on all four sides, a court is a steel frame bolted to a concrete slab, then fitted with glass and mesh, the back walls stand about three metres high, with a metre of wire mesh above, and clear tape along the rim guards the frame when it scrapes the turf or the glass.
Printed in full colour on heavy 150gsm coated paper at 216 x 279 mm (8.5 x 11 inches), as a hardcover with the art printed on the case.
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