Fast serves, quick volleys and overhead smashes will take over Mariner’s Point on June 19-21 when the Beach Tennis San Diego Smash returns to Mission Beach. The San Diego Smash is one of only two West Coast events on the Beach Tennis USA 2009 tour. “The climate here is perfect to be out on the beach. I’ve gotten to travel all around the world playing tennis and I think we have some of the prettiest beaches in the whole world here,” said San Diego Beach Tennis Association president and Ocean Beach resident Gretchen Magers. “In San Diego it’s just natural to have beach tennis take off.” Beach tennis combines elements of tennis and beach volleyball. The equipment — tennis racquets and less-pressurized tennis balls — along with scoring and serving rules come from tennis. Another rule that beach tennis adopts from tennis is only allowing one hit to get it over. Matches are one pro set apiece – first team to eight games without advantages wins. As far as its similarities to volleyball, beach tennis is played on a regulation beach volleyball court, with a shorter net of 5 feet 10 inches. The ball is not allowed to touch the sand. “For me, beach tennis takes all the fun parts of tennis — the serve, the volley, the overhead, the drop volley and the lob. It takes all the boring repetition out,” Magers said. Magers is a former professional tennis player who retired in 1992 and was ranked as high as No. 13 in the world. She currently serves as a pro at the Peninsula Tennis Center in Ocean Beach and head coach of the San Diego City College women’s tennis team. She loves beach tennis and compares its gameplay to badminton. “It can be a fast game. It’s more touch and positioning than anything,” Magers said. “It’s more like badminton — more of a moving your opponents around type of thing. But you do serve and volley on every point, so you do get in some exchanges.” For some players, it’s more than just a game. It’s also about the beach experience. “It’s not like a tennis match, where you have to be quiet during a match – people can be talking and there’s music,” said defending national champion and Pacific Beach resident Laura Maloney. “It’s a really good atmosphere with the waves crashing and people walking by on the boardwalk.” Laura Maloney and her sister Lisa Maloney will enter the San Diego Smash as favorites in the women’s pro division as defending event and national champions. The Maloney sisters were undefeated in each of the four events they appeared in last season and will be making their first appearance on the tour this season. “We’re just excited to get out there. The thing about beach tennis is that it’s a really fun sport,” Laura Maloney said, adding that she’s excited to get the 2009 season started off in a familiar place. Laura and Lisa Maloney discovered beach tennis about four years ago when they read about the sport in a magazine. As competitive tennis players who grew up around the beach, the idea of beach tennis seemed like a match made in heaven. “I used to bike down Mission and see everybody playing beach volleyball every weekend and I wanted to do something like that,” Laura Maloney said. “When the Beach Tennis USA tour came to Mission Beach three summers ago, we entered the tournament and we just fell in love with the sport.” Beach Tennis USA held their inaugural U.S. tour on the East Coast in 2005 and expanded to include Southern California the following year. The tour has included a stop in San Diego each of the past three years.? The men’s and women’s pro divisions will play Sunday, June 21. The women’s preliminaries will be played in the morning with the final at 1 p.m. and the men’s preliminaries will wrap up the weekend with the men’s final at 5 p.m. For those wanting to try their hand at beach tennis, there are men’s, women’s and mixed amateur divisions on Saturday and a paddle mixer division on Friday. Registration is $30 per team for the amateur divisions and $10 per team for the mixer. Friday is kids day at the San Diego Smash, featuring a free kids clinic from 10 a.m. to noon, followed by a parent/child mixer from noon to 2 p.m. Registration for the mixer is $10. Laura Maloney hopes the San Diego Slam is the start of a summer full of beach tennis on the beaches of San Diego. Play day mixers are held each Sunday during the summer from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. at the Ocean Beach volleyball courts. “After the tournament, beach tennis will be played on beaches around San Diego as well. There will be open play days and social tournaments coming up this summer,” Laura Maolney said. “It’s not just a one-time thing.” For more information and to register for amateur and mixer divisions, visit www.beachtennisusa.net.