Racquetball is an active indoor sport played using a hollow rubber ball in a court, which may be indoor or outdoor. In the main, the sport is viewed as similar to tennis and handball because nearly all of such games rules are incorporated into racquetball. All the same, the facts are that this sport is unmatched. How did it originate?
Joe Sobek, a US-based professional handball and tennis player, is credited for inventing the game in 1950. He introduced the game initially during the Greenwich YMCA. During that time, Mr Sobek had still not considered a catchy name for the sport. The development of racquetball was an outcome of his search for a rapid type of sport that was both easy to learn and to play. During that time, racquetball was created as an option to the popular game of tennis.
Two years after, in February 1952, he founded the NPRA or National Paddle Rackets Association. At the same time, Mr Sobek codified the game mechanics and printed them in the sort of a booklet. This new sport was quickly adopted to emerge as a popular indoor sport. Through continuous promotion, the popularity of racquetball further increased. The new game was then supported by up to 40,000 handball courts within the nations JCCs and YMCAs, where racquetball could be formally and appropriately played.
It was in 1969 when the International Racquetball Association was established. The group used a name as coined by professional tennis player Bob McInerney. That same year, the group assumed the roles of the National Paddle Rackets Association. In 1973, US Handball Association president and founder Robert W Kendler had a dispute with the directors of IRA. Mr Kendler then created two other organizations for racquetball. IRA has remained as a dominant establishment promoting the sport.
IRA was recognized by no lower than the US Olympic Committee as the national governing body for racquetball in the land. The sport hit its peak in popularity in 1974. That year, it was estimated that there were up to three million racquetball players in the land alone. At identical year, IRA organized the first ever racquetball professional tournament. The organization then went to become a founding member of the International Racquetball Federation. It marked the spread of the sports popularity from the US to other parts of the planet.
Owing to the growing popularity of racquetball, clubs and courts for the sport have been built and founded. Numerous sporting goods makers have started commercial output of racquetball-specific equipment. The rise and popularity of racquetball went on until the earlier area of the 1980s. However, its prestige diminished in the later step in that decade when racquet clubs started conversion into a healthy body clubs because of shifting preferences of people and changing demands.
Before the start of the 1990s, total number of racquetball players in the US alone has reached to approximately 5.6 million. The sport was warmly accepted by sports fanatics particularly those based in the UK. Thus, racquetball has in a very short space of time become a popular ball sport not just for American citizens but also for British sports aficionados.
Julio Rowe
