Basque trinquete

Trinquete in Elizondo, Navarre

A trinquete (also trinquet) is a special court for various indoor versions of pelota and it is a modalite of the pelota sport. in the South America, especially in Argentina the trinquete is also known as close court, because the other open court is named for the fronton. It has some of the characterist features of a real tennis court, probably because many real tennis courts were converted to trinquetes in the 19th century. For some sports, the players face the same wall and share the court, similar to squash. For other sports, a net is strung across the middle of the court and the players face each other, similar to tennis.

Features of the court and the game

The trinquet has some basic aspects with the fronton.

• One front wall called frontis, which is the wall where the players must throw the ball in each play. The wall has some delimitations. At 80 cm height there is a metallic sheet called "chapa". Another, metal lamina is located 8,5 metres up the floor. The front wall normally is 10 metres height and 10 metres width. The space that is between the upper "chapa" and the finish of the "frontis" is normally padded, like this when the balls hits here, as it is fault, you know that it has been fault. Below, there is also another paddled aerea from the floor to the below "chapa".
• There is another wall parallelly collocated more or less 30 metres back the "frontis" called "rebote". This wall is 5 or 4 metres lower than the other.
• A wall on the left side of the court which joins the "frontis" and "rebote". It is a little bit lower than the front wall and a bit higher than the back wall.

See also

• Valencian trinquet