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England are the very first champions of Europe following the inaugural European Pickleball Championship in Southampton.

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England are the very first champions of Europe following the inaugural European Pickleball Championship in Southampton.

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England are the very first champions of Europe following the inaugural European Pickleball Championship in Southampton.

The team won a medal in every single event over the course of the weekend and topped the table with two golds and four silvers.

They finished ahead of runners-up Spain and third-placed Italy.

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Scotland finished fourth in the women's doubles 50+, and reached the quarter-final of the women's doubles

Wales reached the quarter-final of the mixed doubles 50+; Ireland reached the quarter-final of the mixed doubles and the mixed doubles 50+ as well as the men's doubles 50+.

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England crowned first champions of Europe - Pickleball 52

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England are the very first champions of Europe following the inaugural European Pickleball Championship in Southampton. The team won a medal in every single event over the course of the weekend and topped the table with two golds and four silvers. They finished ahead of runners-up Spain and third-placed Italy.

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LTA fears Pickleball will cannibalize Tennis!

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LTA fears Pickleball will cannibalize Tennis!

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“To grow it [pickleball] in a complimentary way to tennis, that’s important, we don’t want Pickleball to cannibalize tennis. We want them both to grow in a complimentary way.“

Oliver Scadgell - Participation Director at the LTA

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LTA wants Pickleball for Tennis older demographic

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The Battle for Pickleball’s future in Britain?

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The Battle for Pickleball’s future in Britain?

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Pickleball rallies the troops with a petition in LTA battle.

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Pickleball rallies the troops with a petition in LTA battle.

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The UK pickleball community is throwing its support behind Pickleball England in its battle with the Lawn Tennis Association over guardianship of the sport.

Pickleball England has effectively run the sport in England since its inception in 2019 and has submitted a bid to Sport England to become the sport's official National Governing Body. However, the LTA has submitted a bid of its own as it seeks to build on its acquisitions of padel and beach tennis.

The pickleball community's vehement opposition to the LTA's potential governance has seen an online petition signed by almost 2,500 people in its first 10 days.

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The petition was created by Alex Richards who, ironically enough, is a former US college-level tennis player and current tennis coach and referee. He plays pickleball and padel recreationally in his hometown of Cardiff.

Alex told pickleball52.com: "I don't think the LTA being in charge would be good for pickleball because the LTA are mainly focused on tennis. As shown in their takeover of beach tennis, which I used to play, it wasn't really a success.

"To say that all pickleball players are now just playing a subcategory of tennis would be wrong. Pickleball needs its own dedicated governing body run by people who are passionate about the sport.

"There has to be a reason why the LTA are making this move. If it's just to increase participation numbers or to control the growth of rival racket or paddle sports that are posing a threat to their core interest, these are not good enough reasons to become a governing body.

"I'm hoping that the petition can be used to show Sport England that there's a groundswell of support for Pickleball England's campaign for governing body status."

Pickleball England's cause has also received support from Katherine Knowles, who is part of a seven-strong committee seeking to be recognised as the official pickleball governing body in Wales. She says they have received positive initial feedback from Sport Wales and have the support of the European Pickleball Federation.

Katherine told us: "What Pickleball England's directors and its network of regional leaders and clubs have done voluntarily to grow pickleball to its current position of strength is remarkable. To have the results of all that hard work snatched away from them by the LTA would be a crying shame.

"Pickleball is a sport in its own right, not a form of tennis. Pickleball is the most inclusive and social sport I've ever come across - it's a sport that can change lives. We would like to protect pickleball and its unique community from the control of the LTA."

The battle to run pickleball became public last month after Conservative MP Andrew Selous raised the question of its status in the House of Commons and an article in the Daily Telegraph highlighted its governance 'custody battle'.

It has prompted the pickleball community to take a keen interest in the LTA's governance of padel since the federation took control of the sport in 2019. Padel has exploded in the five years since then, but how much credit the LTA can claim for that growth is hotly debated.

Unlike pickleball, which has seen organic growth in the leisure centres and village halls of the shires, much of padel's rapid development has been driven by huge private investment, with new clubs opening up in the big cities, in addition to smaller numbers of courts added at private tennis clubs (as well as golf, rugby and football clubs).

After taking over padel, the LTA initially offered interest-free loans of up to £250,000 for existing tennis venues who wished to add padel courts. The offer stipulated that non-members must be given permission to use the courts too.

The padel chairman of one tennis and squash club, who wished to remain anonymous, has revealed his experience of applying for one of these LTA loans to build padel courts. He says the process became weighed down by the addition of unexpected extra conditions on the loan being approved - including dictating the price at which the courts could be offered for hire to members of the public.

He said: "It became untenable and we moved forwards as a club on our own. The whole experience left a very bad taste in the mouth. The LTA are the governing body so we will have to work with them in future to some extent, but I would do so grudgingly and only so far as we have to. If any other options for future bodies to work with were put forwards, I would choose those first."

When contacted by pickeball52 about its application for governing body status of pickleball in opposition to that of Pickleball England, an LTA spokesperson said: "We believe that the LTA's relationship with over 15,000 registered venues, 1.5m tennis fans on our database and an existing infrastructure around coaching, safeguarding, facility investment and workforce could be hugely beneficial to pickleball and help it to grow and flourish.

"We were open to collaborating with Pickleball England on any application to Sport England for NGB status and approached them to explore this, but ultimately they chose to put in a separate application."

Pickleball England Chair Karen Mitchell said: "To be clear, we had already submitted our application to Sport England in April 2023 and our first meeting with the LTA was June 2023. We have always wanted our application to be reviewed on its own merit. We are still open to collaborating with the LTA in the future."

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Pickleball rallies the troops in LTA battle - Pickleball 52

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The UK pickleball community is throwing its support behind Pickleball England in its battle with the Lawn Tennis Association over guardianship of the sport. Pickleball England has effectively run the sport in England since its inception in 2019 and has submitted a bid to Sport England to become the sport's official National Governing Body.

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Naples, Florida Resident Cassidy Phillips shows the aftermath of a preventable eye injury. More on ... [+]
Courtesy of Cassidy Phillips

As many of my readers may know, I came to pickleball from the racquetball world. I have written in the past about some of the parallels there are between the current pickleball gold rush and the rise of racquetball in the late 1970s. Today, I want to talk about another historical tie-back to racquetball that is becoming more and more of an issue in pickleball today: the use and mandating of protective eyewear on the courts.

The national governing body for racquetball was established in 1969, and it took the group a decade to begin requiring eye guard usage on the courts for juniors, enacting the mandate in 1979. It took the group nearly another decade before it mandated eye guard usage for adults in its sanctioned, after an ugly incident at the 1987 Pan American Championships when USA's #1 player was badly injured by a shot to the face. It took the prevailing pro tour of the time another two years after that incident to adopt the mandate, by which time oversized racquets and 180mph ball speeds were the norm.

Waiting 20+ years to solve a problem is not a luxury that USA Pickleball should spare when it comes to mandating eye protection. Our sport features frequent hand battles at the net where players take heavy swings at the ball and send full-force forehands directly at their opponents, standing a mere 14-feet away across the net. There's an increasing number eye injuries reported amongst our playing groups, we are hearing more and more pros beginning to advocate for the mandate, and we are hearing influential pundits in the sport agreeing (read here for The Kitchen's Jason Aspes' treatise on the same topic posted just a few days ag0).

My personal experience agrees with this sentiment. I've now been hit twice in the eye. The first time was at my very first tournament, when I got waxed by a drive that tipped off the edge of my paddle. The second time was last fall, and it's left a much more permanent impact. I took a full overhead slam from the net to my right eye, and I have a persistent "floater" to this day from the impact. Needless to say, I wear a pair of eye guards every time I play now. But it's too late; the damage has presumably been done.

My story isn't nearly as harrowing as that of Cassidy Phillips (pictured at the onset of this story). He took a ball directly to the eye in January that left him blinded in his left eye for days. Says, Phillips, "I ended up having to have surgery on my eye to drain the blood because the pressure increased to the point where it wasn't healthy and they really needed to be able to see the retina and the ocular nerve. Both the retina and nerve now seem to be OK and I've gotten my vision back. It isn't 100%, but it is back." Post surgery, he continues to see flashes of light, has some worries about a possible detached retina, and will need cataract surgery eventually. The experience has Phillips (an entrepreneur) considering starting a new company focused on eyewear and awareness based on his experiences.

As for the pros; we have been watching power come into this sport by leaps and bounds over the last two years, whether it is at the hands of athletic tennis players pouring into the sport and swinging for the fences, more lively balls being preferred for tournament play, or the constant pushing-the-envelope power coming from paddle manufacturers. Pro player Megan Fudge articulates the problem simply, "Power in pickleball has drastically changed in last nine months. Paddle technology has really sped up the game. We're pros and we're training for hand speed, but things happen. Balls ricochet off your paddle and I got hit several times last year." A scary incident with her husband (fellow pro player Ryler DeHeart) led to her reaching out to RIA to try a pair of protective lenses. She loved the feel of the glasses, which then led to her sponsoring the brand and appearing in their social media campaigns.

Senior pro Rick Witsken initially pursued eye wear to mitigate the sun glare during outdoor events. He approached Craig Chasnov of the Dink Eyewear, who was an early supporter of Witsken's National Pickleball League. "My desire to try his product is based out of loyalty to someone who expressed faith in our league," said Witsken. "I can really spot the ball well without sun glare in Dink's glasses. I also appreciate the impact protection."

Fudge estimates that just 10% of current pros wear eye guards, while Witsken estimates that about 20% of senior pros wear them. That's a start, but it's not nearly enough. I believe, like a lot of people, that it is just a matter of time before we see a very bad eye injury in a pro match, on camera, which forces the issue. But we don't have to wait until someone's career is ruined; the national governing body USA Pickleball can take action now. The process to solicit rule change suggestions opens on March 1st and I plan on submitting a rule change request.

But USAP can do out-of-schedule rule updates as they see fit, and I believe they need to consider a mandates for its sanctioned events. Same with the pro tours, and perhaps especially for the pro tours, whose athletes can use the opportunity to set an example for other players and who can use this as another endorsement opportunity like some are already pursuing.

A reminder: DO NOT just wear regular corrective eyeglasses or drug-store sunglasses and think you'll be ok. The lenses are not guaranteed to be rated for impact at the speeds you'll need to be protected against, and if they shatter you may do more harm than if you just took a ball to the eye. If you're not sure, read the product information page and look for the key phrase "impact resistant." There's an ANSI standard established named " Z87-1: 2020 " that ensures the best manufacturing techniques for protection against impact.

I've also heard of players who are taking the lenses out of cheap sunglasses and just wearing them as is under the assumption that a pickleball won't compress enough to reach the eyeball. This assumption fails to take into consideration the force of impact on the frame itself, which will bend inwards upon impact and is absolutely not guaranteed to protect your eye. I would highly recommend not trusting this as a solution for eye protection, and just invest a few dollars in one of the solutions below.

If you're sold on the need for eye guards but don't know where to begin, here's options to consider:

If you have a pair of racquetball (or squash) goggles around, they'll do just fine. Racquetballs are faster, heavier, and travel nearly three times as fast as a pickleball, so you'll be just fine with a racquetball-rated set of protective eye goggles. Racquetball vendors in the space include a couple that are big into pickleball (Gearbox and Pro Kennex), plus a few others (Head, FormulaFlow, Python, and E-Force) who have eyeglass offerings on their websites. I still have an older pair made by Wilson called Nvue that I'm a big fan of and which you can find in older inventory sites here and there on the internet or at Amazon.

RIA Eyewear sponsors several touring pros like Megan Fudge and her husband Ryler DeHeart, the Brascia sisters, and Erik Lange, and has a nice line specifically for Tennis/Pickleball.

Dink Eyewear is a new business line founded by long-time industry veteran Craig Chasnov, and he's already got several pros using and endorsing the product (Sarah Ansboury, Rick Witsken, and Ivan Lendl among others).

Shady Rays is featured on Pickleball Central, but not all their offerings are impact-related. Go to their site and visit the safety section for the ANSI Z87 rated glasses.

Oakley, perhaps the most famous name in sunglasses, also has an entire line of impact-rated/Z87 compliant eyewear.

The Rudy Project has been in business since the mid-1980s and is a leader in sports eyewear. They started in the cycling industry but have now expanded to include a line of pickleball sunglasses that are impact rated.

Tifosi makes affordable impact-rated clear and sunglasses.

Zenni has a whole line of Z87 rated impact glasses that can also take your prescription.

Brioti is a brand new line launched in December 2023 that has a unique color boosting technology in addition to Z87 rated impact protection. Look for sponsored players to be rolling them out soon.

Pickleball Central has an eyewear section that has multiple brands to choose from, some of which are repeated here. Same with Pickleball Superstore and other online aggregator sites.

Lastly, many of the larger pickleball paddle brands are branching out and now offering glasses. Since there's hundreds of brands, I'd check with your favorite brand website, but I have read recommendations for CRBN and Onyx brands specifically in social media posts on the subject, in addition to the manufacturers already mentioned above.

These products range anywhere from $25 to $200 or more. The nicer brands can include your prescription into the eyeglasses, whereas the lower-end brands act more like safety glasses you'd wear in the shop.

Either way, I hope you read this article and at least consider putting them on the next time you hit the court.

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It's Time To Start Wearing Eye Guards In Pickleball

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With a rise in eye injuries and ever increasing paddle power, now is the time to consider wearing eye guards and making them mandatory.

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Pickleball & Padel's battle for existence against the LTA

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Pickleball & Padel's battle for existence against the LTA

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Grass-roots organisation that has driven growth of pickleball in the UK fear takeover by tennis' governing body as padel's concerns rise

Ever heard of pickleball? A fast-paced, low-impact cross between tennis and ping-pong, it is America's most up-and-coming sport. Celebrity fans include former NFL quarterback Tom Brady, fashion diva Kim Kardashian and actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

So far, pickleball remains in its infancy on this side of the Atlantic. We have perhaps 12,000 regular participants, as against the United States' nine million. But it has obvious potential for growth, which may explain why it has become the subject of a prickly custody battle.

With a forthcoming board meeting of Sport England to consider pickleball's fate, the new breed of racquet sports - which also include the related discipline of padel - are entering an intriguing few weeks.

The awkwardness stems from a simple question: who should run pickleball in this country? Should it be the Lawn Tennis Association, which has been administrating padel - with debatable results, according to many insiders - since 2019? Or should it be the band of enthusiastic volunteers who established Pickleball England in that same year?

This is the choice facing Sport England, which is expected to take another look at it in late March. The issue was referenced in the House of Commons on Thursday, with Conservative MP Andrew Selous asking: "Can we recognise pickleball as a national sport?" and under-secretary of state Stuart Andrew replying: "Anything that gets people active can only be a good thing."

According to James Chaudry, a three-time national champion and Pickleball England board member, this short exchange raised some important points.

"We met the LTA several times last year and their proposal didn't recognise pickleball as its own sport," Chaudry told Telegraph Sport. "They want it to be part of their 'Tennis Opened Up' strategy, aimed at younger and older players. Our contention is that pickleball deserves to be treated on its own, not as a feeder sport. It's easier to pick up than tennis, and doesn't require the same court coverage. All of which makes it incredibly inclusive, and potentially beneficial to the Government's Get Active strategy."

This feels like a David and Goliath story. On the one side, the amateurs, led by retired former American Express executive Karen Mitchell, who have run three well-attended national championships. On the other, the LTA, with its £80 million income and 325 employees.

The bigger organisation says it has the resources and know-how to grow pickleball's player base. The outsiders reply that the two "Ps" will always be the poor relations in any notional LTA family of racquet sports, and suggest a potential conflict of interest.

According to this theory - which is strenuously denied at the LTA's Roehampton headquarters - there is an incentive to avoid a sudden explosion in either padel (as happened in Spain and Sweden) or pickleball (as happened in the US). Better to keep the younger sports under control, ticking along without taking too big a bite out of tennis's traditional player base. Otherwise, the LTA could be accused of nurturing a cuckoo in the nest.

Sport England - which told Telegraph Sport that "it would be pre-emptive to comment further at this stage" - will effectively be the referee in the fight over pickleball's future. In all probability, it is hoping for a repeat of the amicable merger that saw the LTA swallow up padel: another tennis-based hybrid which incorporates elements from squash.

Extremely popular in Europe, padel was an earlier visitor than pickleball, arriving on our shores when Tom Murray - a former Futures-level tennis player from Kent - formed a nascent British Padel organisation in 2014.

But then, after five years of sustaining his new body in his spare time, Murray agreed to something resembling a corporate buyout: the LTA would henceforth run the sport with him as its head of padel. "It was a dream come true," he told Telegraph Sport last week.

The success or otherwise of the LTA's padel project has obvious relevance for its American cousin. At Pickleball England's AGM, held on Feb 18, Chaudry recommended that members should "speak to people within the padel world, see what the impact is of the LTA having taken over padel, and come to your own conclusions."

So, how do we assess the sport's performance over the five years since the Murray merger? In that time, the number of courts in the UK has grown roughly sevenfold, from around 50 to approaching 350. Yet this has been driven almost entirely by private investors, while the LTA has erected only three courts in Roehampton and handed out £3.9 million in padel-related building loans to tennis clubs.

When Telegraph Sport approached those private investors, there was little warmth expressed towards the LTA. Inflexible rules and poor communication were cited several times, even if no one wanted to be quoted by name for fear of reprisals. As one source put it, "I've had this conversation with everyone in padel from club operators to top players, juniors, parents and tournament directors. I get a pretty consistent message back: the LTA get in the way more than they help."

Asked about these misgivings, Murray replied: "A lot of people might not see a lot of the work that's going on behind the scenes, because padel is growing slowly, if you compare it to other things. But I don't think it would be where it is today without the LTA having integrated it, because it wasn't officially recognised."

Murray also said that the next three years will constitute stage two of the project, now that "every team at the LTA is now delivering on both tennis and padel. When it comes to the private operators, they might be entrepreneurs who haven't come from a sports background, so they're not used to the tennis ecosystem: registering venues, safeguarding standards, making sure it's safe to play."

One curiosity about Murray is that everyone Telegraph Sport spoke to said that he lives in Alicante in southern Spain - an international padel hotspot - with one person adding: "It's a strange and unsatisfactory situation, as if the head of English cricket were living in Pakistan."

Murray replied that this is no more than a rumour, born out of his wife's Spanish nationality. "I'm a UK tax-payer," he said, "based down in Kent." But the very existence of the rumour says something about his visibility - or lack of it - around the national padel circuit.

For the moment, the dominance of tennis - which last year recorded its best participation figures in more than a decade - is not being seriously challenged in the UK. The LTA has identified 5.6 million tennis players, it says, as against 175,000 padel players and those 12,000 pickleballers we mentioned earlier.

Yet these are highly committed communities, as Mitchell demonstrated when she built a back-garden pickleball court during the pandemic. According to Chaudry, there are already 1,200 people signed up for August's national championships in Telford. And there is plenty of bustling activity behind the scenes: after considering cases from other sports, including walking football's fight to be run separately from the Football Association, Pickleball England recently filed freedom-of-information requests into Sport England's decision-making process.

For the moment, the passions at play exceed the numbers involved, but that could change quickly if pickleball finds its groove. The next moves in this saga will be closely watched.

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Racquet sports at war: Pickleball and padel take on the LTA

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Grass-roots organisation that has driven growth of pickleball in the UK fear takeover by tennis' governing body as padel's concerns rise

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McEnroe is defeated again in Pickleball by Agassi...

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McEnroe is defeated again in Pickleball by Agassi...

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HOLLYWOOD, Fla. - John McEnroe threw a couple of fits. And Maria Sharapova eased him away from throwing a few more.

But the tennis legends were no match for the sport's most popular couple.

Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf defeated McEnroe and Sharapova to win a $1 million purse in Pickleball Slam 2, which was broadcast in primetime on ESPN at the Seminole Hard Rock Casino on Sunday night.

"I'm sure we got some good ideas," Graf told USA TODAY Sports when asked about their plans for the winnings.

The four former world No. 1s, who combined for 42 Grand Slam singles titles in tennis, embraced the stage in pickleball, one of the fastest growing sports in the country.

Agassi and McEnroe starred in the event last year with former tennis pros Andy Roddick and Michael Chang.

But the additions of Graf, Sharapova and former tennis players turned pickleballers Jack Sock and James Blake expanded the event's range with an effort to bridge the passionate divide between the sports.

"To me, tennis is always the king. But it's easy to play this. That's why my friends play with me all the time," McEnroe said of pickleball. "But the better the level [of competition], you better practice."

Added Agassi: "The sports themselves, they can live and play happily in the sandbox. There's no reason why a tennis player can't have a paddle in their bag and pull it out at any time. Courts are everywhere now, and I think that's less and less."

Agassi and Sock, who plays professionally in Major League Pickleball, won the first match against McEnroe and Blake, a team owner of the MLP's Milwaukee Mashers, 11-7, 9-11, 11-8. Graf and Sock won the second match against Sharapova and Blake 9-11, 11-8, 17-15.

Agassi and Graf won the third and final match 11-7, 13-11 to sweep the event.

McEnroe says he prefers singles matches in pickleball for a better workout, while he felt exposed with doubles matches with dink shots - returns closer to the net which require players to lower their bodies to make contact.

McEnroe only slammed his paddle to the ground twice during the event in patented frustration.

"I'm probably more frustrated, but I am getting older," McEnroe said. "So, I'm trying to come up with something new, you know?"

Graf said she's been playing pickleball "seriously" for about six months with Agassi, who picked up the sport more frequently after last year's event.

Despite being the most accomplished player in her house, Graf said she felt some nervous jitters before the event.

"Before we started, I had a lot of nerves and I haven't felt that way in many years," said Graf, who retired in 1999 with 107 singles titles. "It's a great crowd and it's really special."

There will be three matches:

∎ Match 1: Agassi, Sock win first match against McEnroe and Blake 11-7, 9-11, 11-8

∎ Match 2: Graf and Sock win the second match against Sharapova, Blake 9-11, 11-8, 17-15.

∎ Match 3: Agassi and Graf won the third and final match 11-7, 13-11 to win the event over McEnroe and Sharapova.

Graf and Sock win the second match against Sharapova, Blake 9-11, 11-8, 17-15

Team Agassi is up 2-0. But the final match is worth two points. Next up are the four tennis legends.

Graf and Sock stormed back down 10-7, to win the final set 17-15.

"It's been a lot of fun. Before we started I had a lot of nerves and I haven't felt that in many years," Graf said after the match. "It's a great crowd and it's really special."

Agassi, Sock win first match against McEnroe and Blake 11-7, 9-11, 11-8

Agassi's side is up 1-0 on the event after a win in the first match. And he didn't pass up an opportunity to poke fun of McEnroe post match.

"You know he's gotten definitely more comfortable. He just has to stop hating on Pickleball. He's going to improve dramatically," Agassi said of McEnroe.

During the same interview, Sock said this event helps bridge the negativity between tennis and pickleball because "there's room for both and they're both amazing in their own way."

John McEnroe slams his paddle on first point loss

McEnroe didn't waste any time making his presence felt on Sunday, slamming his paddle after he and Blake lost the first point in the first match. Then, McEnroe was upset at his first foot fault.

"You can't challenge the foot call?!" McEnroe yelled.

The referee then told McEnroe "we can trade places if you want to."

When explaining the point system before play even began, the referee told McEnroe: "I'll hold your hand the entire match, don't worry."

What are foot faults in pickleball?

Players are not allowed to step into the squared off area closest to the net where they can commit foot faults. The area is called the non-volley zone, also known as the kitchen, on the pickleball courts.

Scoring at the Pickleball Slam

The first match will be scored in pro-legend doubles format: Rally scoring (every point counts), best two out of three games to 11 points, win by 2.

The second and final matches will be mixed doubles format: Rally scoring (every point counts), best two out of three games to 21, win by 2.

Who won Pickleball Slam 1?

Agassi and Andy Roddick earned a $1 million purse after beating McEnroe and Michael Chang in a winner-take-all doubles match 21-15, 21-23, 12-10.

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Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf defeat John McEnroe, Maria Sharapova in Pickleball Slam 2

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Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf defeated McEnroe and Sharapova to win a $1 million purse in Pickleball Slam 2

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But we desperately need more facilities in the UK!

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These Business Strategies Are Blowing Up The Indoor Pickleball Club Market

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After interviewing more than a dozen indoor club operators, owners, and franchisors, some distinct business strategy patterns emerged that will drive the industry going forward.

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Maybe Paddle prices will come down as a result!

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Here Comes the Great Chinese Pickleball Revolution

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If pickleball is in the throes of taking over America, then China is on the cusp of—no exaggeration—taking over pickleball.

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Is tennis under threat as pickleball surges in popularity?

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Is tennis under threat as pickleball surges in popularity?

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https://news.sky.com/story/is-tennis-under-threat-as-pickleball-surges-in-popularity-13037566

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Inside the controversial world of America's fastest growing sport

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Inside the controversial world of America's fastest growing sport

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Fans say Pickleball is a cross between tennis, badminton and ping pong but to critics, the sport is a never-ending irritant. It has become America's fastest growing sport and many predict it will soon take hold in the UK too - as Sky's US correspondent Martha Kelner reports.

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Pickleball: Inside the controversial world of America's fastest growing sport

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The 2023 Year In Review In Pickleball Part Two

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The 2023 Year In Review In Pickleball Part Two

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The Year In Review In Pickleball Part Two

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We just finished one heck of a busy year in the pickleball world. Here’s part 2 of my 2023 recap, starting off with the latest Tour Wars salvo in August.

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The 2023 Year In Review In Pickleball Part One

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The 2023 Year In Review In Pickleball Part One

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Santa on the move to the kitchen after delivering all his gifts.
Online meme

Happy Holidays to all my pickleball-loving readers!

We just finished one heck of a busy year in the pickleball world, especially when it came to the multi-million dollar industry that professional pickleball has now become.

I maintain a running list of "newsworthy events" that happen throughout the year in the sport, and now as we get ready to turn the page, here's a look back at the crazy year we just saw in Pickleball. I offer some editorialization and follow-up along the way.

This turned into such a massive post that I've split it up into two parts. First Part today, then the second part on the 31st. Read on for noteworthy items in the pickleball world up until Mid-August or so; we'll pick up with Part 2 starting with the Tour Wars in Kansas City.

1/1/23: Carvana officially becomes the Professional Pickleball Association's official Tour Title Sponsor. The Tour has been renamed to the "Carvana PPA Tour." This deal was announced in October of 2022 but started officially with the new season. Tom Dundon, majority owner of the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA), also holds a stake in Carvana, so the synergy of the two companies makes sense.

1/1/23: USA Pickleball (USAP) releases new rules go into effect that change the way the game is played. We covered these rules in detail last year; the biggest change was the banning of the "spin serve" (not the Chainsaw serve, thanks to Jason Aspes for the correction). While some lamented the loss of the serve (ahem, Zane Navratil), others saw the serve as a gimmick that took away from the purpose of the serve in this sport.

1/1/23: PPA makes some rule changes for its competitions related to Service Motion, Let Serves, Spin serves, Drop serves, Player-position errors, and Video replay. Not all of these rules are in line with the USAP's rules, especially around the let serve, which leads to some confusion with casual viewers when watching the pro tour.

1/2/23: When the PPA releases its 2023 schedule, it becomes clear that they have scheduled a competing event against the Minto US Open, historically the biggest and most prestigious event on the annual pickleball calendar. More than 60 PPA players signed exclusivity contracts in the lead-up to 2023, and negotiations with the US Open never materialized to include provisions for the PPA contracted players. The net effect drastically reduces the talent in the pro divisions in Naples when it is held in April.

1/5/23: The Association of Pickleball Players (APP) releases its Pickleball Participation Report, a survey done in conjunction with YouGov, that shows even more drastic participation numbers nationally than people may have been aware of. 36.5M Adult Americans played pickleball at least once in 2022; that's 14% of adult Americans. The APP releases more data later in the year that shows the demographics of the sport are getting distinctly younger, and YouGov has a slew of Pickleball survey data available online.

1/14/23: MLP announces it is moving away from Franklin and will be using the "DUPR" ball in its competitions.

1/17/23: The APP announces its 2023 Masters Series, a rebranding of the "Super Senior" pro divisions for players aged 60+.

1/23/23: APP announces a broadcast deal with CBS Sports and ESPN for programming for its events in 2023. This deal guarantees 20 hours of coverage from all 16 planned APP events, along with 200+ hours on ESPN+ and APP-TV.

2/5/23: PPA changes its tournament competition format, not for the first time, continuing to distance itself from a true double elimination format. Losers from all early rounds of all pro events will now drop into a consolation bracket that competes for at best 5th place. The two losers of the semis of the winner's bracket now go directly to the Bronze medal game. Lastly the two teams/persons who advance to the final of the winner's bracket compete for gold on Championship Sunday.

3/8/23: PPA, Major League Pickleball (MLP), and USAP announce joint equipment compliancy standards . Throughout most of the rest of 2023, the USAP conducts paddle testing at PPA events, but the MLP eventually splits from this joint agreement and begins using a different testing entity that is more stringent. This leads to more than a few high visibility testing incidents at PPA and MLP events: we'll revisit this issue later in the year.

3/8/23: PPA and USAP announce deal to move USA Pickleball Nationals out of Indian Wells, move it to Invited Corp's Brookhaven Country Club in Dallas, and it will be a PPA branded event. Furthermore, three upcoming PPA events will be added as Golden Ticket qualifier events. This ends the previous exclusivity issue with PPA-contracted players not being able to play in Nationals.

3/13/23: DudePerfect buys into the Frisco Clean Cause MLP franchise and their investment values the team at $5M. It becomes a bit more evident later in the year that the DudePerfect group took control from prior Frisco majority owner Clean Cause/Wes Hurt.

3/21/23: The founders and long-time owners/operators of the US Open Chris Evon & Terri Graham announce a merger/partnership with Pickleball4America.

4/9/23: PPA's Red Rock tournament features a slew of highly charged paddle challenges and accusations, which unfold in semi-secrecy over the coming weeks. Lea Jansen very publicly challenged and accused Salome Devidze's paddle after their singles match, going onto Zane Navratil's Picklepod podcast the next day and claiming exasperation that the paddle was enabled for use. Devidze later reported on her own Instagram that the paddle came back clean. Meanwhile Travis Rettenmaier challenged Tyson McGuffin's paddle mid-match, was told you couldn't challenge mid-match, then challenged post-match and his paddle reportedly came back illegal ... but no penalties were levied because the tour claimed Rettenmaier didn't make the challenge during the match. On his Tennis Sucks podcast weeks after, Rettenmaier expressed some pretty serious irritation over this as well. It is eventually reported that McGuffin's paddle DID fail off-site testing, but no reversal of results, points, or prize money occurs.

5/3/23: Major League Pickleball (MLP by Margaritaville) and DUPR (Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating), the leading pickleball ratings organization, today announced the official launch of collegiate and junior verticals under the Major League Pickleball and DUPR umbrella.

5/5/23: PPA reaches an agreement with ESPN for broadcast rights for eight tourneys in the remainder of 2023. Four live, four replay.

5/5/23: Tennis star Jack Sock enters the PPA Charlotte event, playing in all three divisions. He makes the quarters of Singles, loses in the first round of Men's doubles with Tyson McGuffin, but wins the Mixed Doubles title with Anna Leigh Waters. I provided detailed coverage of his performance along the way (see above links for stories published that weekend). Sock does not appear in another pro event the rest of the way in 2023, but does sign an exclusive PPA contract for 2024 during the August Tour wars and seems committed to full-time touring in 2024.

5/5/23: Sarah Ansboury is the first player to be forfeited out of a match for using an illegal paddle, and the PPA very publicly comments on the situation as compared to prior paddle testing issues with other, more prominent players. The details of her paddle testing and forfeiture were troubling; a pre-match test showed her paddle to be "on the edge" of failure, then post-match testing showed it had exceeded the published thresholds. Can one match change a paddle enough to cause it to fail? Apparently so.

5/16/23: PPA announces a deal to stream matches on Amazon Prime video. The Amazon Prime coverage is used throughout the rest of the season, often taking over mid-day from PPA's YouTube feeds.

5/24/23: NML issues a scathing takedown of PPA's transparency in paddle testing after a series of inconsistent actions taken against players that are "in" the fold versus those who are not.

5/24/23: APP officially rebrands and changes its name from Association of Pickleball Professionals to be the Association of Pickleball Players. They also roll out a new website and new marketing. This change is made to highlight its focus on all players, not just professionals.

5/31/23: MLP reaches agreement with ESPN2 to broadcast MLP's 2023 Premier Level Super Finals, Monday, June 19, and Tuesday, Dec. 12.

6/1/23: PPA sets a record for tournament attendance in Atlanta with 1,421 players, then breaks it two weeks later in Rockwell with nearly 1,500 players entered into its Texas Open.

6/4/23: The National Pickleball League (NPL) finishes its first event of the year. Founded in 2022 by senior touring pros Michael Chen, Rick Witsken, Beth Bellamy, and Tom DeCaprio, the organization brings team-based competitions to the 50+/Senior space. The league forms six teams and plays six events in the second half of 2023, eventually crowning the Indy Drivers as the first NPL champions.

6/17/23: MLP's San Clemente event comes with eight new rule tweaks, as they continue to adjust the competition format for playability.

6/20/23: APP announces its upcoming Newport Beach event has more than 1,400 participants, breaking its own record for attendance at an APP event. Both pro tours continue to draw amazing numbers of participants, and the tournament boom continues across the country.

6/22/23: Riley Newman and Matt Wright announce they're breaking up as doubles partners. The pair has medaled together in every one of their last 25 tournaments playing together, dating to the beginning of 2022. However, they've gone from being regular features in the gold Medal match to being challenged in the semis and dropping to the bronze medal match several times in early 2023. By year's end, the two men finish exactly tied for 5th place on the PPA tour standings, but neither really had anywhere close to the success they had together in terms of medals or finishes.

6/24/23: The Senior Pro Tour announces its formation, founded by touring pros Matthias Johannsen, Dave Furman, and Steve & Jennifer Dawson. They announced a new tour, aligned with National Pickleball, with six events all coinciding with NP events. This further crowds the senior competition landscape, with APP, PPA, SPT, and NPL all now offering senior-based competitions. Throughout the rest of 2023, often-conflicting senior pro events result in some watered down competitions.

7/4/23: MLP adds two C-level executives. Chief Executive Officer Julio DePietro and Chief Operating Officer Bruce Popko.

7/6/23: The PPA tweaks its competition format again. Going forward, the back draws/consolation brackets will just be for 1st round losers. After the round of 16, the pro divisions are single elimination outside of the Bronze medal match. This is the final step in a month's long move towards essentially single-elimination pro draws on the PPA.

7/11/23: The APP partners with the AARP for its senior pro divisions. The AARP is now the Official Naming Rights Sponsor of Champions and Masters Divisions, Title Sponsor of 2024 Champions Cup.

7/28/23: PPA #2 singles player Lea Jansen, who has been open and vocal about her frustrations and challenges playing pro Singles professionally (partly due to her management of Diabetes, partly due to ongoing well-documented concerns with line calls and paddle challenging) announces just after her singles match in Fountain Valley that she is "retiring" from pro singles effective immediately. This statement is rather surprising since she's clearly the #2 singles player on tour and has ten singles medals in 2023 alone.

7/29/23: PPA #1 Anna Leigh Waters, who had not lost in Singles in more than a year, is shockingly upset in the quarters of the Takaya Showcase by Hurricane Tyra Black. After losing, ALW curiously seemed to be celebrating the loss, exclaiming "thank you for beating me" before giving high fives to her camp and running off the court.

8/15/23: USAP issues rare mid-year rule changes. The three changes are: 1. Codifying 2-game minimums in USAP-sanctioned events unless the division specifies "single elimination w/o consolation" ahead of time. 2. Referees will now confirm all players are in the correct positions before calling the point. 3. Other than NVZ violations, a fault may only be committed while a ball is live now.

8/24/23: Pickleball is officially added to the global Sports Betting Market, as the PPA partners with FanDuel to offer gambling at its events. I wrote a deep-dive in this space into the offering, with a betting guide and some thoughts on the implementation. Interestingly, after a few events FanDuel seems to have pulled the sport from its platforms, apparently a reaction to their heavy losses and inaccurate spreads.

Stay tuned on December 31st for Part 2.

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The Year In Review In Pickleball Part One

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We just saw one heck of a year in the pickleball world. Here's a recap of seminal events from January to August, part 1 of our 2023 Year in Review

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PBTV via FreeVee (Amazon) but not in the UK as yet!

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PBTV via FreeVee (Amazon) but not in the UK as yet!

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Pickleballtv-PBTV-to carry top live tour and team events, player features, instruction, celebrity pickleball and weekly studio news show.

LOS ANGELES and DALLAS, Nov. 9, 2023 - Tennis Channel and the Carvana Professional Pickleball Association (PPA Tour) have launched Pickleballtv (PBTV), a television network completely devoted to America's fastest-growing sport. Available now on Amazon Freevee and Fubo, the new, 24-hour media home pickleball will show more than 30 top-level live PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball (MLP) team events, original programming and a weekly studio news show. Pickleballtv, like Tennis Channel, will offer thorough coverage of the sport's professional ranks along with content created for its expanding number of recreational enthusiasts.

Making its debut during the PPA Tour National Championships in Dallas this week, Pickleballtv will most often show live or encore match coverage featuring the best professional players in the world battling at the most important events in the sport. Interspersed with this competition are Getting to Know You features on the men and women who make up the PPA Tour and MLP, stars like Ben Johns, Anna Leigh Waters and Catherine Parenteau. There will also be instructional programs that help amateurs understand and improve their own on-court capabilities, with episodes on serve strategy, dinking, volley drills, midcourt play, backhands, shifting and overheads, among others. A celebrity pickleball show is in the works, as is a weekly studio news show.

Both the PPA Tour and Tennis Channel expect Pickleballtv to become one-stop shopping for fans who want to stay on top of this exponentially growing sport.

"Tennis Channel and the PPA Tour are doing something that hasn't been done before - taking a fast-growing sport in its infancy and attaching an experienced, state-of-the-art media arm to its development in the form of Pickleballtv," said Ken Solomon, president, Tennis Channel. "We have no doubt that 24/7, consistent, daily coverage of the best players, events and news on a dedicated pickleball channel will generate new fans and give existing ones a place to call home, thus expanding the sport's overall reach and global popularity. We've driven massive new awareness with Tennis Channel during the past two decades and we expect nothing less with this exciting new network and explosive, young pro sport and easy-to-learn, highly addictive grassroots game."

According to February's annual Sports & Fitness Industry Association Topline Participation Report, pickleball has been the fastest-growing sport in the United States for three consecutive years, increasing 159% in that time. Professional tennis stars Jack Sock, Genie Bouchard and Sam Querrey have recently thrown their hats into the PPA Tour ring and will appear on Pickleballtv. Meanwhile, MLP, the team league that is part of the PPA Tour, has garnered attention due to a long line of well-known owners, including Tom Brady, Eva Longoria, LeBron James, Chris Evert, Naomi Osaka and Hall of Fame Tennis Channel-analyst Tracy Austin.

"The PPA Tour has worked in lockstep with Tennis Channel, and we're proud to launch Pickleballtv coinciding with the largest tournament in pickleball history. There are so many exciting things happening in our sport right now, and the addition of daily media coverage capable of reaching an unprecedented audience for the sport is a watershed moment for pickleball enthusiasts everywhere who want continuous access to a host of unique and innovative content," said Connor Pardoe, founder and CEO of the PPA Tour. "The PPA Tour is home to tremendously gifted athletes who deserve to be household names, and Pickleballtv will facilitate that transition. Prepare to be entertained with a variety of outstanding programming that will take your fandom to new heights!"

The launch coincides with the Biofreeze USA Pickleball National Championships Powered by Invited and the PPA Tour in Dallas, one of the largest events of the season. Pickleballtv provided live coverage of a celebrity pickleball exhibition that featured a variety of Texas-related sports stars. The Deep Eddy Vodka Celebrity Pickleball Showdown showcased basketball's Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd, football's Tony Romo, golf's Scottie Scheffler, hockey's Marty Turco and tennis' John Isner joined by several of the best players on the PPA Tour.

In September Tennis Channel and the PPA Tour announced a commercial joint venture to grow pickleball in the United States and around the world. Under the agreement, most PPA Tour matches appear live on Tennis Channel's various media platforms and both organizations coordinate advertising-sales activities. Tennis Channel also produces all events for the PPA Tour, regardless of the media outlets on which they first appear.

The PPA Tour and Tennis Channel are in conversation with multiple distribution partners to roll Pickleballtv out to as many homes as possible.

About Carvana PPA Tour
The Carvana PPA Tour is the professional tour of pickleball, organizing events and rankings for the top male and female pickleball players worldwide and awarding more than $5.5 million in annual prize money with equal play and pay. The Carvana PPA Tour is set to host 25 events in 2023 at world-class facilities like the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Cincinnati, Mission Hills Country Club in California, and the Darling Tennis Center and Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Inviting all to compete and "play where the pros play," the Carvana PPA Tour offers amateur divisions of play for every level, unparalleled experiences for fans and spectators, gorgeous venues, pro player meet-and-greets, food/beverages, live entertainment, VIP upgrades, giveaways and games, shopping, vendors, and more. Founded in 2018 and based in Salt Lake City, the Carvana PPA Tour is operated by parent corporation, Pickleball.com. For more information, go to www.ppatour.com. See Pro Player Profiles and follow us on social: Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Tennis Channel ( www.tennischannel.com) which is owned by Sinclair Inc., is the only television-based multiplatform destination dedicated to both the professional sport and tennis lifestyle. The network has the most concentrated single-sport coverage in television in one of the world's most voluminous sports, with multiple men's and women's tournaments and singles, doubles and mixed competition throughout the year. Tennis Channel has rights at the four majors - US Open, Wimbledon, Roland Garros (French Open) and Australian Open - and is the exclusive U.S. home of all men's ATP World Tour and women's WTA Tour competitions, Davis Cup, Billie Jean King Cup, United Cup, and Laver Cup. Direct-to-consumer streaming service Tennis Channel Plus is available to everyone in the United States and allows subscribers to select from another 4,500 live and on-demand matches and award-winning content from short-form to films throughout the tennis season. Tennis Channel International brings live competition and network content to markets in Europe and Asia via digital subscription and free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels. Additional platform www.tennis.com is the largest digital outlet dedicated to the sport. Tennis Channel also manages a network of close to 20 podcasts.
About Sinclair, Inc.
Sinclair, Inc. (Nasdaq: SBGI) is a diversified media company and a leading provider of local news and sports. The Company owns, operates and/or provides services to 185 television stations in 86 markets affiliated with all the major broadcast networks; owns Tennis Channel and multicast networks Comet, CHARGE!, TBD and The Nest; and owns and provides services to 21 regional sports network brands. Sinclair's content is delivered via multiple platforms, including over-the-air, multi-channel video program distributors, and the nation's largest streaming aggregator of local news content, NewsON. The Company regularly uses its website as a key source of Company information which can be accessed at www.sbgi.net.
For further information:
Eric Abner, Tennis Channel, 310-314-9445, eabner@tennischannel.com, @TennisChannel

Jeff Watson, PPA Tour, 817-944-2298, j.watson@ppatour.com

Pickleballtv-PBTV-to carry top live tour and team events, player features, instruction, celebrity pickleball and weekly studio news show.

LOS ANGELES and DALLAS, Nov. 9, 2023 - Tennis Channel and the Carvana Professional Pickleball Association (PPA Tour) have launched Pickleballtv (PBTV), a television network completely devoted to America's fastest-growing sport. Available now on Amazon Freevee and Fubo, the new, 24-hour media home pickleball will show more than 30 top-level live PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball (MLP) team events, original programming and a weekly studio news show. Pickleballtv, like Tennis Channel, will offer thorough coverage of the sport's professional ranks along with content created for its expanding number of recreational enthusiasts.

Making its debut during the PPA Tour National Championships in Dallas this week, Pickleballtv will most often show live or encore match coverage featuring the best professional players in the world battling at the most important events in the sport. Interspersed with this competition are Getting to Know You features on the men and women who make up the PPA Tour and MLP, stars like Ben Johns, Anna Leigh Waters and Catherine Parenteau. There will also be instructional programs that help amateurs understand and improve their own on-court capabilities, with episodes on serve strategy, dinking, volley drills, midcourt play, backhands, shifting and overheads, among others. A celebrity pickleball show is in the works, as is a weekly studio news show.

Both the PPA Tour and Tennis Channel expect Pickleballtv to become one-stop shopping for fans who want to stay on top of this exponentially growing sport.

"Tennis Channel and the PPA Tour are doing something that hasn't been done before - taking a fast-growing sport in its infancy and attaching an experienced, state-of-the-art media arm to its development in the form of Pickleballtv," said Ken Solomon, president, Tennis Channel. "We have no doubt that 24/7, consistent, daily coverage of the best players, events and news on a dedicated pickleball channel will generate new fans and give existing ones a place to call home, thus expanding the sport's overall reach and global popularity. We've driven massive new awareness with Tennis Channel during the past two decades and we expect nothing less with this exciting new network and explosive, young pro sport and easy-to-learn, highly addictive grassroots game."

According to February's annual Sports & Fitness Industry Association Topline Participation Report, pickleball has been the fastest-growing sport in the United States for three consecutive years, increasing 159% in that time. Professional tennis stars Jack Sock, Genie Bouchard and Sam Querrey have recently thrown their hats into the PPA Tour ring and will appear on Pickleballtv. Meanwhile, MLP, the team league that is part of the PPA Tour, has garnered attention due to a long line of well-known owners, including Tom Brady, Eva Longoria, LeBron James, Chris Evert, Naomi Osaka and Hall of Fame Tennis Channel-analyst Tracy Austin.

"The PPA Tour has worked in lockstep with Tennis Channel, and we're proud to launch Pickleballtv coinciding with the largest tournament in pickleball history. There are so many exciting things happening in our sport right now, and the addition of daily media coverage capable of reaching an unprecedented audience for the sport is a watershed moment for pickleball enthusiasts everywhere who want continuous access to a host of unique and innovative content," said Connor Pardoe, founder and CEO of the PPA Tour. "The PPA Tour is home to tremendously gifted athletes who deserve to be household names, and Pickleballtv will facilitate that transition. Prepare to be entertained with a variety of outstanding programming that will take your fandom to new heights!"

The launch coincides with the Biofreeze USA Pickleball National Championships Powered by Invited and the PPA Tour in Dallas, one of the largest events of the season. Pickleballtv provided live coverage of a celebrity pickleball exhibition that featured a variety of Texas-related sports stars. The Deep Eddy Vodka Celebrity Pickleball Showdown showcased basketball's Dirk Nowitzki and Jason Kidd, football's Tony Romo, golf's Scottie Scheffler, hockey's Marty Turco and tennis' John Isner joined by several of the best players on the PPA Tour.

In September Tennis Channel and the PPA Tour announced a commercial joint venture to grow pickleball in the United States and around the world. Under the agreement, most PPA Tour matches appear live on Tennis Channel's various media platforms and both organizations coordinate advertising-sales activities. Tennis Channel also produces all events for the PPA Tour, regardless of the media outlets on which they first appear.

The PPA Tour and Tennis Channel are in conversation with multiple distribution partners to roll Pickleballtv out to as many homes as possible.

About Carvana PPA Tour
The Carvana PPA Tour is the professional tour of pickleball, organizing events and rankings for the top male and female pickleball players worldwide and awarding more than $5.5 million in annual prize money with equal play and pay. The Carvana PPA Tour is set to host 25 events in 2023 at world-class facilities like the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Cincinnati, Mission Hills Country Club in California, and the Darling Tennis Center and Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Inviting all to compete and "play where the pros play," the Carvana PPA Tour offers amateur divisions of play for every level, unparalleled experiences for fans and spectators, gorgeous venues, pro player meet-and-greets, food/beverages, live entertainment, VIP upgrades, giveaways and games, shopping, vendors, and more. Founded in 2018 and based in Salt Lake City, the Carvana PPA Tour is operated by parent corporation, Pickleball.com. For more information, go to www.ppatour.com. See Pro Player Profiles and follow us on social: Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn.

Tennis Channel ( www.tennischannel.com) which is owned by Sinclair Inc., is the only television-based multiplatform destination dedicated to both the professional sport and tennis lifestyle. The network has the most concentrated single-sport coverage in television in one of the world's most voluminous sports, with multiple men's and women's tournaments and singles, doubles and mixed competition throughout the year. Tennis Channel has rights at the four majors - US Open, Wimbledon, Roland Garros (French Open) and Australian Open - and is the exclusive U.S. home of all men's ATP World Tour and women's WTA Tour competitions, Davis Cup, Billie Jean King Cup, United Cup, and Laver Cup. Direct-to-consumer streaming service Tennis Channel Plus is available to everyone in the United States and allows subscribers to select from another 4,500 live and on-demand matches and award-winning content from short-form to films throughout the tennis season. Tennis Channel International brings live competition and network content to markets in Europe and Asia via digital subscription and free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channels. Additional platform www.tennis.com is the largest digital outlet dedicated to the sport. Tennis Channel also manages a network of close to 20 podcasts.
About Sinclair, Inc.
Sinclair, Inc. (Nasdaq: SBGI) is a diversified media company and a leading provider of local news and sports. The Company owns, operates and/or provides services to 185 television stations in 86 markets affiliated with all the major broadcast networks; owns Tennis Channel and multicast networks Comet, CHARGE!, TBD and The Nest; and owns and provides services to 21 regional sports network brands. Sinclair's content is delivered via multiple platforms, including over-the-air, multi-channel video program distributors, and the nation's largest streaming aggregator of local news content, NewsON. The Company regularly uses its website as a key source of Company information which can be accessed at www.sbgi.net.
For further information:
Eric Abner, Tennis Channel, 310-314-9445, eabner@tennischannel.com, @TennisChannel

Jeff Watson, PPA Tour, 817-944-2298, j.watson@ppatour.com

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Tennis Channel, Carvana Professional Pickleball Association launch television network dedicated to pickleball | Tennis.com

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Pickleballtv-PBTV-to carry top live tour and team events, player features, instruction, celebrity pickleball and weekly studio news show.

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The Best Pickleball Paddles for Beginners and Pros

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Paddles are getting more sophisticated and expensive. We spent months testing dozens to find our favorites.

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Pickleball medals brings sweet taste of success to Shropshire

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Pickleball medals brings sweet taste of success to Shropshire

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Pickleball medals bring
sweet taste of success

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Shropshire pickleball pioneer Fiona Edwards hailed a hugely successful English Nationals for the county as she bagged a pair of bronze medals in Bolton.

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Matthew Perry's Pickleball Coach Details Their Final Moments and Close Friendship (Exclusive)

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Matthew Perry's Pickleball Coach Details Their Final Moments and Close Friendship (Exclusive)

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Matthew Perry's Pickleball Coach Details Their Final Moments and Close Friendship.

Matt Manasse explained that Perry used pickleball as an outlet in his recovery and encouraged others who were overcoming addiction to try the sport.

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Matthew Perry’s Pickleball Coach Details Their Final Moments Together

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ET spoke with Matthew Perry’s close friend and pickleball coach Matt Manasse about their friendship on and off the court.

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Five tips on how to get a new pickleball club started

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Five tips on how to get a new pickleball club started

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Have you ever had to travel a long distance to play pickleball, and wished that there was somewhere closer to home? Perhaps you've moved to a new area, and there's no pickleball club anywhere nearby.

If you should find yourself in these situations, you may want to start your own pickleball club.

It is difficult to know where to begin, so we spoke to two people we've asked two people who have been there and done it.

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With the sport experiencing such a rapid boom, there's never been a better time to get involved, so if you've caught the pickleball bug, here's five tips to help you get a club going, and how to make it a success:

Tell your friends!

Louise Stephens helped to set up London Pickleball, a club which now boasts over 400 members. "The biggest thing for me was getting the players," she states. "People always say I want to play, but where do I get players?

"So I just contacted a lot of my friends... and that is literally how we started, it was just my friends. But all my friends, remarkably, have friends, so they were then bringing their friends and before you know it, you've got a big group of people wanting to play."

Remember, pickleball's greatest strength is its diversity, so you can bring almost anybody down to a session and they will be able to participate, often to a much greater extent than with any other sport.

Don't be afraid to ask other, established pickleball clubs for help

Richard Wise runs taster sessions and supports new clubs across Cumbria: "I now just run the taster session, loan the equipment and support them for a few months until they're up and running with their own gear and then I'll get my gear back and they'll carry on".

Louise offers similar advice: " Don't be afraid to ask established groups, because people are more than happy to tell you what they did.

"And you don't have to take any notice of what they say, you can pick and choose the bits you like, but just remember that is somebody's been running a pickleball group for six or seven years, they've been through everything you're about to go through."

If you find a venue with some availability, take it immediately

Even for the most established clubs, finding a place to play can be tricky. If you know of a venue, the advice would be to book it as soon as possible and just get playing, or you may find everywhere booked up and have nowhere to play.

Louise knows this all too well, having struggled initially to find a venue after running her first taster session.

"We literally rang round local leisure centres and took what we were offered. Since [the start] if anyone offers us anything, we take it," she said.

Richard is also struggling. "Despite the fact we've got 80 odd hours a week going on, I've still not got space for people to play," he said.

Your members will have skills that help you run the club. Use them!

You may wonder how on earth you'll be able to manage an entire club of people as it begins to grow, but the beauty of pickleball is the community you can create, and if you create a positive, welcoming environment, members will want to help the club in any way they can.

London Pickleball is a great example of this, with Louise noting: "Just in the pickleball community, there's some amazing people that you would never know how amazing they are unless you ask for help.

"So that would be my biggest thing, being brave enough to ask for help."

Be brave enough to do what's best for the club as a whole

This may seem a little bit further down the road, but it is something you should be aware of if you're looking to start up and run a club.

People of varying skill levels will be playing, and striking a balance between inclusion and enjoyment is always likely to be tricky.

Louise has been involved in the founding and running of two pickleball clubs across the last seven years, and for her, the number one problem pickleball clubs face is this:

"When people start settling down, there's always people who think they're better than they are, and they want to play with the better players. But those better players don't want to play with them.

"You have to be brave enough to stand up and say to that person, sorry you're not ready. That's the hardest thing, because no one wants to upset anybody, but if you don't upset the minority, you'll upset the majority"

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Five tips on how to get a new pickleball club started | Pickleball 52

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You may want to start your own pickleball club, but

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‘Could be the next big thing’: how pickleball is courting a new generation of players

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‘Could be the next big thing’: how pickleball is courting a new generation of players

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There are an estimated 20,000 pickleball players in Australia, with players, or “picklers”, skewing older at an average age of about 58. But Ron Shell, the chief executive of Australia’s National Pickleball League, believes in three years that will grow to at least 1 million and in 10 years it will be an Olympic sport.

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‘Could be the next big thing’: how pickleball is courting a new generation of players

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The cross between tennis, ping-pong and badminton is growing in popularity but faces a shortage of courts and a problem with nimbys

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Professional Pickleball, Tennis Channel deepen media partnership with 24/7 streaming channel

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Professional Pickleball, Tennis Channel deepen media partnership with 24/7 streaming channel

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Professional Pickleball, Tennis Channel deepen media partnership with 24/7 streaming channel

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The PPA Tour and Tennis Channel are teaming up in joint venture that let’s the TV network produce and air matches in a bid to further popularize the sport.

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My private club in Charlotte won’t make room for pickleball. Seriously?

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My private club in Charlotte won’t make room for pickleball. Seriously?

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Pickleball is loud. The people behind the trendy sport say they’re trying to fix it.

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Pickleball is loud. The people behind the trendy sport say they’re trying to fix it.

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Pickleball is loud. The people behind the trendy sport say they’re trying to fix it

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Pickleball can be twice as loud as tennis. The body that governs the sport is working on ways to quiet it down.

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Simple but spicy: Pickleball pulls in thousands of new competitors - Sunday Times September 11, 2023

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Simple but spicy: Pickleball pulls in thousands of new competitors - Sunday Times September 11, 2023

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Can pickleball convince the tennis nuts? I played with Tim Henman to find out

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t's a surprisingly silly name, for a sport that counts George Clooney, the Duchess of Edinburgh and Judy Murray among its nine million fans. But perhaps being silly is exactly what drew Clooney and his fellow A-listers to pickleball, the world's fastest-growing sport and the reason I find myself volleying next to Tim Henman on a sunny September Saturday on an intimidatingly tennis-like court.

"Lovely dinks," Thaddea Lock, a former tennis professional and now Britain's number one pickleball player, tells me as Henman and I warm up on the shiny new blue courts at Beaverbrook, the first hotel in the country to offer the sport alongside tennis and padel tennis.

I find myself smiling at the word dink, but apparently that's the official term for the little up-at-the-net shots we're doing in what Lock explains is "essentially a glorified bat and ball" - the game many of us grew up playing on the beach. There's certainly a beach feel here today, as brightly-dressed players ('picklers') cheers glasses of rosé and Dua Lipa's Barbie anthem blares out from speakers at the side of the court.

"Is this rosé just to look at?" laughs Henman, my doubles partner for the morning, admitting he was a pickleball sceptic until he arrived on court today. He's only been playing for an hour and says he's already sold, cracking jokes about installing Hawk-Eye and asking a Pickleball England rep where the nearest court is to his home in Oxfordshire.

Being paired with Britain's former Wimbledon darling is admittedly a little terrifying when learning a new racket sport (serving is underarm, mercifully), but fortunately for me Henman, 49, is a newbie to the sport today too. Sure, being a ex-professional sportsman gives him a natural advantage, but the fact that an amateur tennis player like me can even begin to play alongside Henman is exactly the magic of this buzzy new sport. It's relaxed, sociable (the most popular form is doubles) and refreshingly simple, even if Henman does keep having to remind me to stay at the base line after my serve because the ball has to bounce before the first two shots of any point.

So what exactly is this funny-sounding sport, exactly - and how does it differ from padel, tennis' other cool baby sister? The first difference is in their origins. While padel was born in Spain, pickle is a US import - hence the somewhat surprisingly starry following. A-list players include Leonardo DiCaprio, Matthew Perry, Taylor Lautner and Kim Kardasian (presumably, the reality TV queen recognises the bum-sculpting benefits - getting low under the ball is important), while NBA star LeBron James is such a fan he even bought his own pro pickleball team last year.

As a sport, pickle is relatively new, originating just 50 years ago when a family in Washington supposedly looking for something to do after a round of golf. Myths as to exactly how it began vary - some say it was named after the family dog, Pickle; others say the word pickle was a nod to the fact that it was made from leftover equipment around the family garden - but the premise and its benefits are widely agreed upon.

If you like ping pong, badminton and tennis you'll be able to master the basics pretty quickly. It's most similar to tennis, but with a court that's roughly a third of the size and smaller, solid rackets (confusingly, called paddles). Scoring is more similar to that of ping pong (1, 2, 3 as opposed to 15, 30, 40, but with an extra digit at the end to indicate who is serving) and hitting the ball sounds a bit like ping-pong, too, except in this case it's a lightweight plastic ball (called a wiffle ball) with holes in so it gets picked up in the wind, like a shuttlecock in badminton. Think of it as table tennis without the table and with an extra, no-volley section at the front called the kitchen or kitchen sink.

Dinks, wiffles and kitchens might not sound like the makings of a glamorous new celebrity phenomenon, but first impressions can apparently be misleading. Popularity is said to have skyrocketed in the US during the pandemic, partly thanks to the fact that anyone can set a pickle court up in their driveway if they have some chalk and a pop-up net, with more than 8.9 million people now calling themselves pickleball players in the States - almost double the number of players in 2021.

Here on this side of the Atlantic, Pickleball England already boasts more than 12,000 registered players, with the number of UK clubs doubling to nearly 400 over the last two years (most London clubs are, naturally, in SW postcodes) and Emma Watson, Judy Murray and John McEnroe among the high-profile Brits to be pictured smiling on a pickleball court in recent months.

Lock, 36 - who started playing after visiting friends in the US in 2018 - tells me this feelgood factor is the real magic of the sport she has now made a career out of. Fellow players spoke of a famous "padel grin" when I tried padel tennis for the first time in January and there's definitely a pickle grin, too, she confirms, gesturing to our fellow players on the courts around us. Within seconds, I'm smiling, too, and within minutes I'm into my first game with Henman, laughing through a particularly fast and furious 15-hit rally once we all master the hitting power needed to reach the back of the court (quite a bit, it turns out).

Pickleball England already bosts more than 12,000 registered players, with Emma Watson, Judy Murray and John McEnroe among reported fans

"It's just so convivial," Beaverbrook's owner Joel Cadbury agrees after a quick five-minute set. He nods to his wife and kids, all mixing in on various cross-gender, cross-generation matches on our neighbouring courts. He couldn't possibly choose between pickle and padel, another recent installation at his hotel. But why would he want to choose? Both have their merits, and they compliment each other, in fact. "A lot of the skills are interchangeable: your hand speed, your touch, your reactions," explains Lock.

What Cadbury does point to is pickleball's egalitarian feel, even compared to relatively inclusive sports like padel, where strength can still give male players an advantage. "[Pickle] is the first game I can remember playing where gender is totally irrelevant," he says, challenging me to name many sports in which men compete against women at a professional level. Pro players say it's easily the most inclusive sport they've ever played.

Cadbury bounces back onto court and Lock picks up where he left off. Not only is gender irrelevant in pickleball, she says, but so too are age and fitness-level, to a large extent. She caught glandular fever early into her pickleball career, and found she could return to the pickleball court much earlier than the tennis court, thanks to the smaller court and lower fitness and technical requirements (like me, she struggled with padel a little more as a non-squash player, finding it unnatural trying to hit against the back walls).

Lock currently spends much of her time championing the inclusivity benefits of pickle, whether it's for schools or for older generations who might have given up on tennis or padel for the sake of their joints or pride. After more than four years playing alongside various day-jobs in events and operations at the LTA and Wimbledon, she's going professional full-time next month and is already sponsored by the pickleball paddle brand ProXR Pickleball and US footwear brand Sketchers.

This fashion element, too, is another wonder of pickle's appeal. The sport is widely considered cooler, younger and less snooty than tennis, so brands like Nike and London label Varley are quickly cottoning on and capitalising on a new multi-age, multi-gender sporting audience not limited by strict rules or crisp tennis white uniforms. Don't believe me? Believe the locals on Venice Beach, where surfer types are regularly snapped posing through a pickle match or three in high-vis animal-print pickledresses and neon pink paddles. No doubt Pickle Barbie is already in the making.

Mattel collaboration or not, the sport is certainly set to be the next big thing among the younger generations. The paddle I'm playing with today might cost upwards of £80 but you can buy a wooden version for as little as £10 and a portable net for as little as £60. "I can take this game to any classroom of any school in this country with a piece of chalk and a portable net... You can have 30-40 pickleball courts in your parking lot, even. I defy you to do that with tennis, squash or padel," says Richard Millman, a retired US men's national squash coach, English masters pickleball champion and self-confessed pickle addict.

Millman's wife, Pat - also an ex-pro squash player - jumps in at this point, reminding me of the benefits for older generations too. She's had two hip replacements and a knee replacement, but returned to the pickle court just three months after having her knee done, playing three times a week. "I have friends who play squash and say 'I'm not coming over to the dark side,'" she tells me. "I always say 'Have a go, then come back'. They never call it the dark side again."

Millman and his wife are clearly signed-up pickle nuts after several years playing. So what of Henman? The former tennis ace joined the padel brigade years ago, playing regularly - can he be coaxed to the dark side, too? "I watched pickle on TV [in the States] recently and I wasn't convinced," he admits, saying he was intrigued about the loud pickle noise critics often talk about before coming out today.

Brands like Nike and Varley are quickly capitalising on a new multi-age, multi-gender sporting audience not limited by strict rules or crisp tennis whites

It takes him less than 30 minutes to be won over. "I love the different variations: you have some really soft points where you're trying to dink the ball over the net, and then you have some really fast exchanges," he says after our match. "I understand that tennis is sometimes quite tricky, especially when you're young, because the ball isn't as easy to control. Whereas this is brilliant. I think it's much easier to have enjoyment. I am absolutely convinced."

Henman tells me he'll definitely be adding pickle to his repertoire and "spreading the word" to his three daughters Rose, 20, Olivia, 18, and Grace, 15 - good news for Pickleball England, which says it's aiming to have 25,000 members by 2025. Millman is confident that'll happen "because there are no limitations to just setting up a court, no limitations to the entry-level skill requirement. And yet a person like Tim Henman can come in and be really entertained by the skill requirement at the performance end. So we've got a broader, wider, deeper sport that will include people who historically leave tennis and squash clubs in their late forties because they've got bad knees. And we can keep those people into their nineties."

Millman's sales pitch is certainly enticing, even for a lifelong tennis player who only recently found time to add padel to her repertoire. A padel match with friends recently cost four of us £14 each for court and equipment hire, so the prospect of owning my own £10 pickle paddle and £60 pop-up net (Christmas present, anyone?) is certainly inviting - though I would need to find my own driveway or patch of tarmac first.

If not, a quick search of my postcode on Pickleball England's club locator tells me my nearest is in Wimbledon, five miles away, while Pickleball Social 's website tells me I can play at various local venues including Latchmere Leisure Centre in Battersea and Clapham Common for £15 an hour between four. Like Henman, I was a sceptic before today but suddenly I find myself in a right old pickle. Do I stick to tennis? Do I switch padel for pickle - or keep up all three? Perhaps that's the real reason behind the sport's silly-sounding name.

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Can pickleball convince the tennis nuts? I played with Tim Henman to find out

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George Clooney, Kim Kardashian and Judy Murray are among millions of fans of the newly-imported US sport. Katie Strick joins Britain's former Wimbledon darling for his first-try

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PPA and MLP merge after all, the war is over!

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PPA and MLP merge after all, the war is over!

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Merger of Two Largest Pro Pickleball Organizations Is Backed By $50M Investment Led By Private Equity Firm SC Holdings and Financier/MLP Team Owner Al Tylis, Along with PPA Tour Owner Tom Dundon and Various MLP Team Owners
AUSTIN and DALLAS, TX., September 13, 2023 - Today, leading professional pickleball organizations MLP by Margaritaville (MLP) and Carvana PPA Tour (PPA Tour) announced an agreement to merge under a unified and definitive professional pickleball holding company. The consolidation of the two entities is backed by a $50M investment from SC Holdings, D.C. Pickleball Team owner Al Tylis, PPA Tour owner Tom Dundon, and a roster of existing MLP team owners.

The new combined organization will provide players, fans, and sponsors with the benefits of a streamlined schedule and single entity overseeing the two still-distinct brands. The merger combines the leading individual and team-based professional pickleball formats into a single parent company, equally supporting and promoting both MLP and the PPA Tour. The new holding company will provide players and sponsors great confidence and opportunity in the future of professional pickleball.

The PPA Tour is the traditional, bracket-style tour format that determines the best players in the world and showcases individual athletes and their unique journeys to reach the top.

MLP is the innovative team-based, coed league format that brings thrilling fan-centric experiences and competition throughout the regular season and championships.

"As professional pickleball continues to rapidly grow, we could not be more excited to provide both players and fans with the clarity and consistency of a unified professional pickleball organization," said Major League Pickleball Founder Steve Kuhn. "This merger will expand and improve opportunities for current and future players, creating a united experience and a better future playing professional pickleball."

"Over the past few years, we have seen ever-increasing interest from investors, sponsors, fans and players who understand the immense value in the future of professional pickleball," said PPA Tour owner Tom Dundon. "The holding company unifying the PPA Tour and MLP will create a streamlined sport for fans and add more meaningful opportunities for player competition, broadcasting rights and sponsorship throughout the professional pickleball calendar."

Professional pickleball fans will now be able to watch both exciting formats and the best players in the sport competing under one competitive umbrella, with the new unified organization boasting over 150 of the leading professional pickleball players and an extensive calendar of team and individual events throughout the year.

The parent company's board of directors and team owners include an impressive roster of business leaders, leading investors and professional athletes. The new board of directors will include: Jason Stein from SC Holdings, D.C. Pickleball Team owner Al Tylis, PPA Tour owner Tom Dundon, MLP founder Steve Kuhn, and former Goldman Sachs Partner Brian Levine.

About Carvana PPA Tour
The Carvana PPA Tour is the professional tour of pickleball, organizing events and rankings for the top male and female pickleball players worldwide and awarding more than $5.5 million in annual prize money with equal play and pay. The Carvana PPA Tour is set to host 25 events in 2023 at world-class facilities like the Lindner Family Tennis Center in Cincinnati, Mission Hills Country Club in California, and the Darling Tennis Center and Mandalay Bay in Las Vegas. Inviting all to compete and "play where the pros play," the Carvana PPA Tour offers amateur divisions of play for every level, unparalleled experiences for fans and spectators, gorgeous venues, pro player meet-and-greets, food/beverages, live entertainment, VIP upgrades, giveaways and games, shopping, vendors, and more. Founded in 2019, the Carvana PPA Tour is owned and operated by parent corporation, Pickleball.com. For more information, go to www.ppatour.com and follow us on social: Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn.

About Major League Pickleball
Major League Pickleball (MLP by Margaritaville) is the preeminent team-based professional pickleball league and the standard-bearer for the fastest-growing sport in the United States. Founded by Steve Kuhn in 2021, MLP has since expanded from eight to 24 teams and is committed to growing the sport's role in society and impacting every facet of pickleball's business.

MLP features a unique coed team format, iconic owners, easy to understand scoring, and the largest payouts in prize money across all of pro pickleball.

In December 2022, MLP named its first-ever title sponsor, Margaritaville, branding the league MLP by Margaritaville. A global lifestyle brand inspired by Jimmy Buffett, Margaritaville, has served more than 20 million travelers and consumers every year to change their latitude and attitude with Margaritaville. For more information, visit www.margaritaville.com.

For more information on Major League Pickleball, visit MajorLeaguePickleball.net and follow Major League Pickleball on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube.

Media Contact
Dave Beauboeuf | [email protected] | 914-715-9167
Jeff Watson | [email protected] | 817-944-2298
Jay Moskowitz | [email protected] | 732-735-2789

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Carvana PPA Tour and Major League Pickleball Announce Full Merger to Form a Unified Professional Pickleball Organization | PPA Tour

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Merger of Two Largest Pro Pickleball Organizations Is Backed By $50M Investment Led By Private Equity Firm SC Holdings and Financier/MLP Team Owner Al Tylis, Along with PPA Tour OwnerRead more

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Pickleball is coming to a high street near you!!

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Pickleball is coming to a high street near you!!

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(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Could pickleball be the answer to America's big-box retail crisis? In Santa Monica, it may be a start.

Pickle Pop, an indoor pickleball venue where players can reserve court time, opened its doors on Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade, one of the city's popular shopping areas, on Saturday. Part sports club, part clothing retailer, part restaurant, Pickle Pop positions itself as an inviting space for serious athletes and social picklers alike, offering a relatively affordable alternative to waiting in line to play at public parks.

The 10,000-square-foot space used to be an Adidas store.

Pickle Pop co-founder Steph McCaffrey works in an office near the Third Street Promenade and often walks through the three-block pedestrian shopping district to grab coffee. After a while, she began to see the many vacant storefronts as an opportunity.

"I remember walking around here pre-COVID, and this was like the street to be at in Southern California," she said. These days, she observes fewer shoppers and tourists, and the area has felt quieter.

"So what we decided to try and do was basically figure out if we could arbitrage lower rents on big-box retail space for shorter-term locations and see if something worked," she said. "And then if it worked, we could extend."

A week ahead of its official opening, the space was already hosting small-scale corporate events on its burgundy courts after eager players slid into Pickle Pop's Instagram DMs offering to pay up for early access.

Malls and big-box stores nationwide are struggling as the retail landscape evolves and consumers increasingly opt to shop online, and Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade, long considered a hot shopping destination in Southern California, has felt the effects of this bricks-and-mortar slump. Key tenants, including a flagship Banana Republic and Old Navy on the same block, left in 2021.

But some of the Promenade's vacant storefronts have presented new opportunities - and great deals - for tenants who see the value in the beachside shopping district steps from one of Southern California's wealthiest ZIP Codes.

The Promenade is not alone in its retail struggles.

Gap Inc. - which owns Gap, Old Navy, Athleta and Banana Republic - announced in 2020 that it planned to close 350 Gap and Banana Republic stores in the next three years. And in June, the owners of San Francisco's largest mall announced they were pulling the plug after an announcement that one of its largest tenants, Nordstrom, was closing its store there.

In an effort to course correct, Santa Monica city officials have been working to remove some of the red tape required for new businesses to launch. Some landlords who own space on the Third Street Promenade have become more open-minded to accepting unconventional tenants rather than national chains.

Making a space 'pickleball-able'

Partners in business and in life, McCaffrey and co-founder Erin Robertson conceived the idea for Pickle Pop earlier this summer and moved quickly. Even though not all vacant retail storefronts are, as Robertson says, "pickleball-able," many are with a reasonably low lift.

Robertson is a fashion designer who won season 15 of the Bravo competition series "Project Runway"; McCaffrey is an investor at Anthos Capital, a consumer-focused growth equity fund, and a former professional soccer player.

McCaffrey was inspired by the successful retail pop-ups that Robertson ran before the pandemic but wanted to go bigger for Pickle Pop. She pitched the idea to Robertson: "Maybe, instead of doing a traditional retail pop-up with a space as big as a cafe, we do an experiential retail concept where you sell a pickleball-focused line, and we have three or four pickleball courts in the space," she said.

Robertson loved the idea. "I feel like just retail is never enough, and I've actually always felt that way," she said, especially in large spaces that can accommodate experience-based businesses.

Pickle Pop gave Robertson a vast canvas to show off her eye for interior design: The cavernous space has three pickleball courts in a custom dark red, a seating area filled with space-age furniture sourced from the Rose Bowl Flea Market, and sumptuous baby-blue velvet curtains cloaking the walls.

(Wally Skalij / Los Angeles Times)

Pickle Pop will also serve food and drinks from nearby Mexican joint Lanea - "Our favorite place in town," McCaffrey said - prepared in Pickle Pop's own kitchen, and sell merchandise designed by Robertson, including pickleball paddles printed with an ombre rainbow pattern. They hope to have their alcohol license by October and, until then, will be slinging drinks on the weekends thanks to an arrangement with Lanea.

Anyone can play, but a $55-a-month membership offers reservations for court times and ticketed events, plus discounts on hourly play. Non-members pay around $20 an hour to play, while member prices are about $12 per player.

McCaffrey and Robertson signed a lease until the end of January, but they say their business is just getting started. They are optimistic about a lease extension and are finalizing plans to open two bigger locations in the Los Angeles metro area.

It seems like a good time to bet on pickleball, America's fastest-growing sport: 36.5 million adult Americans played the game at least once in 2022, according to a released in January by the Assn. of Pickleball Players (formerly known as the Assn. of Pickleball Professionals). Nearly half of the 36.5 million said they planned to play more often in the next six months than they had in the previous six-month period.

"If you try pickleball, you'll find that it's actually a lot of fun, number one, and number two, you can actually improve pretty fast," said Ho Nguyen, the USA pickleball ambassador for Santa Monica. Nguyen also consults for Pickle Pop and will teach lessons there.

Nguyen got into pickleball in 2019 and has become an evangelist for the sport. He instantly loved the collegial, social culture and its low barrier to entry. "Isn't that cool to have a sport where a parent can play with their teenager or a kid or even grandparents? I can't think of any other sport," he said.

McCaffrey and Robertson were drawn to the Promenade in particular for their venture. "I think there was a feeling like it was an area with opportunity that was currently on a down," McCaffrey said, and in an iconic location. Eventually, she predicted that a storefront would become available to lease at a "favorable rate," and when the right opportunity appeared, they pounced.

"I think this is a great building that needs some love," she said. "And when you're a tenant and buildings have been vacant for a really long time, you have an opportunity to get attractive terms."

Problems at the Promenade

(Patrick T. Fallon / AFP via Getty Images)

Retail is struggling everywhere, but the Promenade, and Santa Monica more broadly, have dealt with their own set of issues in recent years. The three-block pedestrian shopping district was hit hard in 2020 as the city's booming tourism industry dried up. And since the pandemic, the area has garnered criticism about public safety and the homeless population, and controversy about the legitimacy of such claims.

The Promenade, like most malls, had a surge of success from the mid-1990s until the 2010s. Now, the strip is entering a new phase, said Andrew Thomas, chief executive of Downtown Santa Monica Inc., the nonprofit that helps manage the area. "I think what we're starting to see is a lot more experiential concepts coming into downtown," Thomas said. "Athletics are big, as is food and dining."

Earlier this year, a Madewell closed and was quickly replaced by a Wilson tennis store. A John Reed Fitness gym also opened this year.

David Martin, Santa Monica's community development director, sensed that challenges were on the horizon for the Promenade in the mid-2010s. "I think there's a tendency to think that COVID caused all this, and certainly it contributed," he said. "But we were seeing it start to happen in 2015, 2016 with the changes in retail. We were starting to hear that some of the stores weren't renewing their leases."

Thomas said that the city is working to address concerns about public safety and homelessness in Santa Monica that were exacerbated during the pandemic. "We hear from the Santa Monica police that crime is actually down in downtown, and on the Promenade reported criminal activity is down significantly," he said, "but we do have behavioral issues that we see here that are really troubling."

On a few recent visits to the Promenade, the streets were clean and relatively quiet, with the blocks on the southernmost end of the strip attracting the most attention.

One sunny Monday afternoon, outdoor dining tables were nearly full at Barney's Beanery and Johnny Rockets. Two people caught some shade under a pair of dinosaur-shaped sculptures. Community "ambassadors" in uniform pushed trash bins and swept up debris.

The occupancy rate for the Promenade is 77.6%. - up from 67% in 2021 - according to data from DTSM.

Pickle Pop's 10,000-square-foot space is on the most sparsely populated block on the Promenade, which has a vacancy rate of 34.6%, according to DTSM. The former tenant, Adidas, still has a presence on the Promenade, but downsized to a smaller location one block south before the pandemic.

Engineering a revival

Santa Monica already has a leg up by being a nationally known shopping destination, and the city has poured resources into reviving the retail experience downtown in the last couple of years. There have been major changes to the ordinances governing use of space on the Promenade that make it easier for new businesses to open quickly, Martin said.

One major change: The city changed the process to obtain an alcohol permit, making it easier for new businesses on the Promenade to secure one.

Additionally, conditional-use permits are no longer required for most businesses that have entertainment uses and want to sell alcohol, formerly a major obstacle for businesses.

"It was pretty strict before," Martin said. A few years ago, Santa Monica limited the number of restaurants and liquor licenses it distributed per block. This didn't slow activity when mostly traditional retail tenants filled the Promenade's storefronts, but now, things are different. "That just doesn't work in today's retail environment," Martin said.

Pickle Pop, Martin said, was "guaranteed to be able to have an alcohol license as part of their operation."

Local commercial real estate brokers characterize any current "down" as cyclical. Rafael Padilla, a principal at Par Commercial Brokerage who has worked on deals on the Westside for 38 years, said that Santa Monica has too much to offer for retail to suffer long term.

"The disposable income, the density, the businesses, the ocean, the tourists, everything's here. So it's not going away," he said. "We're just going to see things adjust."

A pickleball court, he said, may not have been able to secure a spot on the Promenade four years ago. "Now, they can."

Barbara Tenzer, founder of Tenzer Commercial Brokerage Group, whose primary focus is the Promenade and downtown Santa Monica, said that exciting new tenants are coming. Some are expected to drive foot traffic, including the forthcoming restaurant HQ Gastropub, which she said plans to have a speakeasy in the basement, outdoor dining on the ground floor, and a rooftop bar and lounge. (Tenzer has brokered deals on the Promenade for more than three decades.)

The brokers also said that the Promenade's large storefronts can be harder to find tenants for.

"Look, if the promenade was all 1,500-square-foot spaces, it would all be leased," Tenzer said. "But that's not what we have. The spaces are 150 feet deep, a standard building is 50 feet wide, so that's like 7,500 square feet, yeah? That's a lot of space."

"If a landlord is holding out for one tenant to take 45,000 [or] 50,000 square feet, yeah, your pool of tenants [is] going to be shallow," Padilla said. "If you are looking for tenants to take anywhere from 2,500 to 5,000 square feet, you've got a deeper pool to play in. That's just an economic decision for the landlord to make."

Could this prove to be a perfect storm for businesses like Pickle Pop?

"The dream is [that] this would not leave," Robertson said. "We would love to keep this going and then also expand to other neighborhoods of L.A."

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Can pickleball cure what's ailing Santa Monica's Third Street Promenade?

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Santa Monica's once-bustling Third Street Promenade is dotted with empty storefronts. An indoor pickleball club could point to creative ways for filling them.

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A spending war between billionaires battling for control of professional pickleball has thrown the sport's future into chaos.

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A spending war between billionaires battling for control of professional pickleball has thrown the sport's future into chaos.

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Connor Pardoe remembers when he became concerned that the uneasy partnership between professional pickleball's two biggest entities might not last.

The founder of the Professional Pickleball Association says he sensed something was wrong a couple weeks ago when Major League Pickleball executives suddenly stopped returning his calls and texts.

"I'm not saying this to be conceited, but usually when I call someone in pickleball they call me back," Pardoe told Yahoo Sports. "When they went radio silent for four days, I thought, 'Oh no, what's going on here?' "

What came next was an ambush worthy of Greek mythology or a Hollywood blockbuster. The two competing organizations had been operating under an agreement where players could compete in both leagues. Out of nowhere, Major League Pickleball owner Steve Kuhn blindsided the PPA by offering dozens of the sport's top players multi-year exclusivity contracts that guaranteed extra money and perks in exchange for them playing nothing but MLP events.

Pardoe discovered the plot only eight days ago on the eve of a PPA tournament in Kansas City. Multiple players told him that the money MLP had offered was life changing and that they had only a day to decide whether to accept.

"I ran straight to the airport, no bag, no cell phone charger, no toothbrush, no clothes," Pardoe said. "I flew to Kansas City and I tried to save my business."

Players who were in Kansas City last Thursday and Friday describe a surreal scene in the player's lounge. The sport's biggest stars spent their downtime between matches confiding with their agents in quiet corners of the room, their phones pressed to their ears and their voices hushed.

Pardoe spoke to as many elite players as he could on his way to Kansas City. Then he and his executives redoubled their efforts once he got there. They pleaded with players not to sign with MLP without giving the PPA the chance to match or surpass the contract offers.

"I had one of the PPA guys come up to me five times saying, 'Hey let's get a deal done, let's get a deal done,' " veteran pickleball pro Kyle Yates told Yahoo Sports. "I'm like, hold on! I need something in writing. I need to send it to my agent. I need to make some calls. It was like we were almost getting bullied into it."

The result of the bidding war is newfound financial security for players who previously worked second jobs or taught at camps and clinics to support themselves. Industry sources say that a select few elite players signed deals worth as much as $1 million per year and even those ranked outside the top 20 received six-figure contracts. The proposed deals also guaranteed a defined offseason and stipends for medical insurance and travel expenses.

And yet it's fair to wonder if the gains made by the players are worth the chaos and upheaval in the sport.

As veteran player Tyler Loong put it, "All hell has broken loose."

Calling a ceasefire

Less than a decade ago, pickleball was known as the last athletic refuge for graying retirees. Now the pingpong-tennis hybrid is America's fastest-growing participation sport, with nearly nine million players across the U.S. as of 2022.

As pickleball leaped out of obscurity and into the mainstream, there has been a rush to profit off the sport's surging popularity. Opportunistic investors have poured money into professional pickleball, wagering that they can turn America's growing obsession with playing the sport into enthusiasm for watching it.

Pardoe founded the PPA in late 2018 and quickly built it into the sport's dominant tour by aggressively pursuing the brightest stars in the pickleball galaxy. He signed world No. 1s Ben Johns and Anna Leigh Waters and other elite players to contracts that paid extra money in return for not playing events put on by rival tours.

"That was the most important thing we've ever done," Pardoe told Yahoo Sports in January. "TV partners, venues and sponsors wanted to know that the best players were going to be at our events every week. Once we could tell them, 'hey, we have 16 of the top 20 men under contract' or 'we have 16 out of the top 20 women under contract,' it became a lot easier to put those deals together."

At the same time that Pardoe was building the PPA in the image of professional tennis tours, Kuhn sought to bring the fist-pumping, chest-bumping camaraderie of team competition to pickleball. In 2021, the Texas billionaire's inaugural four-day MLP team event was an instant hit among players and generated unprecedented mainstream media buzz.

The PPA's relationship with MLP remained cordial until Dallas businessman Tom Dundon acquired a majority stake from the Pardoe family. Under Dundon's leadership, the PPA offered Johns, Leigh Waters and other top pros contracts that not only prevented them from competing in rival tours but MLP events as well.

Kuhn approached Dundon in hopes of negotiating a compromise, but the two billionaires initially butted heads and failed to find common ground. As Pardoe put it in January, "I tried to put both of them in a room. It just didn't really work out."

While discussions regarding a potential partnership with the PPA continued behind the scenes, MLP executives left that meeting knowing they would need to compete to secure elite players. MLP increased its prize money to $1 million across three 2022 events and began recruiting the likes of Drew Brees, Tom Brady and LeBron James as celebrity team owners who could help drive awareness of the league.

In response, Dundon landed a flurry of uppercuts of his own. In late October, the PPA announced that it was forming the VIBE Pickleball League, a direct competitor to MLP with a virtually identical team format. Days later, two of MLP's top players revealed they were defecting to VIBE. Then VIBE confirmed that Mark Cuban, one of Dundon's good friends, was its first team owner.

It was full-blown war. Then, out of nowhere, both sides declared a ceasefire.

Last November, Dundon and MLP board member Zubin Mehta held a summit and hammered out the framework of a deal. The PPA and MLP would work together to draft contracts, promote each other's events and snatch up all the top pros. Elite players would play singles and doubles on the PPA tour. Those who won enough earned the chance to be drafted onto an MLP team and to compete for extra prize money.

For a few short months, professional pickleball had a clear direction. And then Kuhn made his move.

Making of a coup

The man who can best explain why the MLP ended the partnership with the PPA without warning isn't ready to provide those answers. Kuhn, through an MLP spokesperson, declined comment to Yahoo Sports.

In its announcement that it had begun signing top players to guaranteed contracts last Thursday, MLP made no mention of breaking any agreement with the PPA. MLP painted its contract offers as a response to player feedback "about what they need to earn a professional living and continue pushing the sport forward."

"The players spoke, and we listened," the announcement said.

Player salary was an area of disagreement between MLP and PPA, Kuhn said in his only public comments since the partnership disintegrated. He told CNBC last Friday that MLP had previously "asked the PPA to join us in paying players more and their reaction was that we pay the players too much."

Others across the industry wonder if MLP and PPA leaders also had clashing visions for the future of professional pickleball. Kuhn favors rally scoring and a team sport model in which players compete for a team championship. Pardoe argues that pickleball as a team sport works only as a complement to a strong tour model like golf and tennis have.

Whatever the explanation for MLP's breakup with PPA, Pardoe suspects the plan "had to be in the works for quite some time." Without his knowledge, MLP laid the groundwork for a coup that targeted some of the sport's top players.

The stable of players represented by sports agency Topnotch Management was a logical place to start for MLP because that meant nabbing star Tyson McGuffin and several other highly ranked talents. Those signings were the first that MLP announced, suggesting that Topnotch might have received the proposed offers ahead of time, shown them to their clients and sent word to Kuhn that they would accept.

Among the other players who followed suit were some who previously felt devalued by the PPA's penchant for taking care of its top stars but neglecting its middle tier. For example, Yates had to pay a $300 registration fee anytime he entered a PPA tournament this season. He said that the PPA didn't bother to return his calls when he sought a 2023 contract.

"So when they tried to negotiate with me in Kansas City, it was like, 'hold up, now you want me?'" Yates said. "'I haven't heard from you in a year and a half.'

"I had a better relationship with Steve Kuhn and I trusted him more. That at the end of the day was the final decision for me."

It was the opposite for some of the players who were under contract with the PPA this season. Ben and Collin Johns, Anna Leigh Waters and Catherine Parenteau all chose the PPA over the MLP. So did Loong, who said his decision was pretty straightforward because of his loyalty to Pardoe and his preference for the PPA tour's format.

"If MLP offered me millions of dollars, it would have been hard to say no to that," Loong said, "but as long as they were similar, I wanted to stay with the PPA. I've been with them for over three years. They've been really good to me."

In the end, it's tough to declare a clear-cut winner in the latest pickleball arms race. MLP caught the PPA flat-footed and pried away the likes of McGuffin and Riley Newman, but it didn't come close to delivering a knockout blow. The PPA still has the two No. 1 players in the sport, other longtime PPA standouts and some newcomers from the tennis world in Jack Sock, Sam Querrey and Donald Young.

Of course, for both leagues, self preservation came at a price. It's unclear how the MLP intends to pay for its flurry of new signings that's now exceeded 70 players. Pardoe said the PPA will cover its spending spree by dipping into the revenue from some of the other pickleball-themed companies that Dundon owns.

The lingering question in the wake of the bidding war is what professional pickleball will look like when the dust settles. Will the PPA follow through on its threat to relaunch VIBE as a direct team-oriented competitor to MLP? Does MLP intend to organize some sort of traditional tour? Can either MLP or PPA emerge as the sport's lone dominant entity?

Pardoe's only prediction is that professional pickleball isn't done growing. Besides that, he doesn't rule out anything - not even setting aside the raw emotions of the past two weeks and revisiting another partnership with MLP.

"I'd do the same deal we had again," Pardoe said. "Tom and I both would.

"We gave clarity to TV networks. We gave clarity to sponsors. We were able to put the Wild Wild West to bed. We had a tour where the best players played. We had a league that had six events a year where teams played and it was fun. If I could bring that back, I'd do it in a heartbeat. I'd be more than willing to sit down and try to figure it out."

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Inside professional pickleball's civil war: 'All hell has broken loose'

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A spending war between billionaires battling for control of professional pickleball has thrown the sport's future into chaos.

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Telford Pickleball purchases 3 courts from Pickleball United after the English Open and installs them inside a warehouse. The first of its kind in the UK

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Telford Pickleball purchases 3 courts from Pickleball United after the English Open and installs them inside a warehouse. The first of its kind in the UK

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https://telfordpickleball.com/pages/news/newsitem.aspx

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If you head to the mall, you might expect to find the usual suspects: Macy's, Foot Locker, Claire's, Bath & Body Works, and maybe Sbarro for lunch. What you might not expect? Indoor pickleball courts.

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If you head to the mall, you might expect to find the usual suspects: Macy's, Foot Locker, Claire's, Bath & Body Works, and maybe Sbarro for lunch. What you might not expect? Indoor pickleball courts.

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If you head to the mall, you might expect to find the usual suspects: Macy's, Foot Locker, Claire's, Bath & Body Works, and maybe Sbarro for lunch. What you might not expect? Indoor pickleball courts.

Pickleball is the fastest growing - and perhaps the noisiest - sport in the country. As the sport grows, so does demand for places to play. Indoor pickleball courts are popping up all over the country.

But these aren't your standard, parks and recreation-managed, courts. They're privately-owned and generating lots of foot traffic, while also solving some of the sport's problems.

From casual players to business owners

Denise and Will Richards of Maryland opened their first indoor pickleball court last November, and the demand has been insatiable. They've gone on to open two more for a total of three courts in less than a year. And now two more are on the way.

Not that they had been planning to get into the pickleball business, really. Denise worked in sales, and Will managed Domino's franchises.

They started playing pickleball a few years ago, and loved the sport so much they wanted to keep playing once it got cold outside. On a winter trip to Pennsylvania, friends suggested they try out some nearby indoor courts.

It turned out indoor was a loose term - the courts were inside of a poorly-insulated barn and freezing cold. The only heat came from a small heater on the wall, and the only bathrooms were porta potties out front. It was below freezing inside the building, Will Richards said.

"It wasn't the best experience, but when you're truly addicted to pickleball, you will play anywhere," Will Richards said.

The couple knew they could create something better, so they took a risk and started their own indoor pickleball court business and called it Dill Dinkers, a name suggested by their daughter. The name plays off the name of the game and a type of shot in the sport called a dink.

"There's no handbook on how to run a pickleball place. It's pretty much like the wild, wild west right now where people are trying to figure it out," Denise Richards said.

In their first week, they did a soft opening and offered free admission so they could iron out any kinks. They were full every day. Now they offer per session prices as well as memberships, which start at $33 per month at their North Bethesda location.

Pickleball moves into the shopping mall

The Richards have made use of existing buildings, like a former trampoline park and a warehouse, to build their indoor courts. There are strict requirements for the buildings they consider, Will said. Building support columns need to be wide enough apart to fit a full-sized pickleball court, and each location needs ample parking. Zoning requirements can also pose challenges for the business, turning the location search into a big ordeal.

There was one location, however, they didn't have to seek out. The Dill Dinkers at Manassas Mall in Virginia is slated to open in early 2024. That time, it was the mall owner who reached out to the couple.

Carmen Spinoso, the CEO of Spinoso Real Estate Group, thought it would be a "really cool use" and "a great addition" to one of his malls.

"We started looking at multiple pickleball operators," he said.

The addition of pickleball courts in malls is one way malls are keeping customers coming back, Spinoso said. He's been in the mall business for over 30 years. Every few years, people declare the end of the shopping mall, he said. He doesn't see malls going anywhere, just adapting to what customers want.

Since the pandemic, many shoppers have prioritized experiences over things like new tech products or home goods, said James Cook, Director of Real Estate Research at JLL, a real estate company. He's been tracking the growth of entertainment and recreational spaces in malls - places like selfie museums or "eatertainment" venues like Dave & Buster's. Over the last few months, indoor pickleball courts have exploded in the retail scene, he said.

"It's like every day, there's a new pickleball concept that's looking to expand, so much so that I feel like I could write a whole separate pickleball report," Cook said.

The noise problem... and then there's those pesky tennis players

At the mall in Manassas, other mall tenants were excited to hear about the incoming pickleball courts, Spinoso said.

"The tenants at the mall realize they're going to benefit from all the people that are coming to the mall to play pickleball and then can come into the restaurants before, or after or shop in the stores," he said.

Shopping malls have a lot to gain from indoor pickleball courts, like increased foot traffic. But the indoor courts also benefit the game itself. For starters, pickleball has a noise problem.

"For whatever reason, people are really annoyed by the sound of pickleball. So having that in an enclosed shopping center that's not immediately next to residential, that makes a lot of sense too," Cook said.

LeBron James and Tom Brady are getting into pickleball

As if the noise wasn't enough, pickleball players have to confront another problem - angry tennis players. Lots of public pickleball courts are in tennis courts, leaving players to duke it out over shared playing space. Riley Newman is a professional pickleball player who played tennis in college, and he said more indoor courts might ease tension between players.

"(More indoor courts) would help some of that divide where pickleball players ... can go to designated pickleball facilities instead of taking over tennis courts, which I know ruffles some feathers," Newman said.

Newman plays for the D.C. Pickleball Team. The D.C. team is part of Major League Pickleball, the sport's professional league. The league is growing rapidly, even attracting celebrity owners like LeBron James and Tom Brady. Adam Behnke, the chief operating officer for the D.C. team, has big dreams for the league, including a different kind of indoor court.

"I just daydream about this sometimes, imagine like you would go to any professional indoor sports arena, whether it's basketball or hockey or whatever it may be, and then you have a pickleball indoor arena," Behnke said.

As for the Richards, they have plans to expand Dill Dinkers nationally by opening franchises in other states. Even as their business grows, however, their favorite part is seeing the sport's impact on the community. Denise is the facility manager at the Dill Dinkers location in Columbia, Maryland, and she's had customers confide in her about fighting cancer, recovering from traumatic injuries and grieving spouses.

"So many people come up and say 'This has changed my life,' ... Pickleball is bringing them joy, and it's just day after day," she said.

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Pickleball, the fastest growing sport in the country, is moving indoors

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Pickleball is the fastest growing sport in the country. Indoor courts are popping up all over, from former warehouses, to empty stores and even shopping malls.

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Pickleball courts filling vacant malls as craze spreads across the country (USA)

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Pickleball courts filling vacant malls as craze spreads across the country (USA)

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Pickleball courts filling vacant malls as craze spreads across the country | Fox News Video

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FOX Business’ Madison Alworth shares how pickleball courts are filling up empty shopping malls at the largest indoor court in the northeast.

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Pickleball is America's fastest-growing sport. Why is it so addictive — and divisive?

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Pickleball is America's fastest-growing sport. Why is it so addictive — and divisive?

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Hey America: " Pickle!"

Pickleball is now the fastest-growing sport in the nation for the fifth consecutive year in a row, with 48.3 million U.S. adults (19% of the adult population) having played at least one game in the last 12 months, according to the Association of Pickleball Professionals.

That's welcome news for " picklers," or self-proclaimed addicts. But many others? Not so much. Over the last few years, in response to courts popping up everywhere and bringing the noisy "ticktock cacophony" that comes with the game, communities around the country have been fighting, sometimes through ugly legal battles, to restrict pickleball play. Some simply find the game off-putting, saying it can feel like a "cult," while others are finding it's not as risk-free as originally believed, as game-related injuries are on target to cost Americans upwards of $500 million in medical costs next year.

Say what you want about pickleball, though: It does not lack drama. Here's all you need to know about the sport.

What is pickleball?

Invented in 1965 by three dads - Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell and Barney McCallum - as a way to entertain their kids during summer vacation, the cross-genre sport combines tennis, badminton and ping pong, and can be played in singles or doubles.

It's also relatively inexpensive and simple to start - a paddle, balls and a pickleball-sized net can be had for well under $200 in total - and tennis and basketball courts are often converted for pickleball use, making it easily accessible.

How pickleball became a phenomenon

By the 1990s, pickleball was played regularly in schools and retirement communities, given that it's easy to play and enjoyed by people of all ages, from kids to seniors. Its popularity really took off during the COVID-19 pandemic, as people were in need of safe, socially distanced, outdoor exercises.

The number of pickleballers increased from 4 million to almost 5 million (a rise of 14.8%) between 2021 and 2022, per the Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA), the premier trade association for the sporting goods and fitness industry. That demand led cities to convert community tennis and basketball courts (at YMCAs, parks, schools, community clubs and residential neighborhoods) to part-time, sometimes full-time pickleball venues. By the end of 2022, there were over 44,000 pickleball venues in America.

Why some say it's addictive

Erin McHugh, pickler and author of the guidebook Pickleball Is Life, credits the addictive factor - and what outsiders may perceive to be "cultlike" - to the game being easy to learn and fun to play, thus inspiring those who love it to want others turned on to it, too.

"It tends to be a kind and inclusive sport," McHugh tells Yahoo News, "so there are plenty of missionaries who want to spread the word, who want everyone to experience the joy that they do."

Further, adds Connor Pardoe, founder and CEO of the Professional Pickleball Association Tour, no other sport has been able to bring people of so many ages, backgrounds and cultures together in such a short time frame.

"I've seen it again and again at our tournaments over the years, both on the professional and amateur sides," he tells Yahoo News. "The low barrier to entry and endless opportunity to improve allow for new players to get hooked fast and stick with it for a lifetime."

There's also a clear mental health boost that comes with playing the game, according to sports-psychology coach Bill Cole. He tells Yahoo News that pickleball "contributes to lower levels of stress and anxiety, and people can get a good workout that kicks in the endorphins," which is part of why players keep returning for more.

Why it's divisive

Folks across the country have been in an uproar over the noisiness - described by some as loud " popping " sounds that can be jolting - often taking the fights into courts of law.

Despite its being hawked as a friendly sport for beginners, some disgruntled players believe it's become overly cliquey; outsiders, meanwhile, can be turned off by its extreme marketing, the silly name, the belief that it's "not a sport" ("Any game that you can take up after breakfast and be pretty good at by lunch is not a sport," gripes a recent Washington Post op-ed) or by the cult-like " proselytizers" pushing others to pick up a racquet too.

But Amanda Montell, author of Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, puts this feeling into perspective.

"The profoundly human drives - identity, connection time meaningfully spent - that land people in destructive socio-spiritual groups are not so different from the ones that might cause someone to get a little too into pickleball with their friends," she tells Yahoo News. "Of course, there are important differences between those types of affiliations," with the "psychological motivations" being largely the same.

Pardoe says the majority of pickleballers are community-driven, and that their passion for the sport can bring out the best and worst in anyone. "Each match, from beginners to pros, can be competitive," he says. "This leads to great passion for playing the sport, and the will to continue to improve."

Some residents have been upset that parks, basketball courts and other public spaces are being converted into pickleball courts without notice or community input; in one case, in New York City, parents of kids who used a public space to scooter, bike, run and play ball games went to war with pickleballers, who were eventually ordered to take their game elsewhere. The same fights have been breaking out in communities around the country, particularly when it comes to pickleball being played in basketball or tennis courts.

McHugh says it's par for the course, and more a problem of sharing. "It's primarily about real estate," she says of the recurring disputes. "You hear stories of communities that have, say, 24 tennis courts, and they refuse to give three over to pickleball players. Where's the sharing? In so many cases, it's not even about asking for funding, it's about ceding a little of the wealth of the available pace."

"Some groups want to shut us out completely because they think it takes over park space, or creates too much noise," she adds. "They will push for censure or closure of public space, rather than figuring out how to house more than one group or sport in different time slots. Isn't this what public space is all about?"

The main takeaway

Whatever side of the net you're on, pickleball is here to stay: There's even a push to make it an Olympic sport by 2030. While not everyone might understand the appeal, McHugh maintains it's a game with universal draw: "People love it," she says, "because everyone can play."

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Pickleball is America's fastest-growing sport. Why is it so addictive - and divisive?

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Pickleballers are dominating public courts. Tennis players aren't happy. Here's what else you need to know.

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Andy Murray reveals new Scottish first at his 5-star Cromlix Hotel

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SIR ANDY Murray has opened Scotland's first pickleball court at his luxury five-star hotel after his mum Judy fell in love with the game

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SIR ANDY Murray has opened Scotland's first pickleball court at his luxury five-star hotel after his mum Judy fell in love with the game

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SIR ANDY Murray has opened Scotland's first pickleball court at his luxury five-star hotel after his mum Judy fell in love with the game

Judy is a huge fan of the sport after picking up on the craze on a trip to the US.

It is favoured by A-listers including Leonardo DiCaprio, Matthew Perry, the Kardashians and even Bill and Melinda Gates.

Judy has revealed the Cromlix hotel near Dunblane, Stirlingshire, is now home to Scotland's first dedicated pickleball court.

It is painted in green and purple and resembles the colour scheme made famous at Wimbledon.

The court will match the Cromlix tennis court which is decked out in the colours of SW19.

Pickleball combines tennis, badminton and table tennis and has gained a huge fanbase in America with over five million registered players.

It is believed there are more than 10,000 pickleball players in Scotland.

Judy, 63, tweeted: "Come and get pickled at Cromlix. First court in Scotland."

Fans welcomed the new development.

One said: "Hoping to try this out when I visit for afternoon tea."

Another added: "Very cool. Will have to visit."

Speaking ahead of the first Scottish pickleball national championship earlier this year, Judy said: "The sport has exploded in America.

"I can see the same thing happening here because it's so much more accessible than any other sport.

"As an older tennis player, I love the fact it's on a smaller court, and it's less frenetic.

"All the skills are easily adapted so it doesn't need endless coaching.

"People can pick it up really quickly, regardless of their age or ability.

"The fun of sport is competing and people can play a game straight away.

"I loved it from the get-go and I want more Scots to try it."

Cromlix opened its doors earlier this year after being closed for refurbishment for three months.

The double Wimbledon champion, 36, bought the 15-room venue near his home town of Dunblane for almost £2m in 2013.

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Andy Murray reveals new Scottish first at his 5-star Cromlix Hotel

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SIR ANDY Murray has opened Scotland's first pickleball court at his luxury five-star hotel after his mum Judy fell in love with the game Judy is a huge fan of the sport after picking up on th...

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Telford International Centre hosted the 2023 Skechers Pickleball English Open

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Telford International Centre hosted the 2023 Skechers Pickleball English Open

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Telford International Centre is set to cement its position as a leading host venue for large-scale sporting events when it opens its doors to the Pickleball English Open in August.
More than 1,000 competitors from over 25 countries are expected to compete across the four-day tournament, which has doubled in size since the 2022 edition. The event will see three of Telford International Centre's event halls transform into 40 pickleball courts, further utilising the venue's additional meeting and social spaces for competitors and visitors alike.

The 2023 English Open is set to be the largest pickleball event to take place outside of the USA, highlighting the significant uptake of the sport across the UK. Popular in the USA, pickleball is a cross between tennis, badminton and table tennis, played on a court roughly a quarter the size of a tennis court.

Participation in the UK has grown exponentially, with pickleballEngland aiming to attract 25,000 players by 2025. With ambitious plans to continue the sport's rapid growth, Telford International Centre was selected for its ability to scale, space-wise, as well as its convenient Midlands location, on-site hotels and on-the-doorstep restaurants and leisure.

Karen Mitchell, Chair & Co-Founding Director of pickleballEngland said: 'This year's event is by far our biggest yet and we can't wait to welcome everyone to experience it. With this English Open being so much bigger than last year's, we needed a venue that could help us grow both as an event and a sport. We see Telford International Centre as a perfect partner, for its facilities, destination and in our working together - and I hope it will be a catalyst to further increase participation in pickleball across the country.'

Alison Griffin, Managing Director at Telford International Centre, said: "Hosting the 2023 Pickleball English Open shows just how well-placed Telford is to host major sporting events, building upon our success with boxing, gymnastics and snooker competitions. We are excited for this forthcoming event; pickleball really is the new in-demand sport and we're sure this year's competition will play a key role in enabling pickleballEngland to achieve its objectives."

Hosting the English Open is the latest indicator of Telford International Centre's continued growth. Earlier this month, the venue reported record visitors and revenues in the period April 2022 to March 2023, with a contribution of around £110 million to the local economy through business tourism.

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Telford International Centre to host Pickleball English Open

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Telford International Centre is set to cement its position as a leading host venue for large-scale sporting events when it hosts to the Pickleball English Open

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ITV News at the 2023 Skechers Pickleball English Open

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ITV News at the 2023 Skechers Pickleball English Open

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Pickleball English Open 3 - 6 August 2023 | ITV News

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Pickleball English Open: What is it and why are thousands playing it in Telford? | ITV News

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Pickleball is considered one of the fastest growing sports in the United States Credit: ITV News Central

More than a thousand pickleball competitors from 25 countries are at the International Centre this weekend for the 2023 English Open.

The Telford International Centre has transformed three halls into 40 pickleball courts, and has opened the meeting areas and social venues for the players to relax between matches.

The English Open runs from August 3rd-6th, consisting of men's and women's singles, juniors and wheelchair competitions, as well as clinics being held to give spectators a chance to play with the professionals.
What is Pickleball?
Our reporter went along to the tournament preview, and explains what this relatively-new sport is.

A sport that combines elements of tennis, badminton and table tennis

It can be played inside or outside on a badminton sized tennis court with a modified tennis net

Played with a paddle and a plastic ball with holes

Can be played as singles or doubles

What's the hype about Pickleball?
Pickleball is considered one of the fastest-growing sports in the United States.

It has celebrity fans including Hollywood stars Leonardo DiCaprio and "Friends" star Matthew Perry.

, who has just become a minority owner at Birmingham City, has also invested into a Major League Pickleball team - teaming up with former tennis world number 1, Kim Clijsters.

The breakthrough sport is aiming to reach 40 million pickleball players by 2030.

Fellow stars, including LeBron James, Drew Brees and James Blake also own pickleball teams.

The English Open in Telford is the biggest event outside of north America.

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Pickleball English Open: What is it and why are thousands playing it in Telford? | ITV News

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Hollywood stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Matthew Perry are among the relatively-new sport's growing fanbase. | ITV News Central

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Video 3-year-old boy is a pickleball star

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Axel has been playing the sport for fun with his family since he was born.

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Just a few years ago, pickleball was barely known to most people. Today, it’s America’s fastest growing sport.With courts popping up in cities and parks across the country, celebrities and pro athletes buying up pro teams, and more than 36 million people giving it a shot last year, it’s hard to escape the pickleball buzz.

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Just a few years ago, pickleball was barely known to most people. Today, it’s America’s fastest growing sport.With courts popping up in cities and parks across the country, celebrities and pro athletes buying up pro teams, and more than 36 million people giving it a shot last year, it’s hard to escape the pickleball buzz.

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$450 paddles and millions in prize money: has pickleball sold out?

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$450 paddles and millions in prize money: has pickleball sold out?

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$450 paddles and millions in prize money: has pickleball sold out?

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As a family sport becomes more elite and more commercial, its founder’s son mourns the loss of a game once ‘played for fun’

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CEO of Pickleball USA on success of the sport.

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CEO of Pickleball USA on success of the sport.

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CEO of Pickleball USA tells Julia Chatterley why it's America's fastest growing sport

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Welcome to the pickleball backlash: noise pollution, broken bones and a tennis turf war!

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Welcome to the pickleball backlash: noise pollution, broken bones and a tennis turf war!

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Name: The pickleball backlash.

Age: About a year old, give or take.

Appearance: A grassroots war against the forces of pickleball.

I don't even know what pickleball is. Pickleball was invented in Washington state in 1965 - a cross between tennis and ping pong, using a playing area the same size as a doubles badminton court.

Is it fun? It's the fastest growing sport in the US, with the number of players doubling between 2021 and 2022 to about 9 million, and forecast to reach 22 million this year.

It sounds as if everybody is crazy about pickleball. Not everybody. With the sport taking over parks and recreation centres across the US, a pickleball backlash is under way.

What is it that the spoilsports object to? Above all, the noise.

The cheering, you mean? Not likely. Pickleball remains, for the most part, a game that's a lot more fun to play than it is to watch. It's the noise of the ball.

The ball? Are you serious? When the rigid plastic paddle strikes the hard plastic ball, it produces a sharp popping sound. Multiply it by thousands of hits across thousands of brand new pickleball courts, all day and far into the night, and you end up with a lot of disgruntled local residents.

That sounds a bit petty to me. You haven't heard the sound. "It's like having a pistol range in your backyard," one Massachusetts resident told the New York Times.

It can't be that bad. One player who has set up a firm called Pickleball Sound Mitigation conceded that it "creates vibrations in a range that can be extremely annoying to humans", at a decibel level similar to some vacuum cleaners.

Oh. What can be done? Noise mitigation efforts have been proposed, but uptake is slow. Some of those affected have sought remedy in law, and won temporary injunctions.

Is it just about the noise? No, there have also been clashes - even fights - with tennis players.

Why? Are they purists? Pickleball courts installed to accommodate the craze often take up space once occupied by tennis courts.

I can see that's annoying. Where that hasn't happened, pickleball addicts sometimes chalk their court measurements on to tennis courts.

This pickleball is beginning to sound like a bit of a blight. As a popular activity for elderly people and the previously inactive, pickleball has also led to a lot of injuries. One report estimates it could cost Americans up to $500m in medical bills this year alone.

I take back blight. It sounds more like a curse. Let's hope pickleball never comes to Britain. Too late - it's already here, with an estimated 270 venues across the UK.

Do say: "Anything that keeps people active is worth a national epidemic of noise pollution and broken wrists."

Don't say: "Don't worry, that's not pickleball - just a bunch of guns going off next door."

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Welcome to the pickleball backlash: noise pollution, broken bones and a tennis turf war

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It is the fastest growing sport in the US and has become popular in the UK, too. But critics say it is loud, dangerous and encroaches on much-loved tennis courts

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Pickleball is all the rage. Each day, more and more individuals, across all age groups are heading to the pickleball courts. With over 4.8 million participants nationwide in 2022, and 39.3% growth over the last two years, pickleball has become the fastest-growing sport in America for two years in a row according to The Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA).

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Pickleball is all the rage. Each day, more and more individuals, across all age groups are heading to the pickleball courts. With over 4.8 million participants nationwide in 2022, and 39.3% growth over the last two years, pickleball has become the fastest-growing sport in America for two years in a row according to The Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA). The Prichard family could never have imagined this. Pickleball had an accidental start in the summer of 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington in the Pacific Northwest, when Joel Prichard and two of his friends returned from golf, only to find their family sitting around bored. Unsuccessful at attempting to set up a badminton game, Pritchard challenged the kids to improvise and come up with their own game. They lowered the badminton court net and began experimenting with different types of balls and rackets. A new sport was born! Pickleball is now played with a paddle and large plastic wiffle-ball on a badminton-sized court (mini tennis court) with a slightly modified tennis net. It combines elements of tennis, badminton, and ping-pong and can be played as doubles (more common) or singles. It is fast-moving and fun!

So why has pickleball suddenly become so popular? After a slow period of growth, it suddenly exploded in recent years. Racquet sports have become somewhat more popular, but tennis can be challenging and frustrating for a beginner. Pickleball has a much shorter learning curve, and almost anyone can be playing, and enjoying the game, on day one. Initially, it was mostly seniors and mature athletes, but younger and younger individuals have taken a bite of the pickle. According to SFIA, growth from 2020 to 2021 was the fastest among players under 24 years of age (21%). Both men and women are taking it up in droves. Pickleball has also been shown to be a wonderful workout. Recent scientific research has placed pickleball in the moderate intensity level exercise category, confirming numerous fitness-related health benefits. Pickleball will also improve balance and hand-eye coordination. It is also extremely social, another important factor in healthy aging and improved longevity. The pandemic also helped fuel the growth of this relatively new sport. Unlike many team sports and gym workouts, racquet sports allowed for "social distancing" and were considered safe not only outdoors, but indoors as well.

As with all sports, there are pluses and minuses in terms of your health. Pickleball clearly has activated a large segment of the population which is wonderful. This will lead to improved health and longevity. Racquet sports (especially tennis) have been shown, according to two recent large scientific studies, to be the best overall activity and/or sport in terms of improved longevity. The reasons are many- improved fitness, strength, agility, and even fall prevention. Also, the social element, which has been shown to be a critical part of healthy aging. The downside is a significant increase in injuries. In my orthopedic office, I am seeing more and more pickleball players every week. My specialty is knee disorders, but there is a wide range of injuries that can occur. I also believe that many of those are preventable. Common orthopedic injuries include strains and sprains (especially ankle), contusions, knee injuries including meniscus tears and ACL tears, shoulder tendinitis and rotator cuff problems, elbow tendinitis, muscle pulls (especially calf), and even fractures from falls. Wrist fractures are far more common in females, most likely related to weakened bones from osteopenia and osteoporosis, which is more prevalent in adult women. Serious eye injuries can also occur.

Certainly, the benefits of pickleball far outweigh the risks, which can be easily mitigated with some simple preventive measures. Here are my recommendations to stay out of the sports medicine office, and on the pickle courts:

Warmup and stretch: Even before you step onto the court, you should warm up (jumping jacks or run in-place) for a few minutes to break a sweat. This greatly reduces the risk of muscle or tendon injuries. Next do both passive and active stretching of key muscle groups including shoulder, forearm/elbow, lower back, hamstrings, and calves. This is especially true for older athletes and anyone who has had prior injuries. Once on the court, do some light hitting for a few minutes before starting the game.

Overall fitness: Fitness protects against injuries and improves athletic performance. Never rely on your sport for overall fitness. Your weekly workouts should include equal amounts of cardiovascular/aerobic training, strength training (including core), and stretching/flexibility. Balance exercises such as yoga tree pose (or even take up yoga) help with agility and fall prevention.

Proper footwear: Wear sneakers specific for racquet sports. Running shoes are not appropriate as they do not have enough side-to-side stability and ankle sprains or falls will happen. Go to a local tennis shop for proper footwear and sizing. Also, unlike tennis, pickleball can be played if it is raining lightly or if the court is wet, something I do not recommend because of the higher risk of slipping and falling. Also, sometimes pickleball is played on a paddle tennis court, which has a gritty surface, and it is much easier to twist your knee.

Eyewear: Consider wearing protective goggles. Rallies and volleys in Pickleball can be close-up and fast. Although serious eye injuries are more common in tennis than in pickleball, they can occur and are sometimes catastrophic. This is especially true in beginners or individuals who have not yet developed great hand-eye coordination. I strongly recommend protective eyewear.

Get checked: For any individuals with medical conditions, check with your primary care physician to be cleared medically to participate in any new sport or fitness activity. This will significantly lower your risk of a medical issue that sends you to an emergency room.

I believe pickleball is here to stay. There are now professional leagues and tournaments, and even LeBron James has invested in a new Major League Pickleball team. Regarding my patients who sustained pickleball-related injuries, all were very anxious to get back to the new sport they love, and that is a very good thing. If you are looking for a new fun activity with plenty of health benefits and social interaction, give pickleball a try! Learn more at www.usapickleball.org

Nicholas DiNubile, MD is an orthopedic surgeon with Premier Orthopedics, specializing in sports medicine and knee disorders in Havertown, PA. He is a best-selling author of the FrameWork series of health and wellness books, served on the President's Counsel on Physical Fitness and Sports, and has advised two U.S. Presidents in matters of health policy. He is an avid tennis player and is certified by the United States Professional Tennis Association (USPTA).
With over 35 locations in the Greater Philadelphia region, Premier Orthopaedics provides the full spectrum of orthopaedic services - including bone, muscle and joint care; physical therapy, MRI and urgent care. Patients trust our specialists for their experience, expertise and commitment to exceptional care. APPOINTMENTS IN 24 HOURS #1-855-ORTHO24
https://premierortho.com/
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Pickleball is all the rage. Each day, more and more individuals, across all age groups are heading to the pickleball courts. With over 4.8 million participants nationwide in 2022, and 39.3% growth over the last two years, pickleball has become the fastest-growing sport in America for two years in a row according to The Sports [...]

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Pickleball pandemonium - won't someone think of the retirees??

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Pickleball pandemonium - won't someone think of the retirees??

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Photo - The Villages Florida
For too long Wall Street has remained silent about a threat stalking America's seniors.

Now a team of brave UBS analysts is finally calling out this scourge of the sporting world, in a note titled: "Is Pickleball Driving Higher Health Care Utilisation"?

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PickleballENGLAND - Momentum is Building-Seizing the opportunity by Karen Mitchell 2/2

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PickleballENGLAND - Momentum is Building-Seizing the opportunity by Karen Mitchell 2/2

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PickleballENGLAND - Momentum is Building-Seizing the opportunity by Karen Mitchell 1/2

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PickleballENGLAND - Momentum is Building-Seizing the opportunity by Karen Mitchell 1/2

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Data: Trust for Public Land; Chart: Alice Feng/Axios

There's been a sixfold increase in the number of public pickleball courts in the 100 biggest U.S. cities since 2017 - from 420 to 2,788 - but municipal leaders say they still can't come close to meeting demand from pickleheads.

Driving the news: With pickleball becoming a way of life, the Trust for Public Land (TPL), a pro-parks nonprofit, ranked U.S. cities by pickleball courts per capita.

A number of local park systems, including those in Seattle, Auburn and Bellevue, offer pickleball classes for novices who'd like to get in on the fun.

Why it matters: America's fastest-growing sport is a boon for players who are aging out of tennis - and others who dig its vibe - but it draws complaints from tennis players who've been kicked off their turf, Axios' Jennifer A. Kingson and Alice Feng report.

What they're saying: "The cities that have really good park systems tend to be the ones that have a lot of pickleball courts," says Will Klein, associate director of parks research at TPL. Seattle ranked eight h among TPL's list of the nation's best city park systems.

By the numbers: Carl Schmits of USA Pickleball, the sport's governing body, tells Axios there's a critical shortage of pickleball courts given the 9 million pickleball players in the United States.

What's next: Padel, a racket sport from Mexico with a different court configuration from tennis and pickleball, is now on the rise in the United States.

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Seattle is No. 1, probably because the sport was invented on Bainbridge Island.

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Bloomberg Video Report on Pickleball 1st June 2023. 24 Minutes

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Bloomberg Video Report on Pickleball 1st June 2023. 24 Minutes

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Your Comprehensive Guide to Pickleball. Learn the basics, plus exercises and drills to boost your game.

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Your Comprehensive Guide to Pickleball. Learn the basics, plus exercises and drills to boost your game.

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ICYMI, pickleball is the hottest new sport on the block. But, it's actually not that new. The sport that combines the best elements of ping pong, tennis, and badminton has been rapidly gaining popularity in recent years. Whether you're a veteran tennis player looking for a lower-impact option, or a fun-seeking, social athlete looking for a new activity, this comprehensive guide to pickleball will provide you with all the info you need to get started. From the basic rules and equipment to health benefits, drills, and exercises, we'll delve into every aspect of this fast-paced sport.

What Is Pickleball?

According to USA Pickleball, the game originated in Washington state in the 1960s, when three individuals-Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell, and Barney McCallum-were trying to find a way to entertain their families during a summer vacation with a game that everyone could play. There was a badminton court, but the men couldn't find a full set of badminton equipment, so they played using ping pong paddles. Over time, they developed rules and regulations, and the game of pickleball was developed. "It involves a combination of various sports including tennis, badminton, and table tennis," explains Anthony Rodriguez, PPR Certified Pro, head coach at CityPickle in New York, NY.

Today, pickleball continues to gain recognition. The Sports & Fitness Industry Association's 2023 topline participation report found that pickleball continues to be the fastest-growing sport in the world for the third year in a row. "Pickleball is so popular because it's fun, social, and accessible to people of all ages and abilities," says Lydia Hirt, USA Pickleball Ambassador, chief marketing officer for CityPickle in New York, NY. "It's easy to get started playing and hard to stop!"

Pickleball Equipment and Gear

While you don't need a lot of equipment for pickleball, a racquet and ball are required. Depending on whether you're playing indoors or outdoors, the size of the holes in the ball will vary (larger for indoors, smaller for outdoors). Racquets drastically range in price. If you're a beginner or new to the sport, you can get a racquet for anywhere from $25 dollars and up, like the Champion Sports RhinoPickleball Edge Paddle. More advanced players who want a racquet made with carbon fiber can expect to pay anywhere from $100 plus, like The Franklin Carbon STX Pickleball Paddle.

When it comes to footwear, beginners can wear any pair of sneakers they have, especially tennis shoes. However, pickleball-specific shoes that are lightweight with good grip and a sturdy sole are designed to accommodate quick and lateral movements on the court, explains Catherine Parenteau, professional pickleball player. " That's why I love wearing the Skechers Viper Court Pro pickleball shoes," she says. "They're some of the most comfortable, roomy, lightweight, and stable shoes I've worn on the court."

Pickleball Rules

If you've never played pickleball before, you'll need to know the rules. Parenteau breaks down how to play and score the game.

Rules of the Serve

The first rules to remember when it comes to the serve are that you must be standing behind the baseline, the serve must be underhanded, and you must make contact at or below your waist-the waist in pickleball is considered your belly button, explains Parenteau. You also must serve into the box diagonally across from you and you must have the ball pass the kitchen line otherwise it's a "fault." The serve also has to bounce before the opposing player can return that ball.

Rules of the Return

The return can land anywhere on the opposite side of the court, so long as it's within the boundaries of the court, or on the lines (on the line is in), explains Parenteau. "It must also bounce before the serving team can hit the third shot of the point-this concept is called the 'double bounce rule,'" she says. After the first return, the only rule that applies is the "kitchen line rules," which says you must be behind the kitchen line if you hit the ball without letting it bounce. If the ball bounces, it is OK to hit it while your feet are in the kitchen.

The most important thing to remember when it comes to scoring is that you can only win a point when you're serving, explains Parenteau. When you announce the score, you say three different numbers out loud. The first number is the score of the team serving, the second is the score of the receiving team, and the third lets you know whether it's the first server on your team or the second (so one or two). Most games in pickleball are played to 11 points, and you have to win by two.

The Benefits of Pickleball

Besides the game of pickleball being fun, it actually has a lot of health benefits, too.

Supports Cardiovascular Health

The fast-paced, high-intensity nature of the game naturally makes pickleball an aerobic workout. The sport involves running, jumping, swinging, and sprinting. "This can help improve endurance as well as heart health," explains Rodriguez. A study in the Journal of Aging and Physical Activity found that older adults who played pickleball for eight weeks saw improvements in their cardiovascular health, muscle strength, and agility. You'll boost your aerobic capacity, too.

Improves Agility and Balance

During the game of pickleball, you'll be forced to make a lot of forward, backward, and lateral movements, as well as changes in direction to get to the ball. "The lateral movements and quick direction changes over time will help improve your agility, balance, and overall body control," says Rodriguez.

Helps with Muscle Toning

If you play pickleball regularly, you can expect to see improvements in muscle tone. Research from Utah State University found that six weeks of pickleball play could elicit muscle gains. "Think the legs, core, and upper body," explains Rodriguez.

Promotes Social Interaction

In addition to the physical benefits of the game of pickleball, there are also lots of benefits from the social side of the sport. Pickleball is often played in teams (AKA doubles), which promotes social interactions as well as friendship. "The social aspect and meeting new people is valuable and provides feelings of community and connection," says Hirt.

"Pickleball is known to be an inclusive and accessible sport that people of all ages can play," says Parenteau. "I think anyone can benefit from participating in a sport that is social and encourages you to move your body."

The Best Pickleball Exercises

Some of the best exercises for pickleball involve the lower body and core. "So much of pickleball is about staying low in a squatted down or lunged position, but it's also about being able to get out of those positions quickly and controlled," explains Matthew Manasse, celebrity pickleball coach and chief ambassador of Crush Yard Pickleball Club in Mount Pleasant, SC. "This requires training for strength, flexibility, and explosiveness by doing exercises like side lunges, forward and backward lunges, squats, and cleans. Different lateral movements with elastic bands as resistance are helpful, too."

What's another main muscle group worked during pickleball? Your core. "The core is a big part of every movement on the court," explains Manasse. "Therefore, training the core, whether it's doing med ball throws that engage the trunk or planks, is important to improve overall strength, balance, and flexibility on the court."

Plyometrics or jumping exercises are beneficial and translate well to the court, too. "Incorporating jumping exercises like box jumps or jump squats can improve explosive power, agility, and coordination, which are valuable in pickleball," says Rodriguez.

There should be plenty of work done in the gym to make sure you're body is ready once you step foot on the court. Here are some exercises Manasse recommends adding to your fitness routine:

The Best Pickleball Drills and Games

If you're looking to improve your pickleball game or get in some practice with friends, try your hand at some drills and court games. Here are a couple of favorites.

King/Queen of the Court: Players rotate positions on the court after each rally, with the winner staying on and the loser moving to the end of the line. "This drill allows beginners to practice their shots against different opponents and improves overall court awareness," explains Rodriguez.

Dinking Duel: Players stand at the non-volley zone and practice hitting soft, controlled shots or dinks, back and forth without letting the ball bounce. "This drill focuses on touch and placement," says Rodriguez.

Third Shot Drop Challenge: Players take turns hitting the third shot (after the return of serve) as a drop shot, aiming to land the ball close to the net while preventing it from bouncing twice. "This drill helps develop touch and accuracy for strategic shots," says Rodriguez.

Lob and Smash: One player hits high lobs while the other practices their overhead smash shots. "This drill improves defensive and offensive skills for shots near the net," says Rodriguez.

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ICYMI, pickleball is the hottest new sport on the block. But, it's actually not that new. The sport that combines the best elements of ping pong, tennis, and badminton has been rapidly gaining popularity in recent years.

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Americans Cash In on a Pickleball ObsessionMajor League Pickleball looks to capture nationwide crazeNew courts are popping up from the suburbs to Central Park

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Americans Cash In on a Pickleball ObsessionMajor League Pickleball looks to capture nationwide crazeNew courts are popping up from the suburbs to Central Park

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Pickleball is loved by Kim Kardashian and Leonardo DiCaprio - now Scotland will crown its first national champion

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Pickleball is loved by Kim Kardashian and Leonardo DiCaprio - now Scotland will crown its first national champion

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Scotland is holding its inaugural pickleball tournament this weekend, as 140 people look to become the nation's first champion.

There are 10,000 registered pickleball players across Scotland - withtennis coachJudy Murray, Kim Kardashian, and Leonardo DiCaprio all reported to be among the fans of this increasingly popular sport.

"Pickleball is a buzzword, everyone's talking about pickleball," said championship director Anne Smillie, explaining how the sport evolved from its invention in the US back in the 1960s.

"Pickleball is a very popular sport in America, over 15 million people play in thousands of pickleball courts that are popping up all over America."

What is pickleball?
USA Pickleball, the sport's governing body, describes it as a combination of tennis, badminton and ping-pong.

It's played on a badminton-sized court with a slightly modified tennis net, and players use paddles and a plastic ball.

The tournament in Glasgow this weekend brings together participants from all over the world.

John Rankin, from Seattle, has come to play in the Masters event.

He outlined some of the rules - including underarm serves only, each team having to play their first shot off a bounce, and no volleying is allowed in the "kitchen".

"The kitchen area is like a seven-foot deep area either side of the net," he told Sky News.

"And if you're standing in it, you cannot hit the ball in the air."
Read more from Sky News:
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Pickleball has attracted fans of all ages and skill levels, and players of other similar sports.

"I tried it once and loved it and played ever since," said Lucy Elliot, who represented Scotland at table tennis in the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham last year, a sport she has been playing since 2006.

Terry Smith is playing in a "hybrid" exhibition event with one seated and one standing player.

"I play tennis and I love my tennis, but the tennis court is a big area to get around in a wheelchair," he said.

The Scottish National Pickleball Championship is taking place at Allander Leisure Centre in Glasgow.

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Pickleball is loved by Kim Kardashian and Leonardo DiCaprio - now Scotland will crown its first national champion

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Scotland is holding its inaugural pickleball tournament this weekend, as 140 people look to become the nation's first champion. There are 10,000 registered pickleball players across Scotland - withtennis coachJudy Murray, Kim Kardashian, and Leonardo DiCaprio all reported to be among the fans of this increasingly popular sport.

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Scotland is holding its inaugural pickleball tournament this Scotland is holding its inaugural pickleball tournament this weekend, as 140 people look to become the nation's first champion. There are 10,000 registered pickleball players across Scotland - with tennis coach Judy Murray, Kim Kardashian, and Leonardo DiCaprio all reported to be among the fans of this increasingly popular sport.

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Scotland is holding its inaugural pickleball tournament this Scotland is holding its inaugural pickleball tournament this weekend, as 140 people look to become the nation's first champion. There are 10,000 registered pickleball players across Scotland - with tennis coach Judy Murray, Kim Kardashian, and Leonardo DiCaprio all reported to be among the fans of this increasingly popular sport.

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Why is an increasingly popular sport with celebrities sweeping Scotland?

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there are now over 10,000 players in the UK.  This growth has been achieved by lots of volunteers collaborating to grow the sport.  Fingers crossed the sport will be recognised by Sport England and PickleballEngland will be approved as the NGB for England soon.

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there are now over 10,000 players in the UK.  This growth has been achieved by lots of volunteers collaborating to grow the sport.  Fingers crossed the sport will be recognised by Sport England and PickleballEngland will be approved as the NGB for England soon.

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How Exactly Do You Dress for Pickleball? A Guide to Shopping for the Sport - by Vogue

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How Exactly Do You Dress for Pickleball? A Guide to Shopping for the Sport - by Vogue

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Is pickleball the new tennis? If Moda Operandi has anything to say about it, the answer is yes. So much so that the e-commerce retailer is offering a pickleball paddle and pickleballs as a part of its new Club Moda summer capsule collection. And they're not the only ones who are leaning into the fashion side of the sport. In recent months, Norma Kamali started selling her own pickleball dress, while Alice + Olivia and Nike have also dipped their toes in pickleball merch. Pickleball has been declared America's fastest-growing sport, according to a 2022 report by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association.

But what does pickleball fashion look like? The idea of pickleball itself may be camp, and its fashion interpretation even more so. After all, it's a low-risk, low-impact sport that was previously mainly enjoyed by an older crowd before its recent spike in popularity. In dressing for pickleball, one could theoretically wear the same kind of outfit as one might for tennis, but getting a little bit more specific makes it all the more fun. Think the Yuppie aesthetic combined with '90s New England prepsters or a sporty Carolyn Bessette Kennedy. Or, on the other hand: lots of color, as professional pickleball players like Anna Leigh Waters often gravitate towards neon pinks and electric greens.

For Moda Operandi's Club Moda summer collection, for example, the retailer partnered with 24 established and emerging designers-including Brandon Maxwell, Jil Sander, Rosie Assoulin, House of Aama, and The Frankie Shop-to design pieces 70 exclusive styles, such as little pleated skirts, striped wool crepe mini dresses and more, alongside the aforementioned pickleball set created in collaboration with the pickleball gear brand Recess. "One of my favorite summer destinations is Nantucket; for our capsule with Moda, we transformed some of our core pieces to embody the spirit of the nautical landscape," Maxwell says of the striped pieces he designed. "Pulling inspiration from the vibrant hues and motifs of sailboats and beach cabanas, we had fun playing with the traditional nautical stripe."

Moda Operandi's campaign for the collection features models Natalia Montero and Camilla Deterre, shot by photographer Blair Getz Mezibov at The I'On Club in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina. In one photo, the model sits against the net-wearing all-black with a matching elastic headband, dark sunglasses, a chunky silver watch and high white socks. It's exactly the kind of slightly vintage-coded inspired pickleball outfit that feels so of the moment.

Lauren Santo Domingo herself, Moda Operandi's co-founder and Chief Brand Officer, is also planning to learn the sport this summer. "Thoreau famously said, 'Beware of all enterprises that require new clothes.' Well I say...those are the best kind."

Shop your pickleball summer wardrobe below.

Paddles and More

You'll need a paddle and pickleballs to get started. And while you're at it, you might as well pick up a pickleball bag!

Pickleball Dresses

If you find yourself in a shopping pickle, opt for a tennis or golf dress.

Show Your Stripes

Lean into the prepster side of it all with striped dresses and oversized polos.

Pickleball Pleated Skirts

An everyday pleated tennis skirt is at the core of the pickleball wardrobe.

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How Exactly Do You Dress for Pickleball? A Guide to Shopping for the Sport

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Is pickleball the new tennis? If Moda Operandi has anything to say about it, the answer is yes. So much so that the e-commerce retailer is offering a pickleball paddle and pickleballs as a part of its new Club Moda summer capsule collection.

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Pickleball and paddle are challenging tennis's supremacy

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Pickleball and paddle are challenging tennis's supremacy

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Pickleball and padel are challenging tennis’s supremacy

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It’s Tennis vs. Pickleball vs. Padel. Or Is It? Private clubs and public facilities are striving to be more things to more people as they try to defuse the tension between tennis and fast-growing racket sports like pickleball.

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It’s Tennis vs. Pickleball vs. Padel. Or Is It? Private clubs and public facilities are striving to be more things to more people as they try to defuse the tension between tennis and fast-growing racket sports like pickleball.

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It’s Tennis vs. Pickleball vs. Padel. Or Is It?

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Private clubs and public facilities are striving to be more things to more people as they try to defuse the tension between tennis and fast-growing racket sports like pickleball.

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ESPN and the Professional Pickleball Association Reach Agreement to Cover Eight Tournaments in 2023

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ESPN and the Carvana Professional Pickleball Association (PPA Tour) today announced an agreement to broadcast eight PPA Tour tournaments this year beginning with the OS1st North Carolina Open this Sunday, May 7. 

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ESPN and the Carvana Professional Pickleball Association (PPA Tour) today announced an agreement to broadcast eight PPA Tour tournaments this year beginning with the OS1st North Carolina Open this Sunday, May 7. 

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ESPN and the Carvana Professional Pickleball Association (PPA Tour) today announced an agreement to broadcast eight PPA Tour tournaments this year beginning with the OS1st North Carolina Open this Sunday, May 7. The events will feature top pickleball athletes competing at renown venues across the country for the biggest payouts in the sport.

"As pickleball continues its meteoric rise, and as fans are increasingly excited about watching televised competitions, we're thrilled to serve up ESPN coverage of some of PPA's key 2023 tournaments, starting with this weekend's North Carolina Open," said Tim Bunnell, Senior Vice President of Programming and Acquisitions, ESPN.

"Feeding the overwhelming demand for world-class pickleball content is an integral part of what we do and is something ESPN is helping us to accomplish," said Connor Pardoe, CEO of the PPA Tour. "Pickleball is a sport with global appeal, an insatiable fan base, and endless opportunity. Our broadcast partnership with ESPN is another resounding indicator of that."

Full details of the 2023 Carvana PPA Tour schedule are available at PPA Tour.

The PPA Tour will produce coverage of its events in association with ESPN.
PPA 2023 Tournaments (All times ET)

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ESPN and the Professional Pickleball Association Reach Agreement to Cover Eight Tournaments in 2023

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ESPN and the Carvana Professional Pickleball Association today announced an agreement to broadcast eight PPA Tour tournaments this year beginning with the OS1st North Carolina Open this Sunday, May 7. The events will feature top pickleball athletes competing at renown venues across the country for the biggest payouts in the sport.

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Pickleball England Brings Progress and Inclusivity To The World Of Pickleball

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Pickleball England Brings Progress and Inclusivity To The World Of Pickleball

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APRIL 2023 is Pickleball Month in the USA

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APRIL 2023 is Pickleball Month in the USA

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Serving Up National Pickleball Month - USA Pickleball

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SURPRISE, Az. (April 1, 2022) - To further elevate the stature of one of the fastest growing sports in the United States, USA Pickleball identifies and designates that the month of April will once again be "National Pickleball Month."

Designed for all ages and skill levels, Pickleball is a lively, active paddle sport that combines elements of tennis, badminton, and ping-pong. It's played both indoors and outdoors on a badminton-sized court with a slightly modified tennis net. Pickleball, which was developed as a recreational game in 1965, uses a paddle and a plastic ball with holes and can be played as both singles and doubles competition. Games are generally played to 11 points, win by two, and points may only be scored by the serving team.

Another unique selling point for the sport is that pickleball courts are easy to build as sports facilities, for schools, and/or local communities. A pickleball court is 44 feet long by 20 feet wide, and many courts are lined on existing sports surfaces, such as tennis, volleyball, and basketball courts, in addition to being built as "standalone" courts. USA Pickleball estimates that each month an average of 95.6 new pickleball locations are being added to places2play.org, with nearly 40,000 courts in the United States to date.

The 2022 Topline Pickleball Participant Report from the Sports & Fitness Industry Association (SFIA), a premier trade association for the nation's top sports and fitness brands, reported that the sport currently has more than 4.8 million players in the US - an increase of 39.3% over the last two years. With the popularity of Pickleball climbing rapidly, National Pickleball Month is dedicated to increasing growth and awareness of the sport for both the recreational and competitive player. The 5thannual National Pickleball Month promotion will support leisure and competitive Pickleball programs and leagues, encourage public parks and other facilities to offer opportunities for players of all ages and abilities to play the game, and help bring about a higher level of interest in communities throughout the country.

"I recently had the honor of visiting the original pickleball court on Bainbridge Island where pickleball was invented in 1965 by Bill Bell, Barney McCallum, and Joel Pritchard, and on March 28th, 2022, Gov. Jay Inslee signed a bill proposed by Sen. John Lovick to make pickleball the official state sport of Washington," said Stu Upson, USA Pickleball CEO. "57 years later, this was a tremendous tribute to our founders, and as we kick off National Pickleball Month, we are excited for the entire nation to join in on the celebration of our favorite game."

Pickleball ambassadors and retailers can promote the sport on National Pickleball Month by scheduling events and social play, promoting tournaments throughout the month, or offering special discounts for first-time players. National Pickleball Month will also generate renewed interest in the many health, fitness, and social benefits of the sport.

Anyone that is interested in learning how to play pickleball, visit USAPickleball.org for an exclusive series of training videos created by Pickler and USA Pickleball to help you master the basics of the game.

"We see this as a continuing initiative to help promote the sport at the local level throughout the U.S.," added Upson. "USA Pickleball has established a nationwide network of more than 1,800 dedicated pickleball ambassadors and 57,000 members who will help more and more people of all ages get engaged with the sport."

For more information about pickleball, visit USAPickleball.org. Follow @USAPickleball on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitterand #thankyouPICKLEBALL to engage in the National Pickleball Month celebration.
About USA Pickleball
The USA Pickleball Association, a non-profit 501(c)(3) was established in 2005 to further the advancement of the sport on a national level. As the official governing body of pickleball in the United States, USA Pickleball promotes the growth of pickleball by maintaining the rules, setting player ratings, advancing the sport through its national network of 1,800 ambassadors, and sanctioning tournaments. Since 2013, USA Pickleball membership has grown 1,250% in its membership to nearly 57,000. More information can be found at usapickleball.org.

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Serving Up National Pickleball Month - USA Pickleball

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SURPRISE, Az. (April 1, 2022) - To further elevate the stature of one of the fastest growing sports in the United States, USA Pickleball identifies and designates that the month of April will once again be "National Pickleball Month." Designed for all ages and skill levels, Pickleball is a lively, active paddle sport that combines elements of tennis, badminton, and ping-pong.

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Inside the rising popularity of pickleball

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Carl Schmits of USA Pickleball Association discusses how they plan to keep up with rising demand of Pickleball. 

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Carl Schmits of USA Pickleball Association discusses how they plan to keep up with rising demand of Pickleball. 

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Inside the rising popularity of pickleball

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The actual John McEnroe Pickleball Match for $1 million April 02, 2023.

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The actual John McEnroe Pickleball Match for $1 million April 02, 2023.

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Tennis LEGENDS play pickleball! Agassi and Roddick vs. McEnroe and Chang! $1 million Slam ESPN

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Tennis legends put America’s latest sports phenomenon, pickleball, on full display

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Tennis legends put America’s latest sports phenomenon, pickleball, on full display

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Pickleball Slam will feature Andre Agassi, Michael Chang, John McEnroe, and Andy Roddick, each competing for a $1 million purse in Miami.

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Read about some of the plans PickleballENGLAND have for the English OPEN on page 68 and 69 of this month's issue of Pickleball Magazine

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Read about some of the plans PickleballENGLAND have for the English OPEN on page 68 and 69 of this month's issue of Pickleball Magazine

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DIRECTOR , PICKLEBALL ENGLAND

Working in parallel with the planning and execution of the 2022 English Nationals , we started looking at potential venues for summer 2023 . Incredibly , it took us six months to lock down an appropriate venue . Why so long ? First , we knew we needed to accommodate a larger number of players this year given the success of 2022 , but it was difficult to estimate how many . We had 305 in 2019 and

490 in 2022 , so we don ' t think it is unrealistic to estimate 700-800 players in 2023 .

Southampton could only accommodate us if we split the event over five days , which separated the 60 + from the younger players and wasn ' t optimal . So , we wanted to ensure that we could find a venue where all age groups could play on the same days . There are not many venues with more than eight indoor tennis courts in the U . K . I found just six , including Bolton where we stage the English Nationals . After checking availability , this whittled it down to three in Nottingham , Essex and Exeter .

Since we had hosted the 2022 tournament in the South West , we decided to move to another region this year .

Essex has eight tennis courts and 12 badminton courts in two different parts of the venue . The fear there was that players would feel they were being separated because there are two different areas .

Nottingham has 11 indoor tennis courts and many more outdoor tennis courts , but we couldn ' t hire all the indoor courts due to prior bookings . We were offered a total of 10 courts , four indoor , three outdoor and three more indoor . The courts were in a row , but there was no hospitality space . We looked at hiring a large marquee to resolve that issue and got quotes that made our eyes water , so that made the venue expensive and not ideal . Wi-Fi for livestreaming was also a concern .

Our board director , James Chaudry , who had played professional tennis at Telford , suggested we look at that as a possibility since it ' s now a conference center . Telford is in Shropshire in the middle of England , so it is not too far for U . K . players . It ' s easily accessible from London Heathrow or Birmingham and Manchester airports with good transport links . It also has seven hotels on campus or within walking distance ; Southwater , a pedestrian square with restaurants , bars , bowling and a cinema ; and Telford Shopping Centre with 160 shops not unlike Bolton , which players rave about .

Telford International Centre has three halls and many other spaces , giving us room to grow . An initial inquiry established an eye-watering cost . It seemed too huge to consider , but when the other venues were not perfect , the blank canvas - one space with all the nearby amenities - required taking another look . After gathering the details , the venue seemed perfect and the board agreed to Telford , subject to a ball bounce test and success with selling sponsorship to help fund the hire since we didn ' t want to raise registration and event fees .

The ball bounce test found that the floors were a bit skiddy , not

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DIRECTOR , PICKLEBALL ENGLAND Working in parallel with the planning and execution of the 2022 English Nationals , we started looking at potential venues for summer 2023 . Incredibly , it took us six months to lock down an appropriate venue . Why so long ?

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Rose is a partner in the recently opened Grapevine location of Chicken N Pickle, an indoor/outdoor entertainment complex that offers pickleball and other games along with a restaurant and bar.

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Rose is a partner in the recently opened Grapevine location of Chicken N Pickle, an indoor/outdoor entertainment complex that offers pickleball and other games along with a restaurant and bar.

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Former BNSF Railway CEO Matt Rose has a new passion project far removed from his days leading one of the country's largest railroads.

It's pickleball, the nation's fastest-growing sport. Rose is a partner in the recently opened Grapevine location of Chicken N Pickle, an indoor/outdoor entertainment complex that offers pickleball and other games along with a restaurant and bar.

The former rail executive said Chicken N Pickle founder Dave Johnson is a friend from college.

"He called me and said he was looking for locations down here, and I thought we should have one in Tarrant County," Rose said.

The Grapevine Chicken N Pickle is the seventh to open and the largest, sitting on six acres, Rose said. Along with pickleball, the site offers games like cornhole and jenga.

Kansas City-based Chicken N Pickle has opened several locations in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, in Grand Prairie, Allen and Grapevine.

"There are places to eat, to drink and games for kids," said Rose. "It's a place to hang out."

The reason is pretty simple: pickleball is hot. It's the fastest-growing sport in the country, according to statistics from the Association of Pickleball Professionals. The association's 2023 Pickleball Participation Report says that 36.5 million Americans played pickleball at least once between August 2021 and August 2022. That's up from 5 million in 2021, though that was coming off a pandemic year, according to the APP.

One of those who has picked up a pickleball racquet is Sue Latterell, a Keller resident who started playing in 2021 during a trip to Miami.

"I enjoyed it and it's one thing that my husband and I can do together," she said. "It's easy to pick up and it seems to attract all ages. Unlike a lot of sports, I can play with 20-year-olds and the next game I'm playing people my age or older."

Latterell usually plays near her home, but has also taken her racquet to several area courts that have popped up in northeast Tarrant County.

"It's a great sport for meeting people," she said.

Aside from attracting new players and fans, the sport is attracting business, too. Pickleball can be as much of a social activity as a sport, so several combination restaurant/bar/pickleball courts have opened recently in Tarrant County. The sport is attracting sponsors and celebrities, too.

According to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, Lebron James, Drew Brees, Tom Brady, Gary Vee and others are pouring money into the sport.

Brands like Chase, Hertz, Michalob, Miller Lite and Sketchers have backed pickleball at varying sponsorship levels. The sport is also showing up on screen. The Association of Pickleball Professionals has an agreement with CBS and ESPN to broadcast more pickleball tournaments.

The sport traces its origins to Washington state in 1965 when a congressman and a businessman were looking to play badminton, but could only find table tennis balls and paddles. There is some controversy surrounding the name of the sport. According to Pickleball.com, there are two theories. One is that it was named after the family dog, a cockapoo, of one of the sport's originators. The other is that it's named after the mashup of rowers in a boat who didn't make the first team, known as the pickle boat.

Whether of nautical or canine origins, the sport has seen phenomenal growth in the past decade. The United States Amateur Pickleball Association has grown from 10,000 members in 2015 to more than 53,000 today.

Several municipalities have either added pickleball courts or have converted tennis courts to accommodate the sport's growth. Southlake City Council in June 2022 authorized the construction of a $3.4 million pickleball complex at Bicentennial Park.

Another person who was attracted by the social aspect of the game was Matt L. Johnson, an entrepreneur and owner of the Holiday auto dealerships in Whitesboro and Graham. He became a pickleball fan when he was looking for something for his family to do during the pandemic. After playing with the family, he decided to invest in the game by opening Courtside Kitchen, in the space formerly occupied by the Mopac Event Center at 1615 Rogers Road, near University Drive and Interstate 30.

"At first, we were going to do just pickleball courts and then we decided we needed to add food and drinks," he said.

Johnson partnered with Christian Lehrmann, an executive chef who has worked at Tinie's Mexican Cuisine, for the project.

Johnson already owned the Mopac Event Center. Events like weddings, receptions and other social events were winding down because of the pandemic. So Johnson measured the site and saw he could have nine pickleball courts on the site.

Courtside Kitchen opened in the summer of 2021 just as pickleball was rallying following the pandemic. The name is sort of a pun, at least to seasoned pickleball players. "Kitchen" is slang for a non-volley zone on a pickleball court.

They have been busy since opening, Johnson said.

"We were the first or at least one of the first in the area that combined pickleball with food," he said. "And we're a full service restaurant. Since this is such a social game, it goes together with a restaurant setting very well."

Johnson said he is looking at other locations to open a Courtside Kitchen.

Coming this summer at 6635 N.E. Loop 820 in North Richland Hills will be an "eatertainment" concept from Volli Entertainment.

John Oldham, chief operating officer for the South Carolina-based company, said the facility will offer pickleball, darts and food options in the location's 63,000 square feet. Along with the seven indoor pickleball courts, Volli Entertainment will have dats, golf simulators, shuffleboard, minigolf, cornhole and an adventure park.

"Pickleball has proven to be popular with families and our concept fits into that," he said.

For players like Latterell, the growth in the sport means that more courts will be available.

"As long as the number of courts keeps up with the number of players, I'll be happy," she said.
Bob Francis is business editor for the Fort Worth Report. Contact him at bob.francis@fortworthreport.org. At the Fort Worth Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.

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Pickleball growth is sweet for those who love the sport

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Former BNSF Railway CEO Matt Rose has a new passion project far removed from his days leading one of the country's largest railroads. It's pickleball, the nation's fastest-growing sport. Rose is a partner in the recently opened Grapevine location of Chicken N Pickle, an indoor/outdoor entertainment complex that offers pickleball and other games along with a restaurant and bar.

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Steve Kuhn, the billionaire founder of MajorLeaguePB, said on today's @Sporticast  that he believes pickleball will "easily" be a top five sport in terms of viewership within the next 5 years. 

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Steve Kuhn, the billionaire founder of MajorLeaguePB, said on today's @Sporticast  that he believes pickleball will "easily" be a top five sport in terms of viewership within the next 5 years. 

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Over the years, there have been many bold claims about sports' future viewership. One from Major League Pickleball founder Steve Kuhn on Sportico's "Sporticast" podcast is the boldest that's come across this desk in a while, though:

?New Episode?

1️⃣ Pickleball - Live from @sxsw podcast stage presented by @Sportico https://t.co/GlLiXjXC79 via @sportico

- Scott Soshnick (@soshnick) March 14, 2023

Steve Kuhn, the billionaire founder of @MajorLeaguePB, said on today's @Sporticast with @soshnick and @novy_williams that he believes pickleball will "easily" be a top five sport in terms of viewership within the next five years.

He says it will challenge @MLS, @MLB and @NHL. pic.twitter.com/OaKfkMNAqC

- Sporticast Media Network (@sporticast) March 14, 2023

Major League Pickleball founder Steve Kuhn says pickleball "will be easily a top 5 sport in the next five years in terms of viewership."

"We will challenge MLS, Major League Baseball and the NHL. I think we'll be in that category soon."

(via @Sportico podcast)

- Mark J. Burns (@markjburns88) March 14, 2023

Claiming that pickleball "will be easily a top five sport in the next five years in terms of viewership" is bold, especially considering pickleball's limited TV success so far. Yes, the sport has picked up a lot of recreational players: the 2023 Sports & Fitness Industry Association's (SFIA) Topline Participation Report named pickleball as the fastest-growing U.S. sport on that front for the third straight year, saying it had 8.9 million participants over the age of six (86 percent year-over-year growth). But recreational numbers alone aren't everything.

And yes, the sport has gained some TV and streaming carriage. It's gone from early 2016 coverage on CBS Sports Network through a feature on ESPN's Ocho day last year through more recent ESPN deals with the Professional Pickleball Association and the Association of Pickleball Professionals (yes, those are different groups) and another APP deal with CBS Sports Network through Tennis Channel broadcasting one event in 2021, several last year, and many more Major League Pickleball ones this year. And there's some broadcaster demand for it. But top five in viewership would be extremely difficult for pickleball to crack in five years.

There are two different-but-reasonable approaches to attaining a status where a sport could claim "top five in terms of viewership." One would be for the most-watched pickleball event to be fifth or higher amongst all leagues' top sporting events in terms of average U.S. viewership. The other would be for the average pickleball event (or the average in a given league) to be fifth or higher amongst all sporting leagues in terms of average U.S. viewership.

Let's look at that first one first. As per Jon Lewis at Sports Media Watch, 45 of 2022's 50 most-watched sporting events were NFL games. The five most-watched events outside the NFL were the three College Football playoff games, the night of the Olympics that followed the Super Bowl, and the World Cup Final. If we count just one NFL game (the Super Bowl), one CFB game (the national championship), and don't count the Olympics or the World Cup given that they're international and not annual, we can go further down the list to college basketball (a Final Four game), the Kentucky Derby, and Game 6 of the NBA Finals, with that last and lowest one coming in at 13.99 million.

We'd have to go further down still to get the three specific leagues Kuhn references. MLB's top event was Game 5 of the World Series (12.77 million), the NHL's was Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final (5.82 million), and MLS' was the MLS Cup (2.16 million). No pickleball event has come close to even that MLS number yet. And it should be noted that there are plenty of other sports that had top events above the MLS number in 2022 (in descending order: the PGA Tour, NASCAR, women's college basketball, IndyCar, tennis, the USFL, and F1). A one-off pickleball special on CBS hosted by Stephen Colbert last November did draw more viewers (2.46 million) than the MLS Cup, but no other pickleball event has approached that. So even if a professional pickleball event did outdraw the MLS Cup within five years (unlikely at this point, but perhaps conceivable), calling it a "top-five sport" based solely on that seems like a big stretch, as there are lots of other sports with events pickleball is unlikely to pass.

The second idea, fifth or higher of all leagues in average event viewership, is perhaps more feasible. But it still carries a lot of caveats. It's possible that one particular pickleball league with a decent TV deal could possibly pass MLS in terms of average audience per game, with so many MLS matches streaming-only on Apple TV+ now. (This would be very difficult to actually prove, given that most streaming numbers aren't released, but it's conceivable, especially if pickleball organizations continue to grow and one of them gets a better TV deal than what they presently have within five years.) However, MLS is likely not a "top five sport" in the U.S. in terms of average TV audience per game; this is much more difficult to calculate for sure than the peak above, as there are so many questions that arise with cross-sport comparisons and radically-different broadcasting deals, but many of the previously-mentioned sports with peaks above MLS would seem likely to beat it in average audience as well.

It would be much more of a stretch for pickleball to pass the NHL or MLB. But that could possibly happen with a counting method that averages in games in those other sports that are only broadcast in-market (and through out-of-market packages) and compares them to nationally-broadcast pickleball events. Even under a dubious method like that, though, pickleball would still have a high hurdle to climb. And it's notable that a high participation rate doesn't necessarily mean people want to watch professional events at home, a trend that's been very true in soccer (and particularly with MLS). Statista found 12.6 million Americans played outdoor soccer at least once in 2021, but those aren't all regular MLS viewers. And Mark Burns shared some survey numbers (from a survey conducted Feb. 16-20, 2023, among a representative sample of 2,202 U.S. adults, with an unweighted margin of error of +/-2 percentage points) on interest in watching professional pickleball in a piece at Morning Consult last week:

Despite the increased broadcast commitment to pickleball, only about 1 in 4 adults (24%) said they are at least "somewhat" interested in watching the sport on TV or via a streaming provider, according to the Morning Consult survey. About two-thirds of adults (66%) and 3 in 5 sports fans (61%), in addition to 49% of tennis fans, said they are either "not too interested" or "not interested at all" in watching pickleball. Among generations, millennials (33%) were most interested in watching pickleball, compared with 18% of Gen Xers and baby boomers - both tying as the least-interested cohort.

Surveys aren't everything, of course. But that is a notable data point about the current level of interest in watching pickleball. Yes, that could change if the sport continues to gain popularity, and investments from celebrities like LeBron James and the Dude Perfect group may help. But the sport doesn't seem close to "top five" by any metric so far. And that led to a lot of jokes around Kuhn's comment, including Scott Hines (and many others) referencing the famed Mad Men bit about how jai alai was set to take over the U.S. ("in seven years, it will eclipse baseball!"):

https://t.co/W5vWBTFaDA pic.twitter.com/WDZE6Njios

- actioncookbook (@actioncookbook) March 14, 2023

There were lots of other roastings as well:

You could attribute this quote to every dude who founded a spring football league in the last five years too. And all the people who dumped millions into eSports. https://t.co/Ivpu6VYQAD

- Mitchell Northam (@primetimeMitch) March 14, 2023

NARRATOR: you know what happened next https://t.co/8Q4afZY1W5

- Max J. Rosenthal (@maxjrosenthal) March 14, 2023

This sounds like somebody who has no idea how many people watch Major League Baseball https://t.co/P19WVhCVDV

- Anchor of Gold dot com (@anchorofgold) March 14, 2023

Badminton is exponentially more fun to watch, and that's not like a Top 30 sport in viewership. This is a wildly transparent grift. https://t.co/eECVmCptx8

- Moons (w/ an affordable buyout) (@GAMoons) March 14, 2023

An underrated flaw of capitalism is that even when it seemingly works, it isn't good enough. People who made money on a sport no one thought to monetize a decade ago should be considered wildly successful but they always need more. https://t.co/CN9IkaXWUe

- John Fleming (@johnjf125) March 14, 2023

Fleming makes a good point there. By many metrics, pickleball has been insanely successful to date considering where it was a few years ago. And the Dude Perfect group's investment (also announced on that Sportico podcast) values a Major League Pickleball franchise at $5 million. But televised pickleball is nowhere close to even MLS at the moment, much less the NHL or MLB, and there isn't a whole lot suggesting a trajectory where it could pass even MLS (which, again, probably not a "top-five sport" in the U.S. from a TV perspective) in five years. Things can change rapidly, of course, and perhaps Kuhn will get the last laugh in the end. But for now, it's the sports world laughing at his quote here.

[Sporticast on Twitter, Morning Consult]

About Andrew Bucholtz

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Pickleball exec claims it 'will be easily a top five sport in the next five years'

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Over the years, there have been many bold claims about sports' future viewership. One from Major League Pickleball founder Steve Kuhn on Sportico's "Sporticast" podcast is the boldest that's come across this desk in a while, though: ?New Episode?

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Is pickleball the next American pastime, or will the hype fizzle out?

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Is pickleball the next American pastime, or will the hype fizzle out?

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Is pickleball the next American pastime, or will the hype fizzle out?

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The racket sport has existed since the 1960s and long been a staple of retirement communities, but is now winning over a much younger crowd.

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How Pickleball Can Avoid Becoming The New Racquetball

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How Pickleball Can Avoid Becoming The New Racquetball

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How Pickleball Can Avoid Becoming The New Racquetball

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Pickleball has exploded in popularity; is it here to stay? (Photo of John Merrill of South ... [+]
Newsday via Getty Images

As I watch, and participate, in pickleball's dramatic explosion into sports culture over the past few years, I cannot help but see parallels in pickleball's growth and acceptance in mainstream culture to another racquet sport, racquetball.

Both sports exploded in popularity in a short amount of time, but as we speak racquetball is falling by the wayside in terms of participation nationally. Pickleball on the other hand is seeing its presence balloon in large part because of social media and easier access to courts and equipment. But is that enough to have more "sticking power" than racquetball?

Racquetball as a participation sport went from a little known variant of paddleball in the early 1970s to become the biggest sports phenomenon in the country by the late 1970s. The sport took hold as a faster version of paddleball (or a less painful version of handball), and began drawing significant player interest and demand. This spurred a massive amount of investment in custom facilities, as club operators scrambled to build facilities to meet insane demand. Competing governing bodies popped up in the form of the International Racquetball Association and the National Racquetball Club, both vying to control the direction of the sport, and especially the direction of the pro tours. Celebrities and professional athletes were drawn to the sport and the covers of National Racquetball Magazine from the era featured famous faces on a monthly basis. The Men's pro tour became dominated by a young, mercurial star in Marty Hogan, who nearly went undefeated in the 1976-1977 season at the age of 19 and became the brash face of the sport, even appearing on an episode of "The Superstars" in February, 1980. The sport evolved from a slow, methodical pace in its early days to a faster, power-driven sport by the late 1970s and the slower paced tacticians of the sport were quickly overmatched and driven from the sport, complaining on their way out that the game was now "too fast."

Wow, does that previous paragraph sound familiar or what?

Consider what we're seeing right now in pickleball:

Participation explosion: We're seeing pickleball go from a niche activity five years ago to being the fastest growing sport in the country, with 10% of the US population attempting it last year.

Facility investment: We're seeing massive investments in custom pickleball courts (or outright conversion of little-used tennis courts) right now. Nearly every day we hear a new announcement of a multi-million dollar facility or investment in existing parks.

Competing Pro tours: The Association of Pickleball Professionals and the Professional Pickleball Association are both vying for control of the Pro game. We also have competing international NGBs in the International Federation of Pickleball and the World Pickleball Federation.

Star Power Interest: Pickleball has appeared on the Today show, Major League Pickleball has procured investment from dozens of pro athletes and celebrities, and the internet is filled with stars from the NBA, the NFL, and the ATP playing and enjoying the sport.

Top Young Stars: Replace "Marty Hogan" with Ben Johns and/or Anna Leigh Waters and you have your young, unbeatable superstar at the top of the current pro tour.

Pace of Play: The sport is evolving in front of our eyes, becoming younger, faster, more athletic, and more power-driven. Everything used to be "third shot drops," now it's "3rd shot drives" and maybe a "5th shot drop" if you can't drive it again. Older players now complain about "bangers," and lament players who choose to attack instead of dink.

The parallels are pretty striking.

As an aside, racquetball's hey-day was so long ago that many people reading this may not remember, or even be aware, of its pickleball-like explosion. Here are a couple of publications from the era with relevant quotes that illustrate this point:

From a paper titled "Trends in Participation Sports during the Decade of the 70's" by Nielson survey manager Robert J. Halstenrud: "Without question, racquetball is the fastest growing sport of the 701s, with participation skyrocketing to 10.7 million players in 1979 from about 2.8 million fans in 1976."

From an article in the Washington Post from July 1980 titled "Racquetball Boom Echoes Tennis Rise" by author Bart Barnes: "In 1979 Nielsen survey showed 10.7 million Americans were playing racquetball, a stunning 283 percent increase over the 2.8 million playing the sport in 1976, the first time Nielsen included racquetball in its triennial sports participation survey."

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Similarity between the two sports is one thing; how about the bigger question? Is pickleball going to experience the same kind of growth and decline lifecycle that racquetball saw, or will it be more persistent in the American sporting culture?

While I do not have a crystal ball, my sense is that pickleball will stick around for the long run and will not fade out like racquetball is doing for one main reason: Ease of facility access.

A huge number of custom pickleball courts are being built in this country. A great many of them are in public parks, and those courts are not going anywhere anytime soon. In places without dedicated courts, players are lining the pickleball boundaries onto existing tennis courts or basketball courts that have been there for decades, and those flat tops aren't going anywhere either. Recreation departments and public schools have maintained these tennis and basketball courts for decades, and now suddenly they're getting a ton of new use. The barrier to entry to play pickleball is incredibly simple as compared to racquetball: all you need is a flat surface big enough to chalk out a court, a cheap plastic ball and a couple of paddles.

Racquetball faces a number of challenges in its future. (Photo of a diving Rodrigo Montoya facing ... [+]
Getty Images

Racquetball's big problem is that the court access is mostly dependent on private businesses building indoor courts in expensive per-square-foot locations. These courts are either owned by small business (many of which were bankrupted by Covid) or with within large chains (LA Fitness, Lifetime Fitness, Gold's, and YMCA) who are in many cases deprioritizing the sport in favor of higher density usage of the space.

Racquetball courts remain in places like universities and in smaller numbers with existing chains, but they're more of a novelty instead of a revenue driver, and there aren't enough courts to build large-scale programming. The one thing all of these racquetball courts have in common are membership requirements. You cannot generally just walk into any of these places and play; you have to either pay a monthly membership fee or be a student at a school with the courts already built.

Now look at pickleball: while there are some private clubs out there with courts, there's tens of thousands of public tennis courts in existence that can host pickleball players for free. You don't have to be a member of a $150/month club to play pickleball: all you need is a flat surface and a net. You can play pickleball indoors or outdoors, in warm weather and cold weather places.

There are secondary reasons of course behind both pickleball's rise and racquetball's fall, not the least of which being player demographics. Racquetball is hard on the body, and players age out from a competitive stand point. Tennis is the same way, with ageing players eventually growing frustrated with the physical demands of covering a large tennis court. Guess where both sets of ageing players are now flocking to? Pickleball. Courts are filled with retirees playing all throughout the day, retirement communities in Florida like The Villages now boast thousands of players, and the 60+ and even 70+ draws at local tournaments are as packed as the 19+ draws. Pickleball requires less court coverage than tennis, is less physically demanding than competitive racquetball, and has a heavy emphasis on doubles play and social engagement that draws in both casual and competitive players alike.

One last point to make; pickleball greatly benefits from social and technology factors that racquetball never had. Social media, online communities, smart phones with apps designed for game coordination, and text messaging all enable players to put together games with minimal effort. Text 20 people, get four to show up, and you have a game. Racquetball never had this; players had to make phone calls or setup pre-arranged meetings, or just show up at the club hoping there would be players.

Conclusion: Pickleball is rising fast, will continue to rise, and is here to stay.

(Disclosure: the author sits on the board of USA Racquetball and one of our main concerns is addressing declining participation numbers in our sport. I've also done a ton of historical research into the sport over the past 20 years for a project called Pro Racquetball Stats in addition to my work in the pickleball industry today).

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How Pickleball Can Avoid Becoming The New Racquetball

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As I watch, and participate, in pickleball's dramatic explosion into sports culture over the past few years, I cannot help but see parallels in pickleball's growth and acceptance in mainstream culture to another racquet sport, racquetball. Both sports exploded in popularity in a short amount of time, but as we speak racquetball is falling by the wayside in terms of participation nationally.

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Pickleball: The fast-paced sport loved by LeBron James and Bill Gates

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Pickleball: The fast-paced sport loved by LeBron James and Bill Gates

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Pickleball: The fast-paced sport loved by Lebron James and Bill Gates

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The game is a unique blend of tennis, badminton, and ping pong, played on a smaller court with paddles and a plastic, perforated ball. While it may have started as a leisurely pastime for retired individuals of a certain age, it has quickly evolved into a serious sport with a loyal following.

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Pickleball is the sport that's sweeping America with Tom Brady, LeBron James and Patrick Mahomes buying in as the Kardashians, Clooneys and Leonardo DiCaprio all take to the court... so, what is all the fuss about?

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Pickleball is the sport that's sweeping America with Tom Brady, LeBron James and Patrick Mahomes buying in as the Kardashians, Clooneys and Leonardo DiCaprio all take to the court... so, what is all the fuss about?

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If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. A phrase that's bandied about when stress intensifies. Some flourish under the pressure, others crumble.

In America's A-list sport of pickleball an area called the kitchen is pivotal. The Kardashians, Clooneys and Leonardo DiCaprio have all taken to exchanging shots within it - a zone on court where volleys are forbidden.

They are all pickleball enthusiasts. The burgeoning racket sport has swept across the United States - and the acceleration doesn't look like burning out.

Pickleball merges elements of tennis, badminton and ping pong. Played on a smaller court than tennis, with players serving and returning a ball with holes in using slightly bigger and heavier bats than table tennis.

Tom Brady, LeBron James and recently-crowned Super Bowl champ Patrick Mahomes are just a few of the star names who have all invested in the ever-growing game.

The football season is over for another year, the relentless NBA circus keeps on spinning as baseball players get back into the swing of things. All while pickleball's popularity picks up.

Basketball superstar James, known for his sports portfolio, was one of the first notable figures to spend some bucks on a professional pickleball team. NBA stars Kevin Love and Draymond Green joined his venture.

Weeks later, now retired NFL legend Brady announced he was part of an ownership group of a Major League Pickleball (MLP) expansion club alongside tennis star Kim Clijsters.

Just days after and NBA sensation Kevin Durant was the next to reveal his investment in owning an MLP expansion team. Major League Pickleball is home to the premier division of the sport, involving 24 teams - launched only this year.

The interest within celebrity circles doesn't stop there. Oscar-winning actor Jamie Foxx wanted to be a part of it all and created his own paddle to sell, capitalizing on the demand.

Reality royalty the Kardashians, George and Amal Clooney, DiCaprio, Stephen Colbert, and Bill Gates are admirers, too.

Microsoft's billionaire founder was actually ahead of the trend. The 67-year-old posted a video of himself explaining the rules on social media with the caption: '50 years ago, I started playing this little-known sport with a funny name. Now it's all the rage.'

Australia's polarizing tennis star Nick Kyrgios is also a fan, sticking up for James and Durant in a spat after former Australian doubles champion Rennae Stubbs blasted athletes investing in the sport.

Kyrgios and Naomi Osaka have given their backing by becoming co-owners of Miami Pickleball Club.

Tennis professionals Jon Neeter and Julio Rivera splashed out more than $250,000 in a new pickleball facility in Los Angeles, California, in recent weeks.

Britney Spears, Matt Damon, Owen Wilson, Christian Bale, Michael Keaton, Dustin Hoffman and Blake Griffin formed the star-studded guest list.

'A lot of people have a fear of missing out,' Neeter told Dailymail.com when asked why he thinks there's so much interest in pickleball.

The LA Santa Monica Pickleball Center sold around 1,300 tennis rackets over 10 years but has already sold 700 pickleball paddles since November.

As Gates mentioned, the sport is not a new phenomenon.

Devised by three dads on vacation on Bainbridge Island in Washington state as they sought some entertainment for their families. They combined a net, initially at the height of a badminton net, table tennis paddles and a perforated ball to make a game back in 1965.

But it became a craze, and not just a fad, during the COVID-19 pandemic with the sport 'exploding', according to USA Pickleball's Melissa Zhang.

The accessibility makes it appealing with little to no cost while all ages can pick up a paddle and give it a go.

'It's a sport for everyone,' Zhang told Dailymail.com. 'Grandparents can play with grandchildren and the social aspect really draws a lot of people in.'

Neeter revealed firehouse stations in southern California have set up pickleball courts for workers to be able to play during their down time, pointing out 'you could put a temporary net up in your driveway'.

The Santa Monica Pickleball Center owner also believes the skill level required has led to the sport gaining traction.

'You can get to a level of confidence quicker and that gives people an instant sense of accomplishment,' he added.

The physical demands are also much less as Neeter explains former NFL players 'whose bodies are beat up' have resorted to the sport to keep active.

'A sense of inclusivity just accelerates the growth and demand.'

Obsession with the sport is real with more than 36.5 million Americans taking it up in 2022.

Zhang believes the game's 'quirky' name and nature have also helped. The kitchen certainly has more intrigue than non-volley area.

It's a seven-foot zone either side of the net where players cannot volley the ball in a bid to prevent balls being smashed right back at the net.

The boundary line of the kitchen is a dominant position to be in, particularly in the doubles format of the game, with players at the front of the court.

Players can enter the kitchen but must let the ball bounce before returning a shot from it.

The temptation of hitting a ball mid-air is there, similar to the urge of wanting to enter a kitchen full of delicious food.

There is some resistance to the rise of pickleball with conflict over using tennis courts and kids' playgrounds to play it but with the volume of money being pumped into it and high-profile stars publicizing it, it's gathering momentum.

There's a chance it could appear at the Olympics one day. A sweet taste for those rallying behind it.

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Pickleball is sport that's sweeping America, so what is fuss about?

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If you can't take the heat, get out of the kitchen. A phrase that's bandied about when stress intensifies. Some flourish under the pressure, others crumble. In America's A-list sport of pickleball an area called the kitchen is pivotal.

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Will Padel and Pickleball Overtake Tennis? You will be the judge and jury…

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Will Padel and Pickleball Overtake Tennis? You will be the judge and jury…

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Pickleball Scotland: We try the fastest growing sport at an Edinburgh beginners session

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Pickleball Scotland: We try the fastest growing sport at an Edinburgh beginners session

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Wyre Forest & District u3a's Michael de Groot is interviewed on the National u3a Podcast about Pickleball in his region.

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Wyre Forest & District u3a's Michael de Groot is interviewed on the National u3a Podcast about Pickleball in his region.

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Picklers relishing festival fun at first UK Midlands event...

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Picklers relishing festival fun at first UK Midlands event...

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Picklers relishing festival fun at first Midlands event

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The first Central England festival for Pickleball was held at Tipton Sports Academy, with over 100 players from all over the country competing over two days.

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‘Going up and up’: UK padel and pickleball boom drives sales bounce

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‘Going up and up’: UK padel and pickleball boom drives sales bounce

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‘Going up and up’: UK padel and pickleball boom drives sales bounce

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Surge in participation since 2019 has led to burgeoning market for specialist rackets, paddles and balls

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BBC Hereford & Worcester Learn about Pickleball and interview Michael De Groot of Wyre Forest Pickleball

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BBC Hereford & Worcester Learn about Pickleball and interview Michael De Groot of Wyre Forest Pickleball

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BBC Hereford & Worcester - Pickleball at Wyre Forest Leisure in Kidderminster

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You’ll be nuts for this easy-to-play sport before you know it, says ball-game addict Rachel Johnson

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You’ll be nuts for this easy-to-play sport before you know it, says ball-game addict Rachel Johnson

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I LEARNED TO SERVE PICKLE WITH RELISH! Never heard of pickleball? You'll be nuts for this easy-to-play sport before you know it, says ball-game addict Rachel Johnson

When I was growing up with my three brothers, we didn't have TV, internet or mobile phones, so we passed the long hours of the holidays with any of the following recreational activities. French cricket. Reading. Hitting each other. Gathering logs (there was no central heating either). Lying on our beds trying not to hear our father shout, 'Kids! Woooooding!' - which meant being ordered up vertical hillsides to 'source' yet more firewood. That was on Exmoor.

When we went to our maternal grandparents in Berkshire, however, there was one undeniable attraction: Swingball. We whacked six bells out of that poor ball on a string attached to a pole from dawn 'til dusk. Since then, I've never seen a ball game I don't like and don't want to win - and nor have my brothers.

We all play tennis, table tennis and badminton like fiends, so when I discovered that a new bat and ball game was sweeping all before it - a game that all ages and abilities could play, that already boasted superfans including George Clooney, Kim Kardashian and Leonardo DiCaprio - I couldn't wait to get on court and beat everyone. It's called pickleball, and I'd never heard of it until recently. It's a big thing in America - getting bigger all the time - and now it's arrived here, so you too can start your pickleball journey.

But where did it all begin? Well, like most things that find their way over here - chewing gum, movies, Meghan Markle - it originated in the US, but unlike Meghan, it's here to stay.

Indeed, there's already been an in-depth essay in New Yorker magazine about the cultural importance of the game (it has aspirations to become a fully fledged sport). The title: 'Can pickleball save America?'

Yes, it can! You see, pickleball has it all. If you like ping pong, badminton and tennis, and can play to a basic standard quickly, then you will love it. The kit is cheap. You can pick up the basics in seconds - addicts say it's 'easy to learn, hard to master' - and play to a competent level within half an hour.

HOW TO PLAY PICKLEBALL

Imagine a tennis court, shrunk down, four players with graphite or wooden paddles about twice the size and weight of a ping pong bat, and a plastic ball with holes that bounces, but not high. There are various strokes: the serve, underarm, into the opposite diagonal court, like tennis; the dink - bouncing the ball back and forth; the erne - a flying leap... But the game is basically serve, return and then race up, both of you, to volley the ball at each other in a blur of back and forth over the net.

I hate the word 'sociable' applied to games or sports, as it reminds me of bridge and bowls clubs, but pickleball really is for everyone. In the United States there are even pickleball restaurants (I imagine the vibe is a bit like those bowling alleys with burgers and fries and waitresses on roller skates).

In America there are already five million registered players, and it's much more come-as-you-are than tennis, where mostly you have to book a court. You can just head to a facility with a pickleball court and put your name on a list. As soon as someone drops out, you can swap in. Otherwise folks just mark out their driveway or yard with pickleball lines.

It's not supposed to be elite and exclusive, and it's about as far removed from a lawn tennis club as you can imagine. Players of all ages, shapes and sizes muck in and out. Grandparents dink with their grandkids. You're not supposed to have doubles pairings to crush all comers (I took note) but rapidly the picklesphere is becoming professionalised in the US.

Not here, not yet. I played for the first time at the Latchmere Leisure Centre in Battersea, on a court next to a baby gym lesson, with three fans of the game including my partner, Chris, who wore his official pickleball T-shirt with pride.

I served, underarm - then rushed to hit the return on the volley. Fault! The return has to bounce. Next, I stepped over the line by the net when I smashed another shot. Fault! That line is to stop you goal-hanging at the net, and you have to keep behind it. Apart from that, there seem to be very few petty rules, which makes it all the more fun.

I was hooked instantly, and insisted on playing three sets* (the only thing that I didn't understand is the scoring - see panel, above). So I'm not remotely surprised that it's the fastest-growing sport this side of the Atlantic, too: the official organisation, Pickleball England, reported 60 per cent increase in membership in 2022, with 8,000 active players in the UK.

Now, make that 8,001 - and I'm already wondering whether to put in a pickleball court on Exmoor (and turn off the wi-fi) so my children and future grandchildren and their mates can have even more fun with pickleball than we did on those gala occasions in Berkshire with Swingball. *Oh, and yes, Chris and I won all of them - need you ask?!

Head to pickleballengland.org to find your nearest place to play

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When I was growing up with my three brothers, we didn't have TV, internet or mobile phones, so we passed the long hours of the holidays with any of the following recreational activities. French cricket. Reading. Hitting each other. Gathering logs (there was no central heating either).

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Retirement boom among UK’s older workers creates economic headache

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Retirement boom among UK’s older workers creates economic headache

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always laughed at people who said they'd never been so busy since they retired," says David Richards, mopping his brow as he takes a break from the fast-paced game at Wyre Forest Leisure Centre near Kidderminster.

At 58, the retired GP from nearby Bewdley is among the younger players in this midweek morning game of pickleball - a cross between tennis and badminton that is growing rapidly in popularity across Britain.

Players in this packed session for older people range from 55 to more than 80, reflecting a nationwide surge in early retirement since the pandemic.

For Richards - and many others like him - the tumult of the past few years led him to reconsider his priorities. "The workload and stress levels just went through the roof in general practice. I struggled."

He now fills his time with pickleball, badminton, yoga, tai chi and rambling. "I was fortunate to be able to take early retirement, and I thought I'd better start looking after myself - lose a bit of weight, get my blood pressure down."

Since Covid struck, the number of 16- to 64-year-olds officially economically inactive - neither working nor job-hunting - has shot up. Driven in large part by retirement, it is a trend that is ringing alarm bells in government amid concerns over worker shortages and looming recession.

For many, the inactivity is involuntary. Millions have left the workforce because of long-term health conditions or caring responsibilities - developments made worse by an underfunded care system and crumbling health service.

Others stay out of the workforce from personal choice: many students are delaying the start of their working lives and the number of retired people has boomed to more than 1.1 million.

Here in Wyre Forest - the local authority district encompassing Kidderminster and towns and villages along the banks of the Severn - the figures are particularly stark. The number of people inactive due to retirement has quadrupled in three years to 5,200 - almost a tenth of the local working-age population. Compared with the national average of about 3%, it is up there with retirement hotspots such as the Yorkshire Dales and Devon.

You've got a slightly younger demographic that hasn't gone back to work after Covid and are looking for things to do. We're gaining members rapidly

Barry Walmsley, U3A

Barry Walmsley chairs the local University of the Third Age (U3A) group, which puts on the weekly pickleball game and a plethora of other activities for those no longer in work. He says membership has ballooned to 800. "You've got a slightly younger demographic that hasn't gone back to work after Covid and are looking for things to do. We're gaining members rapidly."

The feeling among the pickleball group - led by Michael de Groot, a semi-retired 63-year-old Dutchman, who introduced the game to the area - is that many have managed to retire thanks to building up decent pensions and paying off their mortgage. The average house price in this pocket of the Midlands is on the low side, at about £200,000, and this age group may have benefited from generous retirement plans long since watered down for younger workers.

"We're all baby boomers," says Sue Corbett, who retired from teaching at in nearby Stourport at 61, and is now in her 70s. "We paid into a good pension scheme, and I could draw it from 60. I feel grim for younger generations. I've got two boys in the same position. My kids aren't going to get their pensions until they're 68. They'll be paying their mortgages off. They're just in normal jobs - not high-flying jobs - paying their way with kids."

Not that boomers are all bad for the economy. For many, their contribution is as part of an economically hidden army of childcare providers for their grandchildren, and as volunteers in the local community.

It is not hard to see why Wyre Forest is a popular retirement destination. Birmingham is in striking distance for culture, restaurants and shops, and there are country walks, pubs, and picturesque towns and villages.

Ian Miller, chief executive of Wyre Forest district council, says that for many people in the Black Country and Birmingham, Stourport, where caravan parks, a funfair and chip shops line the banks of the Severn, is the closest thing they have to seaside.

"A lot of people will have come to the area as kids and then chosen to retire here. Property prices are low in the scheme of things, and there are some low-cost options with the caravan parks."

Yet this is not a place full of affluent silver shirkers. Kidderminster has seen its fair share of economic and social problems since the decline of its carpet industry. More than 20,000 people once worked in the factories that still dominate the town's streetscape; they now employ barely a handful.

Jackie Roberts, who manages the Weavers Wharf shopping centre, has opened a "warm hub" in a former Shoe Zone store in town, selling baked potatoes and a hot drink for £1, squash for 10p, and slices of cake for 20p to support those struggling to make ends meet.

"It's a town of two halves. We go from the uber-rich, international pop star status [Robert Plant, the Led Zeppelin frontman, lives nearby], to the bottom 5% of deprivation for the country."

With soaring energy bills and inflation above 10%, early retirement is not possible for everyone. Official figures are showing a reversal of the recent increase, indicating that some people are being drawn back to work.

The government is keeping a close eye on the trend. With employers struggling to recruit enough workers nationwide, Mel Stride, the work and pensions secretary, has launched an urgent review of workforce challenges. The idea is to come up with policies to encourage those who have left the jobs market since Covid to return.

Britain is the only country in the developed world with employment still below pre-Covid levels at the start of this year, and these shortages were among headwinds highlighted by the International Monetary Fund in its stark downgrade for UK growth last week.

A government spokesperson said older workers were a "huge asset" to the British economy, and that supporting people to start or return to work was one of its "biggest challenges". "This is why we continue to look into workforce participation and drive down economic inactivity at pace."

Between the last two censuses, in 2011 and 2021, the median age in Wyre Forest has increased by three years to 47 - higher than the national average. Without a university campus, and fewer job opportunities than in the past, younger people have left the area, leaving companies struggling to recruit.

Richard Manser is among local business owners finding it tough. The managing director of Five Star Windows, he employs about 100 and is struggling to find people to sell and fit windows, doors and conservatories.

It is holding back growth after a boom in lockdown as people turned to home renovations, and with growing interest in energy efficiency during the cost of living crisis. Like many employers, Manser is concerned about a lack of younger workers coming through to replace older staff as they hit retirement.

"It's more of a laidback retirement area here," he says. "Obviously there are businesses doing well, like us. And it's good for us that people are choosing to retire here - they're a good demographic [to sell to] for us. But it's also a struggle to find the right people to represent your company and go out and do it."

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Retirement boom among UK's older workers creates economic headache

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always laughed at people who said they'd never been so busy since they retired," says David Richards, mopping his brow as he takes a break from the fast-paced game at Wyre Forest Leisure Centre near Kidderminster.

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The pickleball revolution: how a game for all ages became one of the world’s fastest-growing sports

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The pickleball revolution: how a game for all ages became one of the world’s fastest-growing sports

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The pickleball revolution: how a game for all ages became one of the world’s fastest-growing sports

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A gentle cross between tennis, badminton and ping pong, pickleball is an easy game to pick up. Sam Wollaston has a little dink

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The rise of pickleball & padel: helping tennis or threatening its existence?

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The rise of pickleball & padel: helping tennis or threatening its existence?

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Venice Beach, Los Angeles.

The bohemian 'burb where seminal rock band The Doors lit their fire in the 1960s. Home to the bodybuilding boardwalk where Arnold Schwarzenegger began lifting his way towards superstardom in the 1970s.

It is an area which has always been seen as radical and unruly.

Now, nestled next to the Arnie-inspired weightlifters at Muscle Beach, among the thrift shops from where whiffs of incense and weed drift over, it is one of the places where you can often see the sporting craze creating a stir across the United States.

Pickleball.

Long seen as a leisurely recreation for older people, this hybrid of racquet sports boomed during the coronavirus pandemic and is the latest string-sibling to emerge from tennis' shadow.

Pickleball is the fastest-growing sporting activity in the US and the scenes of busy courts at Venice Beach - which have been predominantly used since the 1960s for paddle, another short-form game adapted from tennis - are being replicated across the nation.

"The tennis court is way too big and there's way too much ground to cover," says former Wimbledon junior champion Noah Rubin, who has switched from tennis' ATP Tour to take "a deep dive" into pickleball.

"I came across the pickleball court and, like so many others across the States, it clicked for me."

Combining elements of tennis, badminton and ping-pong, pickleball is played on a badminton-sized open court and with a lower net than tennis.

Players use solid paddles to hit a perforated and hollow ball, with the physics of the equipment limiting them to how hard and far they can whack it.

The smaller court means there is less running and more emphasis on hand skills.

One of pickleball's main marketing strands is stressing its fun and social benefits.

"You can play anywhere, you just need to throw down lines. It's a sport a nine-year-old can play or a 99-year-old can play," Rubin tells BBC Sport.

"There is nothing else like it. Pickleball is the most effortlessly accessible sport I've ever seen."

Almost five million people in the US played pickleball in 2021, according to research by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association (SFIA).

Over the past five years, the SFIA calculates the number of players has had an annual average growth of 11.5%.

Tennis, which has about 22.6 million players in the US, has seen an annual average growth of 4.9%.

"It is almost a cliche at this point that the pandemic did not so much create trends as much as accelerated them," says Tom Cove, president of the SFIA.

"Pickleball has grown in popularity for the past five years and did not miss a beat during the pandemic.

"Pickleball's growth trajectory gives every indication it will be a significant part of the American sport landscape for the foreseeable future."

From Eva Longoria to LeBron James - tapping into the power of celebrity

Pickleball is not just growing rapidly as a participation sport.

Tapping into the power of celebrity and using smart social media strategies have been key in growing it as a consumer sport.

The biggest, richest and most high-profile professional league - Major League Pickleball (MLP) - has been expanded to 24 teams and many are backed by A-list ownership groups.

Four-time Grand Slam tennis champion Naomi Osaka and Wimbledon runner-up Nick Kyrgios have invested in a new Miami-based team alongside NFL superstar Patrick Mahomes.

Another expansion consortium includes legendary NFL quarterback Tom Brady and four-time tennis major champion Kim Clijsters, while basketball superstars LeBron James and Kevin Durant, plus actress Eva Longoria and supermodel Heidi Klum, are also putting in money.

There will be six events across the US for the mixed-gender teams and the prize money pot has increased to $5m (£4.1m).

The commercial growth is also enticing professional tennis players to switch over.

Recently retired American Sam Querrey, who notably beat Andy Murray to reach the 2017 Wimbledon semi-finals, is the biggest-name convert and will play in the 2023 MLP.

Rubin, set to compete in his first professional tournament at an Association of Pickleball Professionals event in Florida this week, started playing after becoming disillusioned with the grind of the ATP Tour.

"I was slowing down, I was exhausted with my mental and physical wellbeing, I needed to take a real break from tennis," says the 26-year-old American.

"My first feeling towards pickleball was jealousy. I thought 'why is this new sport taking over a century-old sport that I've dedicated my life to?'

"Then I took a deep dive into what pickleball is and I saw incredible marketing capabilities.

"The sport allows a diverse range of people to be part of it at every level, allows the fans to get rowdy and have fun, while also allowing the professional players to have a brand. There are fewer restrictions.

"I think tennis' restrictions are a struggle for the next generation to understand and a barrier to them playing."

The 'war' escalates but racquet sports 'can co-exist'

Many people in the tennis community, fearing their sport is wrongly being painted as stuffy and out of date, feel threatened by pickleball's arrival.

There has been a backlash.

"I will never turn a TV on to watch pickleball. I would rather watch paint dry," tweeted Rennae Stubbs, the Australian doubles legend who was part of Serena Williams' coaching team at last year's US Open.

"Why all these tennis players think pickleball is worth investing in and not the game that made them all the [dollars] is beyond me."

Stubbs' views echoed the deep concern among some tennis communities that pickleballers are taking over their space.

A playground in New York City recently banned pickleball after what local media described as "months of conflict" between players and local parents.

The parents said their children were being driven away from the Seravalli Playground in West Village and forced action.

It is one example of a turf war in the US which the Guardian recently said is "escalating".

"Inclusive and diverse tennis communities are getting smeared as stuffy and conservative so that their courts can be ripped up and replaced," said Club Leftist Tennis, a Brooklyn-based group.

In Europe, similar discussions are taking place around padel.

Often simplified as a mash-up of tennis and squash, padel is played with a perforated bat on an enclosed court.

The bat is smaller than a tennis racquet but weighs slightly more, while the ball has a lower pressure and slower bounce. The court is also smaller and about a third of a tennis court.

Like pickleball, there is more emphasis on technical skills than physicality. It also attracts a celebrity clientele, particularly among retired footballers.

Former England captain David Beckham recently declared his "love" for padel, France legend Zinedine Zidane had courts built at his football centre, while their old Real Madrid team-mate Ronaldo recently competed in a 'Legends' event during the World Cup in Qatar.

Even greater affirmation came from another superstar this week. Tennis legend Roger Federer, who retired from the sport last year, posted a series of photos and videos of him playing padel with his former coach Severin Luthi.

Padel, developing into its modern guise in Mexico in 1969, is particularly popular in Spain and the nation has 20,000 courts, while tennis champions Rafael Nadal and Juan Carlos Ferrero have long incorporated it into their world-renowned academies.

In the UK, it is also starting to boom.

More than 200 courts have been built to serve about 90,000 active players with the Lawn Tennis Association believing padel can be a gateway into tennis, as well as continuing to grow in its own right.

Ferrero, who now coaches world men's tennis number one Carlos Alcaraz, agrees there is space in the racquet sport ecosystem for all the variants to thrive.

"I think they can coexist and make the other one improve," the 2003 French Open champion told BBC Sport.

"At my academy I see people going from tennis to padel, and also to start padel and then try tennis, and others that enjoy both.

"They are similar sports but their differences allow the athletes to find what adjusts better for their joy in each moment."

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Are booming racquet sports helping or threatening tennis?

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Venice Beach, Los Angeles. The bohemian 'burb where seminal rock band The Doors lit their fire in the 1960s. Home to the bodybuilding boardwalk where Arnold Schwarzenegger began lifting his way towards superstardom in the 1970s. It is an area which has always been seen as radical and unruly.

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Pickleball: the oddly named sport that’s sweeping the US

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Pickleball: the oddly named sport that’s sweeping the US

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Name: Pickleball

Age: Pickleball was invented by three dads on Bainbridge Island, near Seattle, in 1965. So that would make it 57 years old.

Seriously, there's a game called pickleball? Make that a sport. In fact, make that not just a sport but the fastest growing sport in the US.

Does it involve kicking a gherkin about? It does not.

Golden snitch, but made of a pickled onion? Again, no. There are no actual pickles involved. It is played with a wiffle ball ...

Is that like a quaffle? No! It's not Quidditch, OK? A wiffle ball is one of those light, plastic balls with holes.

Go on then, how do you play? It's like a cross between tennis, badminton and ping pong ...

Whiff whaff? Shush. It's played with hard paddles, a little larger than a ping-pong bat, on a court about a quarter the size of a tennis court, with a lower net ...

So like tennis for people who can't play tennis? Not at all, though the fact that it is easier to learn is one of the reasons behind its success. Playing singles or doubles, you'll soon be able to get rallies going. There's less sprinting so it's easier on the body, making it popular with retirees.

So like tennis for old people? Not just. Those Washington dads invented it for their kids.

Perhaps there are some celebrity pickleballers? Matthew Perry plays several times a week. And, in the newest season of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Larry David admits to enjoying a game. There are Instagram pickleball influencers, and pickleball bloggers. Several of the big sports networks are planning to cover the sport. But again, this is not about slebs and pros ...

What is it about? "It's about connection, joy and play - and the importance of play in a world where exhaustion and workaholism are status symbols," Brené Brown, vulnerability researcher, author and owner of Texas team the ATX Pickleballers, told the New York Times. It's ordinary people picking up a paddle and pickleballing. And that's what they're doing, in their numbers.

What kind of numbers are we talking? The Sport and Fitness Industry Association estimates that 4.8 million Americans played pickleball in 2021.

What about outside the US? The UK say? So there are already several places where you can play.

Yeah, but it's not really going to catch on, is it? Why not?

It's called pickleball! Hmm, yes I see what you mean. It probably won't make the Olympics any time soon.

Do say: "Anyone for pickleball? No, not you Novak ..."

Don't say: " Bring out the Branston! "

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Pickleball: the oddly named sport that's sweeping the US

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Name: Pickleball Age: Pickleball was invented by three dads on Bainbridge Island, near Seattle, in 1965. So that would make it 57 years old. Seriously, there's a game called pickleball? Make that a sport. In fact, make that not just a sport but the fastest growing sport in the US.

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Judy Murray, advocating that tennis clubs embrace the game.  Judy Murray has been running pickleball sessions in conjunction with Pickleball Scotland this year.

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Judy Murray, advocating that tennis clubs embrace the game.  Judy Murray has been running pickleball sessions in conjunction with Pickleball Scotland this year.

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Molly McElwee who was shown how to play by some London Pickleball players.

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Molly McElwee who was shown how to play by some London Pickleball players.

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Pickleball is booming among the older generation in the US and often space is created by encroaching on tennis players’ territory

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Pickleball is booming among the older generation in the US and often space is created by encroaching on tennis players’ territory

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here's a storm brewing on the tennis courts of America. Admittedly a very middle-class, middle-aged storm, but a storm nonetheless. On one side are the tennis players, with their eons of history, perfectly pressed shorts and thousands of dollars to spend on lessons. And on the other are the advocates for America's fastest-growing athletic pursuit: pickleball.

Almost 5 million people in the US are classed as pickleball players, depending on how closely you read the pickleball-published statistics, and in the last two years the number of people playing pickleball has grown by almost 40%.

With towns and cities across the country erecting dedicated pickleball courts, the sport will surely continue its expansion. But while that may be music to the ears of pickleballers, the tennis players are not happy about their court space being eroded and the feud between the two ball-hitting factions is only likely to get worse.

Pickleball, invented by three men in 1965, involves using a solid rectangular "paddle" to hit a plastic ball with holes in it over a 36in high net. A pickleball court looks a bit like a tennis court, but is about a third of the size, and the sports share some other rules - a point starts when a player serves from the baseline, and the ball can only bounce once.

Because the ball - known as a wiffle ball - has holes in it, it can only travel so fast. And because you're playing with a little paddle, you can only hit the ball so hard. There's also not too much running, because the court is quite small.

All this means that pickleball is booming among the older generation, with retirement communities, local parks departments and cruise ships increasingly offering pickleball access - often creating the space by getting rid of tennis courts.

Tennis players are fighting back: in 2021, pickleball courts in Santa Rosa, California, were closed for several days after "at least six quarts of oil were spilled" on to their surface, the Press Democrat reported. Lying in the oil was a "profanity-laced note", according to the newspaper, in which the writer threatened to scratch the cars of any pickleball players.

In New York, tennis players are making the dubious claim that they're the true sport of working people. Brooklyn-based group Club Leftist Tennis recently launched an anti-pickleball lobbying campaign, tweeting: "Reminder: pickleball is an astroturfed, venture capital-backed parasite on public space," in September.

Reports of the animosity go on. The Dink, a pickleball news website, reported that an unnamed person had made a number of stickers which read: "Tennis players against pickleball, get your wiffle balls off our courts", while on a pickleball thread on Reddit one player said they had witnessed "a couple of fights between tennis players and [pickleball] players at my local playground".

"Tennis players don't like that we're on their courts," said Brent Ingram, secretary of Atlanta Pickleball Club.

"Which I understand. But there's nowhere else for us to play."

Atlanta has 636 registered tennis courts - the third most of any city in the US - but Ingram said there are no public pickleball courts. This means players are forced to use tennis courts, drawing out their smaller courts with chalk lines in a fashion that can irritate some tennis players.

Ingram usually drives 25 miles (40km) to Marietta, Georgia, where there are public pickleball courts, but earlier this year nets at that location were vandalized twice in three days.

"I think it's one of two people, it's either tennis players that are frustrated with us, or houses that are nearby that don't like the noise," Ingram said.

The row over space and sport has led the city of San Diego to recruit Jodie Adams, a lecturer at Missouri State University who specializes in park management, to mediate between pickleball and tennis players, while the US Tennis Association issued a slightly sniffy Statement of Guidance on how both pickleball and tennis can be accommodated in cities. (USTA's verdict is essentially to build pickleball-specific facilities, but it offers no suggestions as to where the money will come from.)

Not all pickleball players are blameless. They can be jerks, too. In July police were called in San Diego, California, after a group of pickleball players commandeered a tennis court and began to play. The pickleballers were eventually removed, the OB Rag reported, "but not until they had played on the court for approximately 40 minutes".

Earlier this year, Arslan Guney, from Denver, Colorado, was arrested on a felony charge of criminal mischief after he used a permanent marker to delineate pickleball boundaries on a basketball court. Guney escaped prosecution on the charge - which carries a prison term of up to three years - after he agreed to pay about $5,000 damages and write a letter of apology.

According to USA Pickleball, the sport's governing body, a majority of regular pickleball players are over 55, and at this point in pickleball's development it is fair to say that it is essentially a sport for old people. Zorano Tubo is on a quest to change that, and in the process watch pickleball expand even further.

Tubo, a certified coach for the International Pickleball Teaching Professional Association, has been an avid pickleballer for eight years and thinks the sport is poised to bridge the age gap. "Some youngsters are starting to trickle in, but the high schoolers haven't found it cool yet. But when they do, it's gonna be a second mini-explosion," Tubo says.

"When the high school kids think it's cool, and then the middle schools and we get it into the elementary schools, it's over."

It was a chance encounter that brought Tubo to pickleball. He happened to be at a gym when he heard the distinctive bop-bop-bop of a pickleball game, and stopped to watch the action. It looked fun, Tubo thought, and as a keen racquetball and squash player, he was confident he could handle the slower pace of the pickleball game.

"Once I saw what it was I said, 'Wait a minute, I can do this with my eyes closed'," Tubo says.

"I mean racquetball is 10 times faster than this. Playing this is like The Matrix, it's so slow."

The lower level of physical exertion is one reason for pickleball's surge, particularly within older groups. Tubo says he thinks the sport has saved many old people from a life of boredom and inactivity.

"People were retired, people used to sit on their couches and go: 'What do I do, you know? Do I sew, and watch Oprah, and eat bonbons?'" Tubo says.

"Now, those people are teaching their grandchildren how to play, they're teaching their sons and daughters how to play pickleball, and they're extending the quality of life."

The small size of the courts also makes pickleball a more accessible sport, as "almost every ball is within reach".

"So any grandmas, if they can stand up, lift their arm, they could do some damage," Tubo says.

"And it's like, 'Holy shit. I'm competitive.' Even non-talented people can be superstars, you know, that never played a sport."

Plenty of superstars are getting involved too: Larry David, some of the Kardashians, and Leonardo DiCaprio are among pickleball's growing number of celebrity players, and with news recently that basketball players LeBron James, Draymond Green and Kevin Love are investing in Major League Pickleball, the sport's professional league, perhaps Tubo's prediction that high schoolers will soon find pickleball "cool" is about to come true.

To the casual observer a pickleball court looks like a shrunken tennis court, but there are some differences. Both involve using an implement to hit a ball over the net. Like in tennis, in pickleball the ball cannot bounce more than once.

In pickleball, however, a player is not allowed to volley the ball while they are in the 'no volley zone', a strip of court either side of the net. This prevents the kind of point-ending smashes that are frequently seen in tennis. The scoring system is different from tennis too, closer to sports like squash and racketball, and points can only be scored on a serve.

Tubo explains all this to me, breathlessly, on a sunny afternoon in West Hartford, Connecticut. We meet at a set of pristine blue pickleball courts, separated from two tennis courts by a wire mesh fence. Tubo has driven from his home in West New York to give group lessons. But before that, he offers me some one-on-one tutoring, which focused on what Tubo called "the three Ds of pickleball": deep serve, deep return and "dink".

We start with the dink, which, according to Tubo, is the most important D.

It involves tenderly knocking the ball over the net so that it lands gently on the opponent's side. Ideally, the dink will result in the ball bounding low, limiting an opponent's ability to return. If the ball comes to them high up, they can just whack it back over the net. Not so with the dink.

"No one is able to attack the dink," Zorano says.

"The idea is to take the power out of the game."

This was illustrated when I mis-dink, the ball soaring over the net and reaching Zorano at head height. He immediately bats the ball back towards me, hitting me in the chest.

"I intentionally smacked it to you," Zorano says. There's no apology, but he adds that this unexpected attack will help me remember "the ready position", which is essentially not standing there with your paddle right down by your side. Luckily, there isn't much weight to the ball and my right pectoral survives unscathed.

If there is a very mildly rough aspect to the game, then there is a growing viciousness to the climate around pickleball too.

As Tubo points out, in between dinking and pelting me with the ball, three pickleball courts can fit on one tennis court. At amateur level, pickleball is mostly played as doubles, which means 16 players can be pickleballing on a tennis court-sized area at any one time.

Tennis players, and others, might view pickleball as some newfangled, unserious fad with a silly name, but the sport has been around for a long time. The three people who came up with the idea were businessmen Barney McCallum and Bill Bell and future US congressman Joel Pritchard.

According to USA Pickleball, Bell and Pritchard returned to Pritchard's home on Bainbridge Island in Washington state after a game of golf to find their families bored. Pritchard had a badminton court, but no shuttlecock, so the men instead started batting a perforated plastic ball over the badminton net with table tennis paddles. The next weekend, McCallum came over, and they decided to drop the lofty badminton net down to 36 in. The name, meanwhile, came from Joan Pritchard, Joel's wife, and is, apparently, "a reference to the thrown-together, leftover non-starters in the 'pickle boat' of crew races".

In the coming months, the table tennis paddles were replaced with larger, custom paddles, and the game soon became popular among neighbors and friends, and in the coming years pickleball spread, through word of mouth, down the Pacific coast.

Pickleball may have been created at the whim of some bored wealthy white men, but one of the perks of the sport, initially, was that it was inexpensive. All you needed was a paddle and the ball with holes in it. But just like any pastime, you can spend as much money as you want. The Paddletek Tempest Wave Pro pickleball paddle retails at $175, for example, while you can also buy pickleball shoes which are almost identical to tennis shoes.

If a player can avoid the temptation to buy the best and latest gear, however, pickleball can still be pretty cheap. Tubo wore tennis shoes and track pants. I wore sneakers and a soccer shirt. Having played against Tubo, I can confirm that he knows what he's doing, yet he plays with a $20 paddle.

The easy access to pickleball can be problematic, however, because previously inactive people can get carried away.

Tubo says he has to monitor his classes closely to maintain safety.

"It is the No 1 sports injury for seniors in hospitals. Because they're coming out, haven't played anything in years and they're loving it, they're like: 'Oh my God!'" Tubo says.

"And then they're like, 'Oh shit.' They fall down, break a wrist.

"But they love it so much, they won't stop playing."

If players can avoid injury, however, then pickleball can certainly be a pleasant way to spend a few hours. Under Tubo's tutelage I was soon dinking with aplomb, and a particularly spirited smash drew admiring gasps from Tubo and his daughter Morena Tubo, who at 18 years old is an up-and-coming player in her own right.

With celebrity backers, some of them cool, it seems the only thing that could hold back pickleball's expansion is the lingering battle with tennis players over space and status, and in West Hartford I experienced some of the friction first-hand.

In the car park I passed a tennis player getting some rackets out the back of his SUV. I smiled and nodded at him: it was a warm day, the sun was out, I was spending the afternoon hitting a daft ball with a glorified ping-pong paddle.

Instead of nodding back, however, the man glanced at my pickleball paddle, scowled and slammed the trunk of his Toyota Highlander.

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Blame, threat and clash: the war between pickleball and tennis players is escalating - on and off the court

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here's a storm brewing on the tennis courts of America. Admittedly a very middle-class, middle-aged storm, but a storm nonetheless. On one side are the tennis players, with their eons of history, perfectly pressed shorts and thousands of dollars to spend on lessons. And on the other are the advocates for America's fastest-growing athletic pursuit: pickleball.

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Pickleball Ranks No. 9 on Ad Age's 2022 Marketers of the Year List!

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Pickleball Ranks No. 9 on Ad Age's 2022 Marketers of the Year List!

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Pickleball Ranks No. 9 on Ad Age’s 2022 Marketers of the Year List!

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Huge news once again for the sport of pickleball! I recently spoke with Gillian Follett, a writer for Ad Age, about Vossberg Gainor being the first of its kind pickleball marketing agency. Now Pickleball has been announced as ranking No.

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Pickleball Is The New Sport On The Block - Why Is It So Popular?

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Pickleball Is The New Sport On The Block - Why Is It So Popular?

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Pickleball Is The New Sport On The Block - Why Is It So Popular?

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If you're into your racket sports, or even sport in general, you may have heard of pickleball. Combining elements of badminton, tennis, and even table tennis, the fast-paced sport has seen participation and popularity soar through the roof over the past ten years. With famous celebrities such as Leonardo Di Caprio, George and Amal Clooney, as well as the Kardashians, picking up the pickleball paddle its future certainly looks promising.

In 2021 and 2022, the sport was named the fastest growing sport in the United States by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, boasting over 4.8 million active players. In March of this year, the state of Washington recently declared pickleball as the official state sport. In the UK, its popularity is also on the up with over 4000 active players and 120 venues to play across the nation. David Lloyd Leisure have recently unveiled 15 pickleball courts thus far, with more imminently incoming. The sport's spike in accessibility is helped by the fact it is multi-functional, being played both indoors and outdoors.

With the 2022 English Nationals taking place in Bolton this week, we explain the sport's origins and the craze behind its growth...
What Is Pickleball & How Do You Play?
Pickleball is played on a badminton-sized court as well a net slightly to different to a standard tennis net. You can play in singles or doubles, hitting the perforated polymer ball with a solid paddle made of wood or composite materials. If the defending side hits the ball out of the court parameters or fails to return the ball, then the serving side wins the point. There is also a zone near the net known as the 'kitchen', which prohibits volleying (hitting the ball before it bounces) if standing within this area of the court.

The sport was invented in 1965 in Bainbridge Island, a small city just outside of Seattle. Three fathers (Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell, and Barney McCallum) were simply going about their regular parental duties when they fancied mixing things up for their children playing on a badminton court on their vacation home. After stumbling on some table tennis paddles and a perforated plastic ball, they set about creating some amendments to what was in front of them. These included lowering the net from 60 inches down to 36. The rules were largely similar to Badminton, with all serves made using an underhand stroke action. This resulted in a largely fast-paced and dynamic game, complete with the use of tactical, trick shots to outfox your opponent.

Fast forward two years and the very first permanent pickleball court was built in the garden of Pritchard's nextdoor neighbour. Five years after that in 1972, an official corporation was established, intended to protect and expand the sport.

What Is The Future Of Pickleball?

Pickleball is on the rise globally, especially in the US. In 2019, professional pickleball tours were independently formed whilst a professional pickleball league, the MLP (Major Pickleball League) was established in 2021. Three separate competitions are scheduled for 2022, with the winning team in each of the three competitions pocketing a prize purse of $25,000 per team member. The winning team will also be awarded the Pritchard Cup. In 2023, the league is expected to expand to 16 teams. Some of the teams joining are owned by NFL quarterback legend Tom Brady, as well as NBA superstars LeBron James, Draymond Green and Kevin Love.

Both the IFP (International Federation of Pickleball) and WPF (World Pickleball Federation) are pushing for pickleball to be given Olympic sport recognition. This is not expected to materialise however until the 2032 Olympics, according to Sports Illustrated.

In the UK, pickleball's popularity is on the rise but it's not yet matching the forest-fire like effect across the Atlantic. 75% of Pickleball England's members are currently in the over 50 age-bracket, meaning the craze has yet to hit the youth masses with any serious effect. More and more tournaments are cropping up though, with participation continuing to snowball. By 2030, the sport within the UK market is expected to achieve a compound annual growth rate of 9.5% worth over a £110 million in revenue. Sam Basford, Regional Director of Pickleball England, believes, "It is so exciting to see pickleball in the UK begin to follow in the footsteps of such exponential growth in the US! I can't wait to see what the next year, 5 years, and 10 years, hold for pickleball".

The English Nationals will be played out at Bolton Arena in Greater Manchester on Thursday 27th October through to Sunday 30th October 2022. With up to 24 courts simultaneously being competed on, the event will mark the final time that both English and Welsh players can participate. From 2023, only English players will be permitted to compete.

In Europe, the sport of padel just ahead of pickleball in terms of growth, participation, and access, pickleball's rapid boom in the US is predicted to transpire within the UK in the next few years. The rate of this depends on many factors such as awareness of the sport continuing to spread in terms of television broadcasting.

One thing's for certain though, you can expect to see more and more pickleball courts pop up near you in the very near future. Will it pickle your fancy?

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Pickleball Is The New Sport On The Block - Why Is It So Popular?

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If you're into your racket sports, or even sport in general, you may have heard of pickleball. Combining elements of badminton, tennis, and even table tennis, the fast-paced sport has seen participation and popularity soar through the roof over the past ten years.