When I saw pickleball used as a plot device on the CBS hit show Ghosts, I thought I was seeing things. But it only confirmed what so many people who never talk about sports have been saying to me over the past year: this addictive game is more than a fad—it’s a phenomenon.
At public parks, school gymnasiums and racquet clubs around the country, tennis and basketball courts are being lined for pickleball use. It’s easy to see why. Players of all ages and athletic backgrounds can participate—and hold their own—without years of prior practice or training. It’s not too difficult to get a game going, or a good rally; it’s even easier to get a good laugh along the way with fellow players. With dialogue and dinks, and perhaps a few drinks after, pickleball might be the newest social network.
Of course, once you start playing, you’ll want to improve, and that’s where this section of Tennis Magazine—which we are running on TENNIS.com over the next four days—comes in. Yes, this is a different sport than our publication’s namesake. But for some time now, we’ve noticed tennis baseliners start cooking around pickleball’s kitchens, and vice versa. It would be derelict to avoid talking about what’s going on in the paddle world, even if tennis will always, like me, remain your favorite sport to play.
My suggestion? Read on, and see what pickleball has to offer. You may be surprised by what you find. Roughly 50 years after tennis exploded onto American culture, we’re in the midst of something that feels similar. It also sounds similar to what a ghost says: BOOM.
