I don’t remember when I first heard about pickleball, but once I did, it seemed like the only topic people wanted to discuss was pickleball.
Everyone had strong opinions about it, too. It was either an up-and-coming sport, childish activity or passing pandemic fad.
At this point, I would have described it as a childish activity. I was a tennis player. As a snob looking down on this activity, I also didn’t understand a sport where everyone was standing around smiling and laughing after points.
That’s the complete opposite of tennis.
My mother-in-law was the first person I knew who got bitten by the bug. She’s admittedly not the most athletic or coordinated person you’ll meet, which further influenced my perception of pickleball.
We were at the in-law’s house for a weekend when they invited us to play with their friends. Abby (also a tennis player) has less pride than I do, so she told me it would be fun.
It was okay.
No matter how hard I hit the ball, it wasn’t going anywhere quickly. The court was cramped, and the game of cat-and-mouse dinking in the kitchen was uninteresting.
I also wasn’t keen on a paddle-shaped piece of wood being sold for $250. At least a tennis racquet is made of real materials that took real engineering to manufacture.
Over the next year, we played a few more times with her friends and family, then went to Florida and played with their friends down there.
I noticed that it’s one of the few physical activities where people of all ages and skill levels can participate in an activity together. Unlike tennis, there’s a much lower learning curve. I might thoroughly thump a first-timer, but we can still appreciate the time together.
I also began to appreciate how most games lasted just 15 minutes. This was much better than allocating two hours just to play two sets of tennis with someone.
I’m in my thirties now. I’m nowhere near the shape I was in even five years ago, and I don’t have fifteen hours a week to run and workout to get back in that shape. I also don’t have the open schedule I enjoyed in high school to practice five or six days a week.
Around that time, I tried playing tennis again. I joined a friend’s 3.5 league and enjoyed blasting through people during fast feeds.
However, I pulled a quad while tracking a lob down in my first singles match. The back of my leg was black for two weeks, and I didn’t return that season.
A few months later, I was introduced to a group of guys who play pickleball on Sundays. The group consists of a lanky Irishman who smokes like a freight train, me and eight other guys in all shapes, sizes and ages that play.
As a has-been tennis player standing 5’8″ on a good day, I realized I could finally hit a tweener. I don’t have to implement a training regimen to cover the court better. I actually have fun playing.
As much as I love watching tennis, I would not say I loved playing tennis. I’m far too competitive to enjoy it. I might feel some momentary relief from winning, but losing could put me in a bad mood for a whole week. That’s not a good combination for a slightly better-than-average has-been.
(Fun fact: unless you’re a top-50 tennis player in the world, your career win rate will likely be less than 50%. Novak Djokovic’s is only 83%).
Pickleball allows me to utilize those skills I honed from years of tennis while being leisurely enough that I can enjoy it for what it is—a fun sweat. So, for that, pickleball isn’t all that bad.