pickleball

i've been playing pickleball regularly for a bit more than a year now and have really been enjoying it. my instinct is to be preemptively defensive of the stupid name and the reputation of being a game for old people but instead i will just ask if there is anyone else on ilx who plays pickleball.

all i know is that PB seems to be the leaf blower of recreation... neighbors hate the racket (pun intended)

Such a topic of concern where I live--the tennis players (us) are forever fighting with them over the town courts. We have four nice ones that, in two stages, have been painted over with PB lines the past few years. The north courts are terrible; the lines are so close together it's very confusing, especially receiving serve. The lines on the south courts, done just last year, are farther apart and not so bad. Town council has been dealing with proposals from both sides--a new location for the PB courts, cutting down some trees and moving them a hundred yards west, etc.--with the the mayor clearly on the side of he PB club (which, admittedly, has two-three times the membership we do, though the tennis club, of course, has been around much longer). The animosity is deep enough that I suggested to the local bookstore owner that we write a script about it, an Election-type comedy about a small town like ours. I was kidding, but someone should.

The punchline: I'm likely going for hip surgery next winter and, at 64, am probably headed in the direction of pickleball.

(I've been told this kind of tennis/PB squabbling is far from uncommon in other smaller towns.)

yes I've heard a fair amount of fretting about the pickle ballification of municipal tennis courts

The average age of pickleball players is falling pretty dramatically, and as I understand it the older folks are not happy. And yeah, tennis folks are annoyed, especially in places like where I live, with limited space for sports. The fun twist is that when tennis players pick up pickleball, they absolutely dominate.

My wife plays this sport all the time, like multiple times a week, leagues, that sort of thing. She loves it, and convinced me to take a couple of classes. It was fun, but I'm just not competitive enough to have fun playing it.

i haven't run into any problems with tennis players, i live in a city so almost all the places i'm playing pickleball are dedicated courts and there is no shortage of tennis courts. and yeah i would say that the majority of the games i'm playing are against people younger than me, though there are some seniors too (who tend to be deceptively great players).
anyways i think it's going to continue to increase in popularity, especially as more courts are developed, because it's very much an "easy to learn, difficult to master" game - it's not hard to feel like you're decent enough to play against other beginners casually, but if you want to challenge yourself there are lots of areas for skill expansion. and yes, it's not as taxing as tennis so it's open to a wider range of ages/physical abilities.

One of the regulars my wife plays with is in his '90s!

The demographic is definitely getting younger; we've got a good tennis player in our club, Matt, who's in his early '20s and prefers (and is even better at) pickleball.

i live in a city so almost all the places i'm playing pickleball are dedicated courts--which is the problem where I am. They're trying to combine the two, which I've likened to trying to play football on a field with two sets of lines.

I've been playing it now for a little over 2 years. It's actually a really fun game and it feels like an extension of table tennis for me. I much prefer the precision rather than "hit ball hard" like some players seem to emphasize. Where I go there's a nice community, I've made friends who have been regulars there, and the ages range from early 20's to 70's.

I am/was a relatively serious player, used to play pretty much every day I could, traveled for tournaments etc. I've been playing a lot less in the past year or so, partly due to life stuff and a minor ankle injury, partly because my spirit was crushed when I played a tournament with a new friend I made after moving across the country and not playing much and it decimating my rating, lol.

I've been playing for about 4 years now. when I lived in boston, there were some of the issues clemenza brought up wrt tennis/pickleball turf battles. as a former tennis player I am sympathetic, but as clemenza alludes to the arithmetic is just overwhelming. 16 people (or more, if it's a cooperative setting and players are switching in and out between games) can play pickleball on a single tennis court whereas usually 2 or maybe 4 people can use the same space for tennis. since moving to LA, I've found a park with a 5 tennis courts that have been repurposed where there's pretty much drop-in play 14 hours a day 7 days a week. there's often 100+ people there during peak hours, it's totally self-run, cooperative, and there is range of skill levels so anyone can find a competitive game. a kid I used to play with there who just graduated from USC is now making a splash in the pros. at the same time there's people of all ages and experience levels. this sort of culture is something that's really appealing, it's very democratic and welcoming in that sense, the closest thing I've found to pickup basketball. tennis culture on the other hand...

I do wonder how long this bubble will last though. I know the pro tours aren't exactly raking in money quite yet, though the level of play there continues to rise exponentially especially as more and more former high-level tennis players make the switch. there are high school and college teams that are starting and rumors of eventually being an olympic sport. at least at a recreational level it hasn't shown any signs of slowing down and there are more and more dedicated facilities and courts popping up

These seems like a joke, and not because it is funny, because this doesn't look funny:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YyVNFzx5Pl8

Anyway, I'd say the sport jumped the shark, but I suspect Pickleball is going to do just fine.

Not sure it’s in decline here, we’re already a massive tennis playing city and pickleball and padel courts are springing up everywhere.

It seems to be the latest thing to do with an empty urban lot a developer doesn’t want to build on yet. It use to be car parks and billboards now it’s padel courts.

its pretty popular here. and yes the crowds are definitely getting younger. I still prefer tennis but my kids have a much easier time with pickleball so that's what we play. my main issue with it is the ball seems to be way more sensitive to wind, even on a slightly breezy day the ball can bend all over the place.

Saw these dudes in San Francisco (Justin Herman Plaza) playing some form of mini-tennis - NOT pickleball, but with strung rackets and green fuzzy balls. But the courts were smaller than tennis and encased in plexiglass... not sure what they call it

Gherkinball? /runs away

if the court was enclosed, it was probably padel. but padel racquets aren’t strung

this movie looks horrific

never seen anything as lonely as the tennis courts in my condo complex

^^^^ yes, you're right:

Don't Call It Pickleball: SF Is Now Getting Two Padel Courts Down at Embarcadero Plaza

I didn't get super close and they looked from a distance like normal tennis rackets

or rather, racquets - but the whole enterprise looked like a racket

Padel is very popular in Spain and South America, bigger courts more like a tennis ball but the courts are enclosed and you can bounce the ball off the walls.

They opened 6 courts up the street near me just before summer and they always seem busy, even now when it’s cold. Mind you all the tennis courts in the neighborhood seem perpetually busy as well.

I have no idea what pickleball is but o ly today i saw someone wearing a pickleball t shirt

> It seems to be the latest thing to do with an empty urban lot a developer doesn’t want to build on yet. It use to be car parks and billboards now it’s padel courts.

i was walking the thames path near battersea power station last week and there's a padel arena there that means having to divert inland. behind that is some egyptian experience, Ramses: the exhibition.