I’ve been hearing a lot about pickleball recently.
And yeah, it looks kind of fun.
But why is it so popular?
It started as a casual backyard game for kids and families, but I don’t see why it’s more popular than badminton, which uses similar equipment, and can be set up more easily, say between 2 picnic tables.
And it’s similar to ping pong, but much more popular. Why?
And it’s very, very similar to tennis…so why build special courts for pickleball?
I use to play a lot of badminton but it has issues. A moderate wind really messes with the game.
A tennis court can be used for pickle ball by lowering the net and using tape or chalk lines. .
Pickle ball. The net is only 34" high. The court is 44’x20’
Tennis Court: Net is 42" high. 78’x27’ or 36’ for doubles.
Having played a grand total of twice, here’s my take: low barrier to entry-- equipment is very cheap. Skill level is significantly lower–I suck at tennis, but I’m pretty good at ping-pong, and I was relatively competent immediately. Purposely very social–you put your paddle in the lineup and people are pretty much obligated to let you play. Just dinking around in tennis isn’t that fun or easy to do, but is easy in pb, or you can play as competitively as you want.
Plus our complex has 8 courts where 3 tennis courts would fit…
Your movement on the court is constrained, you can’t enter the Kitchen (front court) unless the ball bounces there first. So you can hang out right at the line without needing to move a lot.
With added lines and nets on rollers, a tennis court can be transformed into 4 pickleball courts in just a couple minutes.
BTW - I’ve been playing nearly everyday since the beginning of the year. It’s very addictive and doesn’t require setting up “dates” like in tennis. Just show up and put your paddle in the lineup to play doubles with whoever else is waiting to play.
Pickleball is more like ping pong and racquetball than tennis. Like RB, you only score when serving. Much less movement than tennis or racquetball, but more than casual ping pong. A few weird rules to pick up (double bounce rule, kitchen rules), but otherwise easy to learn and much easier to play than tennis.
this is what surprises me, I guess…the culture.
Theoretically, you could play tennis the same way (no “dates”, just show up with your raquet). But nobody does. Why?
It might be because of history: pickleball has a very informal origin, and a silly name. So it’s less serious. But nowadays there are lots of people who play it seriously in tournaments just like any other highly organized sport.
I’ll just drop this here
Critical mass and the length of a game. We have a tennis court in a local park. It is reserved for tennis 2 days a week and is used by just 2 or 4 people for hours on end. On the other days of the week, converted into 4 pickleball courts, it is used by as many as 32 players only waiting about 20 minutes between games. (Almost all recreational - or “social” - play is doubles. Singles requires the same kind of running that makes tennis inappropriate for older, less fit people)
This vid describes the evolution of almost everybody I play pickleball with.
Is that the couple that was on (and won?) The Amazing Race a year or two ago?
The biggest difference is the number of people. You can pack more people and games into the same space with pickleball vs tennis.
In terms of skills, tennis balls are fast, getting to the ball requires quick reaction, and then precise coordination to send the ball where you need to. Pickle balls are much slower, there’s less distance to traverse, and less coordination is needed to return it. This makes pickleball much more accessible.
In terms of time, I don’t know how much difference there is based on the rules themselves. Standard scoring tennis will often take two or more hours to play a match, with no upper limit. But there’s also fast formats that will never go over an hour. How long is a typical pickleball match? A drawn-out pickleball match?
Being a new sport, pickleball players are open to new rules variations. Tennis organizations and players can be very resistant to changing to newer formats. At least at the lower levels, USTA tournaments often use quicker formats.
Tennis coaches can be extremely salty about pickleball. Maybe because of personal preferences, but also because there’s less demand for pickleball coaches than tennis coaches and it increases their cost to reserve a court.
A friend compared it to how skiers reacted to snowboarders twenty-some years ago. Very hostile and possessive of the slopes. Tennis players are like that now with pickleball. But increased demand for court games will help us all in the long run.
Matches are strictly for Pro tournaments. Social play is single games to 11 points (with a 2 point lead) which rarely take more than 20 minutes.
Interesting. Is there not much advantage when serving?
You can only score when serving. Server one keeps serving until his side loses a rally. Then his partner serves until they lose a rally. That’s “side out” and then the other side gets to serve and have the opportunity to score points.
I was asking more about if there is an advantage to be the first to serve. The whole multi-game set structure of tennis is (among other things) to mitigate the advantage of whoever serves first.
The side-out format would seem to give a huge advantage to the first serve. It’s possible a side never gets to serve! But that probably doesn’t happen much at the social level? As long as players don’t gripe about who serves first, it’s all good.
First side only gets one server.
This thread is my first foray into learning anything specific about pickleball (a name that’s so off-putting that the compose window wants to insist that it’s two words), so please be gentle: can pickleball be played on grass, or do the lower ball speeds make clay the only practical surface?
It can, but it’s a very different game.
https://www.pickleballpatty.com/can-you-play-pickleball-on-grass-all-you-need-to-know/
To be clearer, the first team to serve sides out as soon as they lose a rally. The second team (and all subsequent sides) then have to lose two rallies to side out. So it fairly evens out over the course of the game. The most desirable side of the court is dictated more by the winds and the position of the sun than by who gets to serve first. Once one team has six points, any team can opt to switch sides mid-game. The custom in California is that the side nearest the ocean serves first.