Three sports in one. What is Pickleball and why is it played almost all over the world?

Is the combo of ping pong, badminton and big tennis absurd? Perhaps. But this sport has now taken over the world community, it is played all over the world, and it was created in the distant 1960s. Its name is Pickleball. Together with the expert we understand what kind of sport it is, how it appeared and why it became so popular.

Head of the Sports Marketing Department at Synergy University

The emergence of Pickleball is connected with the inexorable desire of people to play, and the game is an object of passion. It is for this reason that all sports appeared.

History of Pickleball

On a summer Saturday afternoon in 1965 in Washington State, three buddies Pritchard, Bell and McCallum, returning home after a traditional golf outing, found their families in bored waiting. The golfers decided to entertain the family by using what they had on hand – a small court with a stretched tennis net, two plywood boards and a light plastic wiffleball. It was enough not only to raise the mood, but also to give life to a new sport – Pickleball.

The etymology of the name of this sport is interesting. If most of the names of familiar ball games consist of two words that reveal their features, for example, soccer, basketball, then with Pickleball everything is a bit more complicated. The most common translation of the word pickle from English is pickle. How could it be related to a sports game? The athletes themselves attribute the name to the slang translation of pickle – a racing boat team made up of rowers not picked by other teams. Pickleball, too, is built on elements of other racquet sports – something taken from tennis, something from badminton, and something from table tennis.

Tennis symbiosis

The difference between Pickleball and big tennis, for example, is the smaller size of the court. Here it is the same as in badminton (about 13.5 m x 6 m, while in tennis it is 22 m x 10 m). This makes it possible to use a standard basketball court for two pickleball courts. The net is lower than the tennis net by about 10 cm and the badminton net by almost half a meter.

The important difference is the racket and ball. Pickleball uses a “paddle” type racket – without a net – and a special plastic ball with holes. The serve, unlike tennis, is made by hitting from below, as in table tennis. Then the players follow the rule of two bounces, one from each of them, after which strokes can be made on the flying ball without bouncing off the court. The scoring is also different, the game is usually played to 11 points, it is more like table tennis.

Andrei Malygin: The popularity of Pickleball is primarily due to the fact that this sport requires much less expensive equipment, as well as the fact that it can be played not only in the hall, but also on the street. At the same time, it allows people of different ages to get a good physical load due to the combination of quick changes in the direction of body movement on the court and short sharp movements of the upper and lower extremities. Pickleball requires agility, body stability, flexibility and control of movement.

Pickleball popularity

According to Statista.com, more than 4.8 million people play Pickleball in the United States alone, and the most “Pickleball” city is aerospace Seattle, where there are three Pickleball courts per 20,000 people. The International Pickleball Federation, which includes 63 national associations, holds the World Championship, in the U.S. has already established the Pickleball Major League, and famous brands, including even adidas, produce equipment and equipment for fans of the fashionable sport.

The rules of the game were developed and published in 1984 by the American Pickleball Association (USAP), later, in 2008, appeared the Official Rulebook of Pickleball Tournaments USAP.

Pickleball in Russia

Having gained crazy popularity, Pickleball simply could not fail to reach our country. Nikolay Senatorov, an ordinary resident of Podolsk, made a great contribution to the development of Pickleball in Russia. He visited his daughter in the USA, and he liked Pickleball so much that he decided to bring it home. The first club of Pickleball lovers appeared in 2017, and almost immediately it faced a serious problem of lack of equipment. You can not get it at us, you have to order it from America, and sometimes you even had to make it with your own hands.

In 2019, Senatorov died, but his brainchild lives on. Club members believe that Podolsk can become the center of Pickleball in Russia. The story of Pickleball in Russia is about how an ordinary Podolsk man taught people a new sport on pure enthusiasm.