NEW YORK – Does American tennis have a pickleball problem?
Even though more than a million fans are expected to attend the opening of the US Open this week for the sport’s greatest spectacle, those responsible for the sport must face a devastating fact: The fastest-growing racquet sport in the country (or sport for that matter) is not tennis, but pickleball, which has seen a 223% increase in participation over the past three years.
“Honestly, it’s disgusting to hear that pickleball sound,” Dr. Brian Hainline, president of the US Tennis Association, grumbled at a recent press conference on the state of the game, complaining about the characteristic pock-pock-pock of pickleball points.
Pickleball, an easy-to-play hybrid of tennis and ping pong using rackets and a Wiffle ball, has gone from almost zero to 13.6 million U.S. players in just a few years, making tennis purists fear it could one day surpass tennis’s 23.8 million players. And most troubling, pickleball’s rise has often come at the expense of thousands of tennis courts being displaced or even replaced by smaller pickleball courts.
“When you see a sport explode in importance and it potentially affects your own sport, you do indeed get concerned,” Hainline said in an interview with The Associated Press. “This erosion has affected our infrastructure. … A lot of pickleball advocates just came and said, ‘We need these courts.’ It was a great, organic grassroots movement, but it was a little anti-tennis.”
Some tennis associations in other countries have created pickleball and other racket sports, believing they could attract more players to tennis’s mother sport. The French Tennis Federation even set up a few pickleball courts at this year’s French Open to give top players and fans a chance to try it out.
But the USTA is taking a decidedly different approach. Nowhere at the US Open’s Billie Jean King National Tennis Center is there any such demonstration court, spectacle or other nod to pickleball or its potential crossover appeal.
In fact, the USTA is turning the tables on pickleball, launching more than 400 pilot programs across the country to expand the reach of an easier-to-play, smaller-court tennis variant called “red ball tennis.” Supporters say it’s the ideal way for people of all ages to get started in tennis, and the best place to try it out is (warning!) pickleball courts.
“You can start playing tennis at any age,” said the USTA’s Hainline. “We believe that when you start playing this great sport of tennis, it’s probably best to start on a shorter court with a larger red ball with low compression. What is an ideal short court? A pickleball court.”
And instead of the plastic clank of a pickleball against a flat racket, Hainline said, hitting a fluffy red tennis ball with a stringed racket allows for greater shot variety and “just a beautiful sound.” Players can either stick with red-ball tennis or move on to full-court tennis with a series of bouncing balls.
“I don’t want to put it down,” Hainline said of pickleball, “but compared to tennis…seriously?”
So what does the chairman of the national pickleball governing body have to say about such comments and the tennis major’s plans to lay the foundation for its growth, at least in part, on pickleball courts?
“I don’t like it, but there is so much happening in pickleball, so many good things. I’m going to stick with what I can control, take advantage of the growth and support this game,” said Mike Nealy, CEO of Pickleball USA.
Positive signs, Nealy said, include the continued construction of new pickleball courts across the country, bringing the total to over 50,000. There is also growing investment in the game in clubs built in former big-box retail stores, professional leagues featuring endorsers like Tom Brady, LeBron James and Drake, and the emergence of “dink-and-drink” venues that capitalize on the social aspect of the game by allowing friends to enjoy pickleball, beer, wine and food under one roof.
“I don’t think it has to be one or the other or a competition,” Nealy said of pickleball and tennis. “There’s certainly going to be inherent friction in communities if tennis players don’t feel like they’re getting what they want. … They’re different games, but I think they complement each other. There’s a lot of room for both sports to be very successful.”
Top-ranked American tennis player Taylor Fritz agreed. “There are some people in the tennis world who just absolutely hate pickleball, and that’s fine. But personally, I don’t have a problem with pickleball. I enjoy playing sometimes. … I don’t see any reason why we couldn’t have both.”
The relative health benefits of tennis and pickleball are calculated by the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, a market research group whose annual survey of 18,000 Americans on their physical activity preferences has been widely cited for decades.
Although the group’s president and CEO, Tom Cove, would not venture a guess as to if and when pickleball might overtake tennis, he said the pickleball boom in America is unlike anything his organization has ever experienced and that several key statistics suggest the boom could continue.
First off, although pickleball’s initial growth during the coronavirus pandemic was fueled by retirees looking for a way to exercise with social distancing and low impact, growth is now being driven by the 18- to 34-year-old demographic, with one million new players ages 17 and younger joining in the last year. And of the current 13.6 million pickleball participants in the SFIA survey, the core number, meaning those who play eight or more times a year, is a solid 4.8 million.
But perhaps more important than any statistic, Cove said, is that pickleball has almost no barriers to entry. Equipment is relatively inexpensive, the game can be played almost anywhere, even on a driveway, and it takes almost no time to start meaningful games with players of all ages and skill levels. That’s unlike almost all other sports, including tennis, which often requires months of practice to learn, is physically demanding, and requires finding players of similar skill levels to compete with.
“Pickleball has the unique quality of being fun from a very early age,” Cove said. “People figure it out and after one or two times they say, ‘I like playing. It’s fun and I can do this. There’s enough competition, but not too much. It requires enough skill, but not too much. There’s enough urgency, but I don’t feel like I’m going to fall over. And I like the social part.'”
The USTA is looking to capture some of that spirit as it plans for the future of tennis. The sport has seen 10% growth over the past three years, according to the SFIA survey, and the USTA has set a goal of increasing its membership from 23.8 million to 35 million players by 2035 — about 1 in 10 of all Americans.
Building that base starts with outreach efforts, such as a special “Red Ball” demonstration court set up next to Court 17 at Flushing Meadows. A game once used almost exclusively to introduce kids to tennis is now being introduced to adult U.S. Open fans – among the same crowds currently flocking to pickleball.
“I have to say, I kind of like it better than pickleball,” said 27-year-old Angelique Santiago of Boston after her very first round with the red ball. “The ball is softer than the hard pickleball. The tennis racket feels softer. It’s just easier to get into a rally. … I would definitely play it again.”
For the USTA’s Hainline, such comments are music to the ears. He says comparing tennis to pickleball in terms of skill, nuance and athleticism is “like comparing apples and potatoes.”
“We want to present another option,” he said, “and let people choose.”
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AP tennis writer Howard Fendrich contributed.
