Tennis great Steffi Graf got bitten by pickleball's 'fun factor'
cnn.com
cnn.com
pickle ball is one of the sports in the United States where chesterton's quote still applies:
> "It is a good sign in a nation when such things are done badly. It shows that all the people are doing them. And it is a bad sign in a nation when such things are done very well, for it shows that only a few experts and eccentrics are doing them, and that the nation is merely looking on. "
i hope that doesn't change.
The game has already been optimized. It's tap-tap-tap and winner. There's very little room for tactical adjustments, no room whatsoever for different styles of play (unlike tennis). The ball doesn't move that quickly and apparently one isn't allowed to even hit sidespin on their serve.
The sport is quite literally jumbo ping pong for seniors who can't move without the speed or spin of ping pong. Somehow it's caught on to the masses. I don't get it. It's as if someone intentionally took the worst elements of every major racquet sport and turned it into a game.
1) It's loud, a lot louder than tennis. Tennis balls have felt, and tennis racquet strings have some flexibility, whereas pickleball uses a hard paddle and an unpadded ball. People who live near courts complain about the noise from pickleball.
2) Pickleball is coming to monopolize the local courts, making them inaccessible by tennis players.
3) Pickleball involves less running and physical fitness than tennis.
Point 2 is neither here nor there. If all those people were playing tennis instead, the courts would be equally inaccessible.
Point 3 could be a positive!
The problem is that the courts were built only for tennis, often many decades ago. Now pickleball has adopted the same courts rather than using different courts of its own, so there are two sports competing for the same existing volume of courts. And since the tennis courts already exist, there's a lot less incentive and motivation for communities to spend money and other resources, such as land, building brand new courts to handle the new pickleball players.
Imagine if tennis and basketball used the same courts; that would be a major problem.
> Point 3 could be a positive!
Not in one of the most obese countries in the world.
It would only be a problem if you closed half the courts. Otherwise it would better spread the load over the existing courts.
And if twice as many people started wanting to play tennis it would be the same problem as if they want to play Pickleball on tennis courts. It's just gatekeeping tennis courts.
Obesity is primarily resolved through diet, not through exercise. It is exceedingly difficult to lose weight through cardio. Not only do calories take a drastically greater amount of effort to burn than to consume, but exercise directly increases hunger.
For society, which kind of sport people play on those courts doesn't matter.
It's incredibly annoying. A park near me tore up one tennis court and erected 2 pickle courts, and the people that play on those pickle courts are loud and obnoxious and blast music all the time.
Note: I am a lifelong tennis player. I detest pickleball. Is it great to see new people playing a sport and getting active? Yes. Does it have to come at the expense of proper etiquette of sports that have been around much longer? No, but it currently is.
I'm not a player of either, but from walking around the courts at our city park, I'd say (in our area at least) it is the opposite: Tennis is making pickleball courts inaccessible to pickleball players. It is NOT uncommon to see the 4 pickleball courts packed, and 1 or both of the tennis courts empty. Our neighborhood tennis courts are basically never used, they are tennis only.
It's nice (admittedly, not living directly adjacent to courts) to see them used by pickleball rather than just sitting there idle.
Point 1 above does seem to be a real problem. I gather there are ball/racket combinations that can help, and also curtain solutions that can help?
It is like gresham's law for athletics
The first time I saw a pickleball being played was in a retirement community about 12 years ago. It looks like a good sport for people in their 70s.
And pickleball is popular enough in my city that you'll fill those courts.
To some who live nearby, it's a public nuisance rather than a public good, but in any case nobody is saying build more tennis courts. They already exist from past investment. The problem is when the existing tennis courts are cannibalized. If pickleball is worth public investment, they can build new courts. We shouldn't have to sacrifice one for the other.
"New" (to me, I'm 48 and played varsity in high-school) tennis rackets are actually now TOO light and the strings are too grippy, allowing for just stupid levels of spin and baseline control usually reserved for the pros. This severely reduces net play and increases a whole lot of court running.
Pickleball brings back that part.
Oh, wait...
I think it was this guy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Dundon