Gregg's Doghouse: Pickleball Mania!

Not long after moving to Arizona, I met a guy who invited me to take a pickleball lesson. I hadn't seen the game in person, but I'd heard of it, and watched a bit on YouTube, so I knew I wasn't interested, but I agreed to go and watch. Of course, as soon as I watched, I knew I'd have to try it!

If tennis and ping pong had a love child, it would look like pickleball - played on a court the size of a badmitton court, with a net similar to a tennis net, using a wiffle ball and what looks like an overgrown ping pong paddle. The rules of play are similar to tennis, with a few notable exceptions - it's more of a finesse game than a power game, like tennis.

Players are ranked based on their skills and tournament results (I'm a 3.5) - the very top players are 5.0. Tournaments are usually divided by skill group, with 3.5 being by far the biggest group.

Although similar to tennis, pickleball has some advantages for a recreational sport:

The court is smaller. This fact, coupled with the slower wiffle ball, makes it easier for non-athletes to compete (although speed and athleticism is still a big advantage).
The rules, in particular the "no volley zone" by the net, help to encourage long rallies - top players may hit the ball back and forth a dozen times or more on a typical point. This makes the game a lot of fun to play. The very top players focus on location rather than velocity for winning shots.
Games tend to be closer - even players at slightly different skill levels can play and have fun.
Since everybody's close together on the court, it's a more social game than tennis - there's a lot of laughing and joking before, during, and after points.

The above may make it sound like this is a sedentary sport best suited for the rocking chair crowd. In fact, pickleball is about as competitive as you'd like to make it. I play with a group that is very competitive (I often play with 4.0 and 4.5 players, and one woman just moved up to 5.0). I'll often play for two or three hours with little or no break - an exhausting workout. The benefits are obvious - a great aerobic workout that's fun. At the end of our play, I'm always shocked at how quickly the time went.

When I first started to play, I was only interested in playing with friends for fun. After playing for a year or so, I started to want to test myself against better players, so I decided to enter a tournament or two. I teamed up with a woman who started playing about the same time I did for mixed doubles, and also entered a couple of tournaments with a male friend I had met last year.

Tournaments typically have awards for the top three finishers in each division, so of course I finished in 4th place in the first two I entered! In the third tournament I entered, my men's doubles partner and I played poorly, and were eliminated in two matches (tournaments are typically a double elimination format). Mixed doubles, happily, was an entirely different story - we advanced through the winner's bracket to the championship game, which we won! It was a lot of fun - we met a number of new friends, and had a cheering section including our other friends who were competing in different divisions.

Here's a series from our championship match - a pretty typical exchange for us in this tournament:

I'm hitting a "Drop Shot", intended to land in the no-volley zone.

Vicky and I are at the no-volley line, waiting for our opponent's return.

The return - a "Dink" was a soft shot hit to me. I've just dinked the ball back into their "kitchen"(the no-volley zone)

They made a mistake, hitting the ball high to Vicky's forehand. She's putting it away at their feet in this photo. I'm starting to smile, because I know this point's in the bag!

We won this one!

The champions, with gold medals!

On that day, we played really well. We're good players, but not elite. Check out the video below to see pickleball played at the highest level. Jennifer Lucore is, I think, the best woman player in the country. She teams with Phil Bagley - a top men's player - and lose a close one to a team that includes Steve Wong, who has been ranked #1 in the country. Vicky and I play a similar style to Lucore/Bagley, albeit at a lower level.