If you’re expecting the typical “growth of pickleball” talk about how pickleball is accessible and super-fun and social and the whole family can play and that’s why it’s blown up, you’ve come to the wrong blog article! Sort of.
In my previous career as a tennis manager and coach working for a corporation that was highly connected to the USTA and the industry as a whole for the last ten years, I had a unique vantage point into the growth of pickleball versus other racquet sports, especially tennis.
Tennis, when learning with the yellow ball, ala the regulation ball, ala the ball you typically associate with the sport, is difficult, especially for children. And those that teach tennis are typically undertrained. Not trying to insult my fellow racquet professionals, but I think you all can admit that there is a significant lack of requirement to be a racquet coach in this country. There is a LOT that goes into player development, sports physiology, player psychology, and more, and the knowledge to successfully develop players from beginners to advanced requires a lot of education and experience.
Take it from me! I was hired as a part-time tennis “pro” ten years ago, with basically zero training coming in, and I was “leading” junior classes in no time. Boy did I have a bad player retention rate. Thankfully, over my ten years in the industry, I had access to the best and brightest minds in the field of sport and player development, mentoring me to a far more educated and successful level. But I was lucky, the education that I was able to access is not so easily reachable by most racquet coaches working today in the USA.
So combined with poor coaching (on average, there are, of course, genius coaches out there), difficulty in learning, and cost to access, it’s tough for tennis to blossom as fast as pickleball has.
What tennis should have done was have more rigorous training and expectations for coaches to increase the quality of programming and the rate of improvement and enjoyment for students. And the USTA should have absolutely made lower pressure ball training for tennis a thing for adults instead of labeling the red, orange, and green balls “kids” balls. Lower pressure balls are CRITICAL for making the learning journey far more enjoyable and gamified for adults, because beginners can rally almost immediately with the smaller court, adjusted balls pressure, and smaller racquets. And, with good coaching, they can learn the techniques far faster and funner as they relate to the tactics needed for the game.
But yet, generally, that does not occur on the drilling or public tennis courts. That is where pickleball finally filled that gap, the yearning for a quality rally sport that could be picked up quickly, enjoyed by all, was affordable, but maintains a high skill gap.
Leave a Reply