The game of Pickleball (PB) has become quite fashionable. It’s very popular across the country and also in my Franklin area. I’ve played tennis off and on since high school, but decided to try this new sport because it’s so trendy. It’s a game with elements of tennis, table tennis and badminton.
Half of our neighborhood tennis courts have been converted to PB courts, much to the annoyance of neighborhood tennis players. I noticed this rivalry when I recently asked a tennis player what she thought of the sport. She was very pleasant but I felt a certain tension when she spoke of dishes being ‘taken over’ for PB. I don’t think there will be protests, but there are some pretty heated Facebook discussions. (Of course, it doesn’t take much for Facebook discussions to get heated these days, whether it’s about how to achieve world peace or nagging dog walkers for not picking up their dog’s poop. No one has responded to the world peace thing, but one (A resident suggested taking DNA samples from a dog’s feces to help track down offenders. I think they were joking. I’ll also stop saying poop now and continue discussing Pickleball.)
It’s similar to tennis, but not like that. The racket is like a cross between a tennis racket and a table tennis racket. The ball is a bit like a heavy whiffle ball and the court layout is slightly different, but the same tennis-style net is mostly used. Some terms are the same, e.g. B. Serve is still called Serve, but inside the service line is called Kitchen. Why do you ask? I also. Is that a reference to cooking? There are lobs like in tennis and unlike tennis there are a lot of dink shots. At least the scoring is more reasonable than tennis in my humble opinion. Instead of having scores like love (0), 15-30-40 (game), it’s one point per score until a side reaches 11.
Learning a new sport at my advanced age is both frustrating and fun, depending on whether I’m good at it or not. When I play a good game, it’s a great new sport. When I play badly, it’s a fool who should never have been invented, hurting those poor tennis players by stealing their courts.
It is said to be easier to play for older adults and cause fewer injuries. After watching some of the games, I doubt it. I’ve seen many players – usually men – jump for a ball like retrieving the last life jacket from a sinking ship. Or the last cocktail before closing time.
Tournaments for PB are increasing, although not with the prestige of Wimbledon or the US Open.
I don’t understand the name either. There are no cucumbers involved at all. It would be taken more seriously with a more serious name – again in my humble opinion. Like “Cobraball” or “Cutthroat Ball” – anything but pickle. It’s hard to be too harsh with “I killed it in Pickleball today.” “I killed it in Cobraball” – that sounds a lot worse now.
A Nashville native, Franklin resident, Jean Simmons is a former nurse and columnist for the Herald. She can be reached at [email protected]
Comments are closed.