Blame, threat and clash: the war between pickleball and tennis players is escalating – on and off the court

There’s a storm brewing on the tennis courts of America. Admittedly a very middle class, middle-aged storm, but a storm nonetheless. On one side are the tennis players, with their eons of history, perfectly pressed shorts and thousands of dollars to spend on lessons. And on the other are the advocates for America’s fastest growing athletic pursuit: pickleball.

Almost 5 million people in the US are classed as pickleball players, depending on how closely you read the pickleball-published statistics, and in the last two years the number of people playing pickleball has grown by almost 40%.

With towns and cities across the country erecting dedicated pickleball courts, the sport will surely continue its expansion. But while that may be music to the ears of pickleballers, the tennis players are not happy about their court space being eroded and the feud between the two ball-hitting factions is only likely to get worse.

Pickleball, invented by three men in 1965, involves using a solid rectangular ‘paddle’ to hit a plastic ball with holes in it over a 36 in high net. A pickleball court looks a bit like a tennis court, but is about a quarter of the size, and the sports share some other rules – a point starts when a player serves from the baseline, and the ball can only bounce once.

Because the ball – known as a wiffle ball – has holes in it, it can only travel so fast. And because you’re playing with a little paddle, you can only hit the ball so hard. There’s also not too much running, because the court is quite small.

All this means that pickleball is booming among the older generation, with retirement communities, local parks departments and cruise ships increasingly offering pickleball access – often creating the space by