Someone in your life has probably asked you to play pickleball at some point in the last year or so. They say it is the fastest-growing sport in America and will eventually surpass tennis in popularity.
There is truth to those claims.
A sport that was once kept mostly to retirement communities and high school gym class is skyrocketing in popularity. No sport has gained more traction in the United States since 2021 than pickleball and for good reason.
It is a lot of fun to play. It is far less taxing on the body. Anyone, of any age or gender, can be good at it.
On the flip side of that conversation, the haters will discredit pickleball’s standing as a legitimate sport with cries of “full-scale ping-pong,” as if that’s a bad thing. They see it as a lazy alternative to the other racket sports and point to the parity as a negative.
Professional pickleball gets an especially bad reputation!
The entire court is only 880 square feet. Much of the action takes place as close to the net as possible. Points are often quick and fairly uneventful. Watching pickleball at home on T.V. is not exciting.
To make matters worse, there are a lot of unspoken rules that seem rather stuffy and boring from a fan’s perspective. Scottie Scheffler’s dominance against the No. 1 player in the world during a pro-am also did not help to improve the optics.
All of this goes to say that pickleball is a divisive sport that draws two opposite extremes of opinion.
But some pickleball rallies are electric!
Federico Staksrud and Matt Wright met Hunter Johnson and Julian Arnold in the Round of 16 of men’s doubles competition at the CIBC Atlanta Slam of the PPA Tour on Thursday evening. The latter came out with an 11-1, 10-12, 14-12 victory and advanced to the quarter finals but the former won the best point of the day— if not the best point of the year — if not the best of all-time.
An incredible rally began with a serve to the far corner. Both sides went back and forth for 31 shots.
Johnson and Arnold put Staksrud and Wright on the defense with high-velocity attacks from the NVZ line. Staksrud and Wright responded with some incredible defense that kept them alive.
And then, off of a high-arcing forehand that bounced off of the net, Staksrud slammed it home.
If this doesn’t go viral I’m deleting my account. 💁🏻♂️🗑️
— The Kitchen Pickleball 👨🏻🍳 (@TheKitchenPB) September 13, 2024
P.S. Wait til the end. 😂@federicostak @PPAtour pic.twitter.com/9gtXg8UQod
No matter how you feel about pickleball, that is one of the best racket sports points in history. All 30 seconds of that rally had me on the edge of my seat. If only that was the case more often…!