While hate is a strong word, I believe it is accurate to say that I hate pickleball and most of its players.
Growing up doing tennis drills for hours each week, I have observed the spike in pickleball’s popularity. Unfortunately, this means that more and more of the tennis courts I practice on are being overrun by pickleball players.
It’s bad enough for pickleball to have taken over so many perfectly good tennis courts, but there’s an even worse issue: a lack of common decency from the pickleballers themselves.
Here is what I mean: Pickleball is one of the loudest sports, with the average “hit” reaching upwards of 120 decibels. Despite this, the players often bring boomboxes and play terrible hip hop music at seemingly full volume. This is a huge distraction to those of playing high-stakes tennis matches that affect our rankings.
Furthermore, in clear violation of the “no more than four players per court” rule that most tennis players abide by, there are often up to 20 pickleball players on each court, creating a general sense of chaos and disorder. Pickleball players often also have no sense of on-court etiquette, often talking loudly (sometimes straight-up screaming) to the immense disturbance for others nearby.
In the racquet sport communities like tennis, by contrast, there is an unwritten rule that everyone follows: When a ball rolls onto your court, you will return that ball to its owner as soon as your point finishes. With pickballers, however, no such ethic exists and tennis balls pile up against nearby fences.
Many tennis clubs are now enforcing a “no pickleball” rule, a decision I wholeheartedly support. Pickleball isn’t an inherently bad sport, but its community needs to be exposed for their complete disregard for etiquette, and the sport should be seen as annoying instead of trendy.
Simply put, if individuals refuse to follow basic rules and on-court etiquette, they should not be allowed to participate in racquet sport activities. Pickleball players — please remember that you are not only encroaching on the tennis community’s already inadequate court space, but if you pay no mind to racquetball decorum, you are also playing into the most obnoxious player-base of a sport. Before you take to any court, please put your paddles down and put in the effort to learn some etiquette and respect.
