Perhaps it was time that the noble and rigorous tennis were joined by so many alternatives that were practicable by a wider (and less sporty) public. After squash (with a peak of success around the 2000s) and padel now played by VIPs such as Francesco Totti, Fiorello, Neri Marcorè, Margherita Buy, Anna Safroncik and Giuliana De Sio and exploded in all the cities of the peninsula, it is the time of pickleball.
Sport of the moment in the United States with a curious name, it is one ‘hybrid’ racket sport: a little padel, a little tennis, a little badminton and a little table tennis. It also has something of the beach paddle game and is nicknamed ‘short tennis’ because it is played on a court that is about half the size of the (tiring) 24 x 8 meters (or 11 for doubles) of tennis regulations.
Elected racket sport of the moment, it is very popular in the United States where it has become a real craze and considered better than tennis because fun, less challenging and more popular. It is also under observation by top tennis players such as Nick Yyrgios (ATP ranking number 20) and tennis star Naomi Osaka who have decided to invest in Major League Pickleball several million dollars, reports the specialized magazine Il Tennis Italiano. There is no shortage of criticism from tennis purists such as super champion Martina Navratilova who tweeted “The biggest reason pickleball is so popular? In my not-so-humble opinion, it’s because people can get good much faster. As opposed to tennis where, in the words of my old friend Joel Drucker, it takes years to not suck. I say, if pickleball is so popular, that they build courts of their own and not take some away from tennis”. But as it is obvious not everyone is Navratilova then here is the secret of pickleball’s success lies right here: set off relaxed and friendly or athletic and competitive but with incredibly low stakes while sociality and movement for all are high, to the point that even the equipment, including shoes, is not as selective and important as in other sports.
In the meantime, the racket game of the moment is also spreading here with tournaments, sports centers and associations involved. There newborn Italian pickleball federation, Fipick, based in Abruzzo, explains that this activity promotes familiarity, inclusion and fun. “But the secret of its success is above all its simplicity and speed: the matches don’t last long and everyone can play” reports Paolo Valerio, director of the Santa Maria sports center in Rome, who has included it among the novelties of the season.
The business is actually not new at all. It has been played since 1965 and counts faithful and historic players such as Bill Gates who has been playing it for over 50 years and that as a child he played with his father and relatives. Gates, amazed by so much sudden notoriety of the sport, explained why he loves it in a video posted a few months ago on his YouTube channel entitled ‘I am a pickler’. Gates explains how it’s played with a ‘boom-boom-boom’ racket on the ball and forehands and backhands just like tennis and that the sudden popularity of the sport is due in part to the fact that the game is so easy to learn and to be practiced by both the super young and the super old and that a small field, a net, a racket and a ball are enough but above all because it is super fun and aggregating. Pickleball is becoming more and more popular, so much so that the Forbes business magazine has included Anna Leigh Waters, multiple Pickleball world champion aged just 12 years and with about 20,000 followers on Instagram to whom he also shows himself dribbling on the field with the mini ball at his feet. New sport or trend of the moment? The audience of ‘setters’ who aim to have fun doing physical activity is certainly expanding.
