Pickleball vs Tennis

Pickleball is quickly gaining popularity, especially in the US. Here I will be sharing my opinions on pickleball, from the perspective of a tennis player.

What tennis and pickleball have in common:

• Both are very social sports.
• Only two people are enough to start a match. Lots of different games can be played, which makes it easier to adjust the activity depending on the number of players.

What pickleball is better at:

• It takes a Homo sapiens baby 9-18 months to walk on its own, without any support. On the other hand, a baby deer is able to stand up and walk right after birth. Now replace “Homo sapiens baby” with “tennis,” “baby deer” with “pickleball,” and “walk” with “play a rally.” A complete beginner in tennis will need several months before they can have a long-ish rally with another person. In pickleball, the fun starts immediately.
• In tennis, people who start young have a massive advantage. There are numerous moving parts in every tennis shot, and one heavily relies on muscle memory. It’s probably easier to build that fine-grained muscle memory when you are young. In pickleball, technique matters less.
• People in different age groups can easily play pickleball together. In tennis, not so easily. A pickleball court is small, so it is harder for a youngster to tire their older opponent by forcing them to run around. An older player can strategize well and reduce the amount of running they have to do. In tennis, you can’t get away with not running.
• About 4 pickleball courts can be fit on a single tennis court. If space is an issue, pickleball wins the point.
• Tennis needs more and larger equipment, which could be a problem if you are traveling. Tennis equipment tends to be more expensive, too. Also, tennis strings can pop. It is tedious to buy new strings, to find a stringer (or to string it yourself), to arrange the pickup time, etc. Also, tennis balls tend to lose their pressure quite fast. Pickleball has none of these problems.
• Less risk of injury in pickleball because there is less movement and the ball has less kinetic energy. I was informed that many injuries still take place in pickleball, but both me and the person who said this agreed that this is most likely because those who play pickleball tend to be older and less likely to have played sports before.

What tennis is better at:

• If you are young and looking for a great workout, tennis might offer the right intensity. It’s easier to get tired in tennis.
• There are many more types of shots that can be hit in tennis. And more strategies that can be used. In my opinion, this type of complexity makes tennis more enjoyable to play and to watch.
• Pickleball balls generate loud and annoying sounds when hit. I heard that for some people who live close to parks, this has been becoming an issue.
• I’m not 100% sure about this, but the skills acquired through tennis might be transferable to more racket sports than those of pickleball.

Conclusion

If you are trying to get started with a racket sport, give both tennis and pickleball a try. Go to a pickleball meetup. You will see that you can have a decent rally in your very first practice. Try playing in a match or two. If you think pickleball is fun and you like the challenges that you face in a pickleball match (e.g. determining your strategy based on the opponent), you will most likely enjoy tennis, too.