Sad to see former tennis player posting pics with pickleball trophies

Max G. said:
Man, people take themselves a bit too seriously sometimes.

Yes, it's fun to pretend tennis is Serious Business, but at the end of the day it's just a fun game like pickleball, no need to get all elitist about it...
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I never got mad about pickleball until it actively started to impact my ability to play tennis on public courts. Pickleball is absolutely parasitic to tennis, and the crowds that gravitate towards pickle ball simply annoy the crap out of me. They walk on my court in the middle of points when walking to or from the pickle netted courts, they leave their nets on when they’re supposed to move them. Just a million tiny things that have turned me from a one time pickleball player (circa 10-12 years ago) to a full blown pickleball hater.
 
travlerajm said:
Down here in South America, it appears that pickle ball is a non threat. Every time I describe pickleball to someone here, I am told with absolute certainty that it will never take here. But they do complain about pádel.
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What are the main differences between pádel and pickle ball? It looks like pádel uses a larger racquet and it can’t be played on a tennis court because it uses a walled court like squash? Is that right?
 
The pickle ball world is so small and the competition is so light, any good athlete can pick it up immediately and get lots of attention and wins.
 
I am all for those who couldn't make it at the top of the tennis tour moving to pickleball and making some money. It does bum me out tho to see a pretty highly-ranked player like sam querry do it. What's next, a bunch of 45yo retired tennis tour pros who move to pb and dominate until 55? It would be kind of funny at least.
 
I watched Fritz’s TC post-match interview the other day, and he was asked about his pickleball play earlier in the week. To paraphrase Fritz…the sport is too simple. Any skilled tennis player could pick it up and play at a high level quickly. I think he even started his answer with “No disrespect, but…”. Hilarious. Good to see a pro player calling it like it is.

When I get to the point where I can’t play tennis competitively anymore, I’ll take up golf…
 
am1899 said:
Did they do that stupid pose for the camera - the one with paddle in hand? :rolleyes:
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Yes!!!
i-cant-believe-this-is-actually-live-on-an-amazon-listing-v0-5zrj5264fyx91.jpg
 
time_fly said:
Next thing you know Garry Kasparov will be bragging about winning a checkers tournament.
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Lmao good analogy... also this reminds me of Starcraft 2 being top of esports for only a short 1-2 years or so, a rts real time strategy game very difficult and complicated before mobas like League of Legends took over cause they're way simpler and easier to play

Tennis is Starcraft 2 pickleball is LoL
 
treo said:
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I've always rooted for Jack Sock as a tennis player, but this news might be the nail in the coffin for me.

At the beginning of this year, his singles ranking was around #130 and doubles was at #43. In January, there were Challenger and 250 level tournaments in Australia that he would have been able to get into, as well as the Australian Open qualifying. I was wondering why he wasn't down there fighting to get his singles ranking up and contending for the Aussie doubles titles, in both men's and mixed. Instead, Sock opted to start his year at a Challenger in Cleveland at the beginning of February, where he lost 1st round to an 18 year old kid ranked in the 500s. Then he played pretty well in Dallas on a wildcard, but followed that up with probably his worst career loss to a part-time Challenger player ranked in the 700s in Delray Beach. I thought he looked decent in Indian Wells, but he's a no show in Miami. Unlike in the past, fitness doesn't seem to be the issue as he appeared to be slimmed down and healthy. However, clearly his head isn't fully committed to tennis if he's dabbling with becoming a pickleball "pro" like this. WTF!?!
 
So, I was thinking more about the news that Jack Sock is turning pro in pickleball...

The prize money at most pro pickleball events is pretty slim compared to tennis. For example, the event that Sock is playing in has this payout structure:

PPA Tour Payouts | Professional Pickleball Association

View the payouts of each tier along the PPA Tour. The PPA Tour has the highest payouts in professional pickleball.
www.ppatour.com www.ppatour.com

If Sock wins both of the doubles events that he is entered in, he would share half of the top prizes. In other words, he'd take home $8,000. In contrast, if he had shown up in Miami and lost in the first round of doubles, he would have pocketed $9,010. He made over $92,000 in prize money for his matches in Indian Wells, which would likely be more than he makes in pickleball for the whole year. Based on that, this seems more like a publicity stunt.

On a similar note, Noah Rubin won $807,765 in career prize money in tennis. How much has he made in pickleball since his supposed switch?

According to this site, https://www.rookieroad.com/pickleball/top-10-richest-pickleball-players-2090729/, Ben Johns has won the most career prize money in pickleball at $146,325. That's not much compared to what tennis offers.
 
Maybe Sock is being paid appearance money by the PB Pro circuit. Having active tennis players play on the pro PB circuit raises the viability of the sport as a TV entertainment and gives it legitimacy in a way where it might make sense for them to be paying Sock six figures.
 
News flash, you can play tennis and pickleball. I'd rather play tennis than pickleball any day of the week. But especially during the winter there is no place to play that doesn't want an arm and a leg. And it's hard to find someone willing to play singles with. I can go to a few indoor places most days of the week and play relatively competitive pickleball and even occasionally find someone willing to play singles (which in my opinion is even more fun than doubles tennis). People say it hurts your tennis game but I've gone directly from one to the other in a few minutes without any issues. Really the biggest draw for me is the availability and that it satiates my tennis craving till the warm weather hits. I'll never give up tennis for pickleball, but I certainly have a much higher chance of winning a 4.5 pickleball tournament than I do a 4.0 tennis tourney and I'll just compete in both and have fun.

Also Christian Alshon, who was I believe was one of the top D1 college tennis players a few years ago quite college tennis and is also now a top pickleball pro and doing pretty well.
 
socallefty said:
Maybe Sock is being paid appearance money by the PB Pro circuit. Having active tennis players play on the pro PB circuit raises the viability of the sport as a TV entertainment and gives it legitimacy in a way where it might make sense for them to be paying Sock six figures.
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I believe the owners of pro pickleball are using famous tennis players as part of a marketing strategy to get more pickleball players and go after the low hanging fruit: tennis players. First it was the tennis vs pickleball pros exhibition in Vegas in January, grand slam winners playing for a million next week and then Jack Sock debut. Sam Querrey turned out to be a disappointment so far this year.
 
derick232 said:
News flash, you can play tennis and pickleball. I'd rather play tennis than pickleball any day of the week. But especially during the winter there is no place to play that doesn't want an arm and a leg. And it's hard to find someone willing to play singles with. I can go to a few indoor places most days of the week and play relatively competitive pickleball and even occasionally find someone willing to play singles (which in my opinion is even more fun than doubles tennis). People say it hurts your tennis game but I've gone directly from one to the other in a few minutes without any issues. Really the biggest draw for me is the availability and that it satiates my tennis craving till the warm weather hits. I'll never give up tennis for pickleball, but I certainly have a much higher chance of winning a 4.5 pickleball tournament than I do a 4.0 tennis tourney and I'll just compete in both and have fun.

Also Christian Alshon, who was I believe was one of the top D1 college tennis players a few years ago quite college tennis and is also now a top pickleball pro and doing pretty well.
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Alshon did play some D1 tennis at UVA but transferred to D3 University of Chicago. Yeah, I think the whole point is that if you've played high level tennis you can make the transition to pickleball pretty easily, but the point of my OP is that it's sad to see good tennis players do this.
 
atatu said:
Alshon did play some D1 tennis at UVA but transferred to D3 University of Chicago. Yeah, I think the whole point is that if you've played high level tennis you can make the transition to pickleball pretty easily, but the point of my OP is that it's sad to see good tennis players do this.
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I agree, and the sad part about Alshon is that he's gotten to the point where he's craping on tennis in favor of pickleball on twitter. One of the saddest things I hear pretty frequently from pickleball players is that they used to play tennis all the time, then once they started pickleball they never picked up a racket again.
 
derick232 said:
I agree, and the sad part about Alshon is that he's gotten to the point where he's craping on tennis in favor of pickleball on twitter. One of the saddest things I hear pretty frequently from pickleball players is that they used to play tennis all the time, then once they started pickleball they never picked up a racket again.
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Yeah, I think he came to the realization he wasn't going to make a living playing tennis, he was taking losses at the D3 level. When guys switch over to pickleball you never see them posting "I just wasn't good enough, and pickleball is easier" it's always some excuse like "I'm too short" (Noah Rubin) or there's some other thing they blame on tennis. On the recreational level, you see guys who never come close to making the finals of big tournaments suddenly winning tournaments, which is instant gratification and which leads to the switch and posting stupid trophy pictures.
 
Even though John McEnroe is playing in the pickleball exhibition, he had some pretty dismissive things to say about it on the Pat McAfee show. I can't say I disagree with anything Mac said about it, though. I enjoy pickleball -- it's just a game to me, like ping pong, not nearly as difficult as tennis, but it's pretty good exercise.

 
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