The end is nigh

ballmachineguy

ballmachineguy

Legend
McEnroe, Chang, Agassi and Roddick will compete for a $1M pickleball prize.
The other day watching the Tennis Channel, they had a primer on all the rules of pickleball and encouraged people who were watching the Miami Open, at the time it aired, to “go out and give it a try.”

I don’t know whether they realize, or even care, that the more popular p’ball gets the worse the state of tennis will be. Tennis courts will get converted, fewer people will bother to even try tennis and fewer people will watch on tv and take lessons.

It is bad enough that p’ball is going to gain popularity by itself, but do we need the greats of the game of tennis helping this abomination gain momentum?
 
And the worst part is that instead of ignoring the sport, businesses like TTW and the like are adopting it
to add to their revenue.

Let me be perfectly clear. I have nothing against the sport per se.

What I am very much against is having our tennis courts drastically compromised
because PB can't stand on its own two feet.

When our courts need additional colored lines that are a huge distraction to the game and
when people are playing PB at the same time as tennis players, the PB noise is simply
unacceptable.

Build your own PB courts far away from tennis courts and have the time of your life!
 
Here in Spain paddle has ben well established since more than 15 years. Luckily the glass walls cannot be put into a tennis court and thus they are separated, however pretty much always very close, with the advantage that they block the wind.
 
ppma said:
Here in Spain paddle has ben well established since more than 15 years. Luckily the glass walls cannot be put into a tennis court and thus they are separated, however pretty much always very close, with the advantage that they block the wind.
Click to expand...
Padel looks way more fun than pickle ball imo. Plus the balls hitting the ground and paddles don’t make the same annoying clackity clack sound.
 
Look on the bright side, when you are wise and old there will come a time to tell the newer generations about the days of high adventure when a sport called tennis existed....
 
Mark-Touch said:
And the worst part is that instead of ignoring the sport, businesses like TTW and the like are adopting it
to add to their revenue.

Let me be perfectly clear. I have nothing against the sport per se.

What I am very much against is having our tennis courts drastically compromised
because PB can't stand on its own two feet.

When our courts need additional colored lines that are a huge distraction to the game and
when people are playing PB at the same time as tennis players, the PB noise is simply
unacceptable.

Build your own PB courts far away from tennis courts and have the time of your life!
Click to expand...
It's happening at your site too?

Those things (highlighted) are also too much for me, too. The additional yellow lines really mess us up at serving, and there's just too many people on at the same time! Our courts are getting crowded that we have to do 3v3 very often now.

When the courts clear up we find ourselves too lazy for doubles.:cry:
 
Mark-Touch said:
And the worst part is that instead of ignoring the sport, businesses like TTW and the like are adopting it
to add to their revenue.

Let me be perfectly clear. I have nothing against the sport per se.

What I am very much against is having our tennis courts drastically compromised
because PB can't stand on its own two feet.

When our courts need additional colored lines that are a huge distraction to the game and
when people are playing PB at the same time as tennis players, the PB noise is simply
unacceptable.

Build your own PB courts far away from tennis courts and have the time of your life!
Click to expand...
I feel exactly like this. Get them their own courts a little away from the tennis courts and they can all go destroy their elbows and wrists whacking a hard plastic ball with a hard surface racket that makes a terrible sound to their hearts content.
 
I sure hope this doesn't happen. From what I've heard, I'm at the age where I'm too old to learn stuff, so obviously I'll go decades without improving at pickleball. Hopefully I have the pickleball gene so I can be naturally talented. I've always wanted to be naturally talented at something.
 
Pickleball. Smickleball. Or clickleball. I just love the dinking contest they get into. I dink. You dink. I dink. You dink. Now that looks like some real fun!
 
It is time to revisit some lesser known events that led us here.*

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union saw athletic competition as a means of projecting power and influence on the world stage, promoting Soviet values and ideology, and shaping international perceptions of the Soviet Union. It invested heavily in sports infrastructure and training programs leading to dominance in certain sports, particularly in Olympic events such as gymnastics, wrestling, weightlifting, and track and field.

The (then) Soviet Tennis Federation was among the organizations tasked with developing talent, and its general secretary Vladimir Golenko also saw a unique opportunity to bring down the skill level of their western competitors. Paddle-based tennis derivatives were not new but his idea was to deliberately design a novel 'sport' to be maximally deleterious to its participants' tennis abilities.

The courts were shrunk to minimize the aerobic benefit of playing. The balls were light to minimize the strength needed to propel them. Anything and everything was on the table. A final twist - Westerners are loud and obnoxious. A sport for them should be the same.

The Federation took to the task in good humor, if not entirely seriously. How could such an infantile activity possibly become popular? But comrade general secretary gets what comrade general secretary wants, and they shipped the child-sized nets and stumpy paddles to their embedded spies in the West. These were deployed in local parks and front yards where the western intelligence community laughed it off as another feckless attempt by the Soviets to distract from more serious matters.

But these efforts landed in intelligence briefings, and on the desk of a certain US Senator. Nuclear threats, troop movements, coups, and … a new sport? By the Soviets? Good one, what's it called?

They hadn't even bothered naming it. They thought it was a joke too. As did the briefing's authors who dubbed it pinko ball, using the pejorative used to denigrate people with suspected communist leanings. Ha ha ha, laughs all around.

The rest is well documented. Some time later the Senator is struggling to entertain bored guests and their children, and the seed planted in his mind finally sprouted. They fashioned makeshift paddles, the dwarf-sized net. But calling it pinko ball was distinctly un-American and kids weren't getting the name right. They instead called it … pickle.

*This is a work of utter fiction, obviously. Except in select universes in the multiverse where it is not.
 
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The learning curve, the power, the spin, the satisfaction from improving at a difficult sport and mastering athletic movements - those are all the things (among others) that I love about tennis and why pickleball is so dull and uninteresting to me. It's simply a boring game (im hesitant to even call it a sport).
 
tendency said:
The learning curve, the power, the spin, the satisfaction from improving at a difficult sport and mastering athletic movements - those are all the things (among others) that I love about tennis and why pickleball is so dull and uninteresting to me. It's simply a boring game (im hesitant to even call it a sport).
Click to expand...
Couldn’t agree more. And that is also why PB might very well meet the same fate as padel did in Sweden. Padel has many of the same features as PB in relation to tennis — accessible, much less relient on skill etc. Padel was all the rage here for a couple of years, new ventures opened up everywhere in a very short period and time and people were fighting to book the courts. Now it’s dying and it’s dying fast. Many of the people who invested money has lost it. Why? Just like PB, it lacks depth and it’s not fun or exciting to watch others play; the marketability for wider audiences is severely limited. Of course we’ll have to wait and see, but I wouldn’t be surprised if PB simply fades out in a few years time.
 
middleballs said:
Couldn’t agree more. And that is also why PB might very well meet the same fate as padel did in Sweden. Padel has many of the same features as PB in relation to tennis — accessible, much less relient on skill etc. Padel was all the rage here for a couple of years, new ventures opened up everywhere in a very short period and time and people were fighting to book the courts. Now it’s dying and it’s dying fast. Many of the people who invested money has lost it. Why? Just like PB, it lacks depth and it’s not fun or exciting to watch others play; the marketability for wider audiences is severely limited. Of course we’ll have to wait and see, but I wouldn’t be surprised if PB simply fades out in a few years time.
Click to expand...
When did the padel fever strike in sweden? Here in spain it's been like >10 years, and it's still on the rise.
 
ppma said:
When did the padel fever strike in sweden? Here in spain it's been like >10 years, and it's still on the rise.
Click to expand...
I’d say it started getting traction here around 2014 when a famous singer opened a so called padel center. Shortly after that, Zlatan Ibrahimovic began investing in and promoting it which certainly helped the boom that followed. It got even bigger during the pandemic since working from home in combination with the relatively lax Swedish Covid regulations made it easy to sneak out and play during lunch etc. Then early last year it came to a grinding halt and now venues have to sell time slots with a discount and even that doesn’t seem to work. It’s not completely dead of course, but it’s very much in recession. How’s the tv coverage of padel in Spain? Are there many viewers? None of the big channels are showing it in Sweden (at least not on a regular basis).
 
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middleballs said:
I’d say it started getting traction here around 2014 when a famous singer opened a so called padel center. Shortly after that, Zlatan Ibrahimovic began investing in and promoting it which certainly helped the boom that followed. It got even bigger during the pandemic since working from home in combination with the relatively lax Swedish Covid regulations made it easy to sneak out and play during lunch etc. Then early last year it came to a grinding halt and now venues have to sell time slots with a discount and even that doesn’t seem to work. It’s not completely dead of course, but it’s very much in recession. How’s the tv coverage of padel in Spain? Are there many viewers? None of the big channels are showing it in Sweden (at least not on a regular basis).
Click to expand...
Well, padel started in Mexico, then gained momentum in Argentina, and after it died there, the "centre" of the padel world moved to Spain, that is somehow where it gravitates around. So, here is not even close to starting its decline.

I know tennis coaches that give their lessons, and then talk about when they are going to play the next padel match... so heartbreaking :(
 
tendency said:
The learning curve, the power, the spin, the satisfaction from improving at a difficult sport and mastering athletic movements - those are all the things (among others) that I love about tennis and why pickleball is so dull and uninteresting to me. It's simply a boring game (im hesitant to even call it a sport).
Click to expand...
I could go with it only if you met a minimum age limit of 80. Or maybe 90.
 
The Claremont Hotel club, and spa renowned for its world-class tennis courts is dedicating space to pickle ball and offering lessons.
 
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