Why do paddles need to be "approved"?

[tennisluvr]

Picked up pickleball recently, and it's been a blast so far. Looking to join tournaments soon.

One thing I don't get, as someone who plays competitive tennis, is why do pickleball paddles need to be "approved"? Why does there need to be a list, and why do they need to test/inspect paddles before they're added to the list? Why do players complain about other players' paddles? This is almost unheard of in tennis.

In tennis, you don't need to worry about checking a list of approved racquets. You can just buy any modern racquet from a major retailer and just automatically know that it's legal for tournament play. Tournament officials/organizers don't inspect your racquets before you play, it'd be seen as odd if they do. If you complain about another player's racquet because you're losing, you'll just get weird looks.

What makes pickleball paddles so different?

 

[Sanglier]

Lawn tennis rules have been continuously adjusted and standardised since the 1870s. Pickleball was born ‘yesterday’.

Tennis equipment rules had undergone multiple revisions during their century-long evolution to account for the introduction of new technologies. When an innovation is judged to give ‘unfair’ advantages to the user or substantially alter the nature of the game, it would not be allowed for use in sanctioned competition (e.g., the ‘spaghetti-strung’ racquets). The trick for those who want to improve their equipment without getting banned is to do it incrementally, take micro steps, so that no one would be alarmed by it and run to the rule-makers to complain about it.

Pickleball is such a short game that small changes are probably more noticeable here than in tennis. At this point, it would be very difficult to make a tennis racquet that can hit a ball harder and spin it faster than what we already have. In contrast, a pickleball paddle is basically a brick by convention; therefore every brick must be inspected to ensure that it is actually a brick, and not a block of space-age composite disguised to look like a brick, otherwise the game can change overnight.

 

[Bud]

You'll understand when you play against an opponent using an "illegal paddle". They can be dangerous playing in such close proximity at the kitchen. Some of the newer power paddles (GB PPE is the best example) should probably not be approved, IMO. The ball departing the face is too unpredictable and too quick on drives, overheads and flicks. Older generation 1 paddles that delaminated or core-crushed are another good example. The ball rockets off the face like a racquetball racquet.