Pickleball: Difference between revisions – Wikipedia

Racket/paddle sport

Pickleball

Highest governing body	International Federation of Pickleball[1]
First played	1965, Bainbridge Island, Washington, U.S.
Contact	No
Team members	Singles or doubles
Mixed-sex	Yes, separate singles, doubles, & mixed doubles
Type	Outdoor or indoor, racket sport
Equipment	Plastic pickleball, composite or wooden paddle, and net
Venue	Outdoor or indoor, pickleball court
Glossary	Glossary of pickleball terms
Country or region	Worldwide
Olympic	No
Paralympic	No
World Games	No

Pickleball is a racket or paddle sport where two (singles) or four (doubles) players hit a perforated, hollow plastic ball with paddles over a 34-inch-high (0.86 m) net until one side is unable to return the ball or commits an infraction. Pickleball is played indoors and outdoors. It was invented in 1965 as a children’s backyard game in the United States, on Bainbridge Island in Washington state. In 2022, pickleball was named the official state sport of Washington.^[2]

While it resembles tennis in some respects and ping-pong (table tennis) in others, pickleball has specific rules, paddles and court dimensions. The court is 44 feet long and 20 feet wide, and the paddle is larger than the one used in table tennis. The hard plastic ball used in pickleball produces less bounce than tennis balls. On each side of the net is a 7-foot area (2.1 m) known as the non-volley zone (or the kitchen), where the ball must bounce before it is hit. The rules specify side-out scoring, where only the server can score a point. The minimal amount of bounce, the non-volley zones, and the underhanded stroke with which all serves are made, give the game a dynamic pace.

Between 1965 and 2020, pickleball became a popular sport in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States, and began to grow in popularity elsewhere. In 2021, 2022 and 2023, the sport was named the fastest-growing sport in the United States by the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, and by 2023 it was estimated to have over 4.8 million players. The growing popularity of the sport has been attributed to its short learning curve, its appeal to a wide range of ages and fitness levels, and its low startup costs. There are now thousands of pickleball tournaments throughout the United States, including the U.S. National Championships and the U.S. Open Tournament, along with two professional tours and one professional league. Pickleball is also growing in popularity outside the United States: there are several other national and international competitions.

Etymology[edit]

The game was created in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington, at the summer home of Joel Pritchard, who later served in the United States Congress and as Washington’s lieutenant governor.^[3] Pritchard and two of his friends, Barney McCallum and Bill Bell, are credited with devising the game and establishing the rules.

According to Joan Pritchard, Joel Pritchard’s wife, “The name of the game became Pickle Ball after I said it reminded me of the pickle boat in crew where oarsmen were chosen from the leftovers of other boats.”^[4] Other sources state that the name “pickleball” was derived from the name of the Pritchards’ family dog, Pickles.^[5] The Pritchards stated that the dog came along after the game had already been named, and it was the dog that was named for the game of pickleball.^[6] They said the confusion arose when a reporter interviewing the Pritchards in the early 1970s decided it would be easier for readers to relate to the dog rather than a pickle boat. Representatives of USA Pickleball claim that research on their part has confirmed that the dog Pickles was born after the game had already been named.^[7]

Jennifer Lucore and Beverly Youngren, authors of the book History of Pickleball: More than 50 Years of Fun!, say that they could not conclusively determine whether the game was named for the dog or the dog was named for the game.^[8] They did, however, discover a third possibility: Bill Bell claimed that he had named the game because he enjoyed hitting the ball in a way that would put his opponent in a pickle.^[9]

Shortly after the game was invented, some of its inventors founders and their friends brought pickleball to Hawaii, where the game became known as pukaball. Puka, meaning “hole” in Hawaiian, was at first used to refer to the ball, since pickleballs have numerous holes, and later used to refer to the game itself.^[10]

History[edit]

Invention of the game[edit]

When Pritchard and Bell returned from golf one Saturday afternoon in 1965, they found their families bored.^[11] They had attempted to set up badminton, but no one could find the shuttlecock. Pritchard and Bell challenged their kids to devise their own game. The adults and kids ended up at the badminton court and began experimenting with different balls and rackets, including table tennis paddles. The 5-foot (1.5-metre) badminton net was eventually lowered…