Steven Birenbaum: A Game to Relish

As a tennis lover, Steven Birenbaum was skeptical of the pickleball craze. But he decided not to knock it until he tried it.

A tennis player, I have long disdained pickleball. Recently, however, I finally played this fast-rising game, which, with its competition for court space, is putting tennis (wait for it)… in a bit of a pickle. Unlike tennis, sometimes called the “sport of kings,” pickleball is not regal. Not with a featured shot called a “dink.” You won’t see Zendaya in a pickleball love triangle, though I can see one with Will Ferrell.

It’s hard to take a sport seriously with a name that reminds you of a Kosher Dill and a part of the court known as the “kitchen,” where you are forbidden to do an overhead slam. The game’s founders were clearly hungry!

Pickleball was invented on Bainbridge Island, a suburb of Seattle, in 1965. The paddle-ball style rackets are unremarkable, the ball appropriated from wiffle ball. Together, they make a high-pitched click-it-tat sound, which if you live within earshot, can drive you bonkers. Yet pickleball is now the fastest-growing sport in America. That makes sense in our post-pandemic era: the game is super social, has a short learning curve for beginners and is drawing players of all ages.

Late to the party, I finally tried out pickleball, when my wife and I, who don’t normally play sports together, teamed up against another couple. Coming from tennis, I found the game an easy adjustment, though at one-quarter the size of a regulation tennis court, the pickleball pitch felt super cramped, like playing ping pong while standing on the table. All in all, it was great fun – with many moments of built-in comedy –and I loved playing alongside my wife.

While I’m not ready to abandon tennis, I do see pickleball in my future. I do worry, though, about its rise at the expense of my beloved tennis. To paraphrase the great pickler T.S. Eliot: “Is this how tennis is eclipsed, not with an overhead slam, but a dink from the kitchen?”

With a Perspective, I’m Steven Birenbaum

Steven Birenbaum is a writer who works in philanthropic development.