By now you have probably heard of pickleball, but you might not be quite sure just what the quirky sport entails. For the uninitiated, pickleball is a very approachable game that is a mix between ping pong and tennis. Two or four players use composite paddles to hit a plastic pickleball, similar to a wiffle ball back and forth on a slightly modified tennis court.
Pickleball takes 5 minutes to learn and 15 minutes to fall in love. The best part is that literally anyone can play — your grandma, your toddler, your neighbor. Everyone.
How To Play
Two teams (singles or doubles) send the ball back and forth on the court over a low net. First team to score 11 points by at least 2 wins! Serves must be diagonal and underhand. The ball needs to bounce on each side before a volley (or taking it out of the air). Players can’t hit the ball out of the air while in the Kitchen, aka the non-volley zone.
Pickleball Paddles
When we first started playing pickleball during quarantine, every paddle we could find looked like it was designed in 2004. We found that quality composite pickleball paddles range from $75-$120, which is a steep price tag for the recreational player. Our team decided to create our own line of high-quality, affordable, and well-designed pickleball paddles.
Origin Story
The game of pickleball was invented in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington. Bainbridge is a small, whimsical island full of charm and a short ferry ride from Seattle. Joel Pritchard, Bill Bell and Barney McCallum invented the game for their kids to play during the summer. Joan Pritchard (Joel’s wife) started calling the quirky game pickleball because "the combination of different sports reminded me of the pickle boat in crew where oarsmen were chosen from the leftovers of other boats.”
Though it has humble beginnings, pickleball is now the fastest growing sport in the United States and has gained traction internationally in many European and Asian countries.