As I’m sure you all know by now, my parents have fallen in love with PickleBall. I’m talking “playing multiple times a week and entering tournaments” obsessed (and my mom even won a team tournament!). I had never played with them before, only watched, but I was always curious about what drew them to it. So when Elijah was visiting Atlanta last weekend, my parents, Sav, Joe, and I geared up to go play. And it was a lot of fun.
Like I said, I hadn't played before, but I played tennis a bit in high school, which I soon discovered is very different from pickleball. We didn’t warm up or hit around before jumping right into a game so I was a bit shocked at first. The scoring is unintuitive and the feeling of hitting the pickleball with a small paddle is very different from tennis. But after some time getting used to it and learning the scoring, I decided I really liked it!
Since there were six people, we played a rotating version of doubles so we could all be on the same court and get playing time. And the actual playing was a lot of fun. It has very similar attributes to tennis, and a lot of tennis skills translate well, but it’s different. The court is smaller and the ball bounces a lot less so there’s less running. Plus the ball goes a lot less further when you hit it. I think tennis can get a little intense, on a big court with a lot of running, so pickleball seems like the perfect happy-medium. That being said, I was QUITE sore the next day! It truly is a full-body workout that’ll surprise you with some aches and soreness.
I really liked learning how to play and spending some time with the fam. Not sure if I’ll be as obsessed with it as my parents, but I sure hope to play more in the future and hopefully before going back to law school!