Former tennis stars Andre Agassi, Steffi Graf, Andy Roddick, Mardy Fish, Eugenie Bouchard and John Isner were recently in action at Las Vegas’ Pickleball Slam 3.
An American desert city known as much for its culture and entertainment as for its ever-growing sporting presence, it was the perfect host for the vibrant sporting experience.
Hometown tennis super couple Agassi and Graf, alongside former world No.7 Fish, took home the $1 million purse with a dreambreaker needed to break the 2-2 deadlock.
The victory at Mandalay Bay, home of WNBL side the Las Vegas Aces, follows the pair’s win at the Pickleball Slam 2 last year.
Attracting a nearly at-capacity crowd provided a clear indication of pickleball’s sustained boom.
While the established reputations of the legends involved undoubtedly contributed to the masses flocking in, there was a clear excitement about the rapid-paced, contemporary racquet sport.
The tension between traditional sports and snack-sized alternatives has become a constant discussion for sporting organisations to work through as they balance meeting the demands of diehards and attempting to reach a new audience.
Aussie tennis followers have seen an entree of that in recent years, with Australian Open organisers holding events including Fast 4, Tiebreak Tens and one-point slam exhibitions to maximise followers and profit from tennis’ exposure in the Australian sun.
Pickleball is riding that wave of momentum with the timing of the pandemic and clever marketing playing a role in the surge.
The sport had already seen an uptick in popularity for half a decade prior to the pandemic, which accelerated the growth by giving restricted civilians a means to socialise, compete and exercise in a Covid-safe manner.
Perhaps most promisingly for the sport’s sustainability; participation numbers in the USA in 2021 indicate that 55-plus and 18-34-year-olds are the two most prominent demographics, according to Fran Data.
Where most new-age sports appeal to a niche, typically a younger age bracket, pickleball breaks the mould by drawing people across the age spectrum.
The younger demographic is lured by the shorter playing time and higher-octane nature, while older people are enticed by the ability to stay fit in a gently competitive environment.
Labelling itself a hybrid of badminton, tennis and table tennis further widens pickleball’s appeal.
"It’s a fun, social game where they’re kind of trash-talking a little bit between points and getting the crowd involved," Bouchard said.
"It’s a physical sport but not quite as demanding as tennis, so it has that nice (mix) of athleticism and entertainment."
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Bouchard’s involvement at Sunday’s Slam followed her first full year touring the Pickleball circuit with her conversion to the sport after being approached by the PPA, increasingly common among ageing tennis players.
The 30-year-old reached a career-high ranking of No.5 and was voted by SportsPro Magazine as the most marketable athlete in the world in 2015.
Bouchard, who remains active on the WTA tour, is not the only big-name North American the PPA has leveraged.
Jack Sock, Donald Young and Sam Querrey - the latter part of ESPN’s broadcast team for the Slam event - are on the pro circuit.
Bouchard hopes to win a title this year after reaching the top-20 in the rankings in her first year on tour.
"It’s crazy - I barely knew about the sport a couple of years ago, and now everyone I know plays, and it’s growing like crazy, so I’m proud to be part of something which seems to be expanding," Bouchard told The First Serve.
"Towards the end of 2023, the opportunity came up to swap WTA for PPA and still be able to play some tennis events and I wanted to challenge myself in something new and take a leap into a sport which is growing so much, so it’s a great opportunity for me and a fun game.
"If you’ve never played before, you can have a rally, and tennis is just a little too hard to be like that."
That the Canadian has ascended the sport so quickly highlights the skills transfer from tennis, underlining the genius of pickleball’s tennis-centric marketing strategy, providing the necessary sugar-hit for the sport to crack the mainstream.
Despite its similarities, Agassi highlighted some key differences between the sports which will likely expose a gulf between long-time pickleballers and tennis converts as the sport continues to grow at grassroots level.
"It’s weird because you don’t know how to direct that blood pressure in pickleball; you have to stay calm and patient," Agassi told The First Serve.
"In tennis, you can dance with the ball and use that energy to get physicality through the ball.
"In pickleball, there is very little physicality through the ball, but there is a lot of physicality to put yourself in position to hit a percentage shot, so the physicality comes at the front end versus the back end."
The numbers also point to pickleball being more than a flash in the pan.
For each of the past four years it has been voted America’s fastest-growing sport; there are now more than 150,000 locations to play across the country, which has seen membership numbers swell to 60,000, according to the 2023-24 Pickleball USA annual report.
The Wall Street Journal even reported in 2024 that 10 per cent of American tennis courts are in the process of or have been repurposed into pickleball courts.
"The sport’s growing unbelievably and it’s still in its infancy," Agassi said.
"From the standpoint of growth and participation, we’ve only seen the beginning.
"There’s a low point of entry so nobody is intimidated to try it.
"It’s a great equaliser - you can really mix levels and figure out a way to ensure everybody still enjoys it and everybody feels success at it right away because they get better and then they hit walls, then they figure something out and jump to different levels.
"It’s inviting and so community-driven.
"You’re so close to each other, you’re enjoying the company (of your opponent) versus tennis where you’re so far apart, you feel more alone, and it’s less community, more competitive; this is more community and sometimes competitive."
When lined up next to America’s, Australia’s numbers are promising.
According to Pickleball Australia’s 2023-24 annual report, there was an 87 per cent increase in pickleball membership numbers from the previous year.
The introduction of a rankings system was another key feature of pickleball’s growth in Australia last year.
Perhaps surprisingly, the per capita membership rate in Australia is more than three times greater than that in the States.
The area where Australia lags is that the average player age is 56-years-old compared to the high-30s in America.
It highlights that Australia's sentiment towards the sport is divorced from the increased demographic unity that has helped pickleball succeed in America.
Australia also doesn’t have the calibre of celebrity sporting ambassadors that have aided the sport’s growth in America across the last decade after it was established in 1965.
Regardless, pickleball appears well-placed to continue breaking into Australia’s sporting smorgasbord.
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