In recent years, pickleball has become a worldwide phenomenon with elderly and youngsters alike joining the game. As of late, the city of Delaware has jumped onto the pickleball bandwagon as well.
“So much in Delaware has grown and Pickleball has grown faster than anything else I’ve seen,” said Dianna Hibinger, a member of Delaware’s Parks and Recreation Board.
Hibinger has been on the board for six years and is also a Hayes tennis coach. She, among others at Hayes, took part in the Pickleball competition during House Games last year. In the staff competition, Steve Lehmen and Richard Hunt won for Sugar Grove.
The game of pickleball, originating back in 1965, was created out of sheer boredom by Congressman Joel Pritchard’s family and friends.
Pickleball is a combination of ping pong, tennis, and badminton. The game is played on a 44 by 20 foot court, roughly half a tennis court, allowing them to use a pre-existing courts with the addition of their own lines to play.
In 2003, only around 150 individual pickleball courts had been created. In 2022, there was an updated number of 44,094 courts in North America alone, compared to around 270,000 tennis courts.
Overall, Delaware has multiple places for Pickleball enthusiasts to play including indoor at outdoor courts. With places around the city such as the Pickle Shack, Smith and Blue Limestone park, and the newest addition to Delaware’s Pickleball locations: the Paddle Barn. The Pickle Shack opened back in the summer of 2022 with a total of ten indoor courts.
Mateo Burke, a sophomore, has been playing for six months, and is involved with several pickleball groups that get together around Delaware county.
“The environment is really nice, and everybody is very supportive of each other,” Burke said.
When it comes to the relationship between tennis and pickleball, not much can be said other than that the two must coexist together. Like any two similar sports, the spaces to play can become limited. However, many public tennis courts have signage asking pickleball players to leave a court for tennis players.
“When people who play pickleball don’t let tennis people onto the courts, it affects our opportunities to play,” said Hayden Stevens, a Hayes tennis player.
Some may find that pickleball can be beneficial to a tennis player’s game. While the game is less demanding on the player’s body it develops hand-eye coordination, along with being a major strategy game with where to place the ball on the court.
Many former tennis players have switched over to pickleball, such as former pro tennis players John McEnroe, Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf.
With the growth rate of pickleball being 158.6% within a three year span, the sport will only continue to gain participants.
“Go build your own court and get off of ours,” Stevens said.
