An IPTPA (International Pickleball Teaching Professional Association) certified instructor has passed a rigorous 3-part testing program while continuing to improve their teaching skills through yearly training requirements. As a player seeking instruction, a certified teacher is your guarantee that your instructor knows the specific strokes, strategies and shot selections specific to pickleball.

This is one of the better articles I have found to assist you in finding the right paddle. Just like tennis or golf, having personalized equipment that fits your needs is vital to producing peak performance and avoiding injuries.

How to Choose a Pickleball Paddle by Price, Weight, Shape & Size

Areas where pickleball can hurt your tennis game:

Stamina: As a tennis player, you’re required to cover the ground for each point. Moreover, the larger court size helps to build a considerable amount of stamina. When you start to play pickleball extensively, you aren’t required to cover as much ground and thus if you’re thinking to return to tennis from a hiatus, you’ll initially feel lack of stamina. However, that’s not a major concern, as, within a few weeks, you’ll be back in full swing.

Positioning: Pickleball, especially doubles game is generally played at the net. Pickleball encourages the players to move closer to the net so you can attempt half volleys and command the proceedings. However, this practice doesn’t work in tennis as the court size is larger. We’ve seen the likes of Federer, Djokovic, and Nadal chipping the ball over their opponent’s heads and win points by putting them in a difficult position.

Power: Pickleball is more of shot placement rather than power. While you often see tennis professionals serving in the range of 80-110mph, that’s not the case with pickleball. Thus, if you play pickleball over an extended period, you’ll need time to adjust yourself when you get back to tennis. That’s because in pickleball emphasis is laid on placing the serve to avoid an unforced error.

Areas where pickleball can strengthen your tennis game:

Precision: Paddles are much smaller in size as compared to a tennis racquet. Even the pickleball balls are smaller and lighter. Thus, hitting a shot in pickleball and scoring a point with it is fairly difficult as compared to tennis. When you learn shot placement techniques and execute shots such as dinks, you improve your overall precision which can help your tennis game.

Balance: Inarguably, one of the toughest aspects of pickleball is abiding the kitchen. Understanding the No Volley Zone and keep your body off of it. The Kitchen Rule has helped me improve my overall balance when trying to hit half volley shots in tennis. It made me much more comfortable moving forward whenever I played tennis. Becoming proficient with dinking shots in pickleball has helped my tennis game considerably.

Shot Selection: Playing pickleball helped me understand the difference between soft, drop, finessed and angled shots. Not only did I learn these shots but I also started to place these efficiently on either side of the net.

Like all great stories, pickleball came about on a sunny day with little to do. In 1965, two dads named Joel Pritchard and Bill Bell arrived at Pritchard’s home on Bainbridge Island, Washington, after a golf outing. They found that their families were bored with no way to pass the time. Looking to alleviate the boredom of his loved ones and close friends, Pritchard started to hatch a plan to bring an end to the group’s summertime woes.

Pritchard’s property had an old badminton court so they started there with hopes of playing. However, they couldn’t find enough rackets for a full game so instead, he improvised by using spare ping pong paddles and a wiffle ball. With these bits and pieces lying around, a brand-new game was born. Today, you know it better as pickleball.

As the weekend went on and time flew by, they enhanced their makeshift game further with their own set of house rules. At first, the net was set at badminton’s regulation height of 60”, but the group found that the wiffle ball bounced well on their asphalt court so they lowered it down to 36”. At this point, there weren’t many rules to their game so during the following weekend, Pritchard and Bell introduced their new creation to another family friend named Barney McCullum. From there, with heavy inspiration from badminton, the three dads created new rules with the sole purpose of family play and accessibility in mind.

Two years later in 1967, Joel Pritchard constructed the first, permanent pickleball court in the backyard of Bob O’Brian, who was Pritchard’s neighbor and close family friend. The decision to build a dedicated and permanent court further cemented their homemade game into a loveable pastime. As the game started to gain steam in the Pacific Northwest, a corporation by the name of Pickleball, Inc. was founded in 1972 to help interested players buy equipment to play the game. This included paddles, nets, and balls that weren’t taken from other racquet games, but were created specifically for pickleball. Not only did the founding of this corporation help people find the right equipment to play pickleball, but it helped transition the game from a local pastime to a legitimate sport.