As a little kid, I fell in love with basketball. The NBA, and more specifically, the Oklahoma City Thunder were everything to me. Every minute of my free time was spent shooting around in the backyard recreating Kevin Durant’s moves and playing endless games of one-on-one against my older brother. Next came flag football, and after just a few weeks of practicing, I had plans to become the next Drew Brees and the first female NFL player. Then I began playing lacrosse and picked it up as naturally as I had with every other sport. Sports were my calling, and all of them had me hooked — except for tennis.
I found it to be a slow and tedious sport. Not at all entertaining for my young self to watch or play. And yet, I gave tennis a chance during the COVID-19 lockdown in the spring of 2020. Apparently, I was not the only one.
As healthcare professionals promoted tennis as a socially distanced activity safe to take part in, the country bought in. According to Statistica, the number of participants in tennis in the United States spiked in 2020 to over 20 million after staying consistently around 17 million for the past decade before. That number has now grown to just under 24 million in 2023.
Why did millions of people begin playing tennis throughout lockdown and fall in love? I may not have gotten it when I was younger, but I definitely do now. It’s simple: tennis is easy to catch onto, making it the ideal social sport. You don’t need years of training and extensive equipment to make your way in; all you need is a few patient friends and a racquet and you’ll soon get the hang of it.
Now that is not to say you will become the next Williams sister overnight (as that would take years of intense training and extensive equipment; watch “King Richard” for details), but you can easily begin playing with friends and have a good time.
This obsession has extended past playing the sport itself and into an aesthetic of its own. Popular brands such as Lululemon and Free People have released lines of tennis clothing. The sport has been the backbone of blockbuster movies like “The Challengers.”
People bought into the vision, fell in love and made it a persona.
All this buzz around tennis, both as an appreciation for the sport and an admiration for the aesthetic, has also impacted professionals. There has been an increase in viewership in the majors giving tennis stars influencer-level platforms. Naomi Osaka and Coco Gauff have become household names, and these stars have been able to use their newfound fame and platforms for good, promoting mental health awareness and branding their names.
Amidst the rise in the popularity of tennis, it seems there is one thing even better than playing hours of tennis outside with friends — pickleball. For those of us who have come to love tennis as an easy sport to pick up and play for fun, pickleball has all of that and even more. It is easy to learn yet difficult to conquer, leaving room for improvement and dedication to the sport. It is the perfect activity to play while simultaneously having conversations with friends.
In fact, pickleball has made a name of its own as the fastest-growing sport in the United States with over 36.5 million people in the United States participating in a sport that just a decade ago was unheard of. It quickly evolved from a recreational sport popular among elderly communities to a national phenomenon. This rise in popularity has allowed pickleball to rack up a broadcast deal with ESPN, pro tours, shoe sponsorships, real estate investors and a mob of celebrities including the Kardashians and Lebron.
Sports, at their core, are played for fun. Backyard basketball and football matchups were my definition of joy as a young girl. However, with that came the pressure to perform at the highest level and the desire to please every coach possible. Tennis and pickleball, on the other hand, are social activities. For some, they hold the same intensity as basketball does for me, but for many, it is a sport that started as a way to get into safe social interaction during lockdown, and the easygoing and quick-to-pick-up nature of the sport left us hooked.
