Surprising revelations about pickleball, which is causing a fever in Vietnam

In the past year or so, pickleball has become a craze in Vietnam. This sport was born in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington (USA) and is considered a combination of tennis, badminton and table tennis. At this time, the US is also the country that plays the most pickleball in the world.

Pickleball was born in 1965 (Photo: Pickleball Planet).

Pickleball has 2 playing formats: singles (2 players) and doubles (4 players). In pickleball, short strokes are often used, not requiring too much force.

The game was born one weekend when Congressman Joel Pritchard came home with nothing to do. At that time, his house in Washington had only an old badminton court. Since he didn't have a badminton racket, he and his friend Bob O'Brian played with a ping pong racket and a plastic ball.

At first, they kept the badminton net as it was and hit the ball over it. However, they later decided to lower the net to about 1 meter to match the bounce of the ball.

Two years later, the first pickleball court was built in the backyard of Pritchard's friend Bob O'Brian. By 1976, an association was formed to protect the new sport.

In 1984, the Amateur Pickleball Association was formed to promote the sport across the United States. However, it would be decades before the sport became widely played.

In 2009, the first national pickleball tournament for players of all ages was held in Buckeye, Arizona, attracting nearly 400 people from 26 states.

Pickleball has only become popular in the past few years (Photo: Getty).

It was not until 2023 that the International Pickleball Federation (IPF) was founded (although its predecessor existed in 2016) and designated October 10 as "World Pickleball Day". However, this Federation is not on the list of sports federations recognized by the IOC.

The IPF appears to list 78 member states, but this number is also unclear as the organization's website gives different numbers ranging from 73, 77 to 78.

Source: https://dantri.com.vn/the-thao/tiet-lo-bat-ngo-ve-mon-pickleball-dang-gay-sot-o-viet-nam-20240820194128624.htm