Grab your racket and go practice pickleball.

Pickleball is an indoor or outdoor sport played in singles or doubles on a rectangular court (13.4 m x 6.1 m). Players use a smooth-faced racket to hit a hollow, perforated plastic ball over a 0.86 m high net until one side is unable to return the ball or commits a foul. Invented in the United States in 1965, the sport became a sporting craze there before spreading to over 50 other countries, including Vietnam. Essentially, pickleball is a hybrid sport combining elements of tennis, table tennis, and badminton. Pickleball is considered easy to play and suitable for all ages.

Coach instructs on how to play Pickleball - Photo: THANH LOC

Many paths... to becoming an apprentice.

There are many ways to get into pickleball, and everyone is different. Some play for exercise, some out of curiosity, and some simply join in because they see others playing for fun. But the common thread among them is: once they start playing, they can't stop, becoming people who "eat, sleep, and breathe pickleball"!

Many people believe that pickleball is appealing to all ages and backgrounds because it's easy to start, even for those without a sporting background, and doesn't require much time to learn. Perhaps that's why getting started is quite simple.

According to Mr. Le Ba Thanh Xuan (40 years old), a professional pickleball athlete and coach in Ho Chi Minh City, to take up pickleball, players only need to spend a few hundred thousand to a few million dong for a "combo": racket, shoes, ball, clothes... and a desire to experience a new sport. Mr. Xuan has won many major awards at prestigious pickleball tournaments both domestically and internationally, most recently the Gold Medal in the 35+ Open Team category at the Asian Open Championship. With experience coaching hundreds of players, Mr. Xuan believes there are two main groups who are drawn to pickleball. One group consists of those who have never played any sport before, drawn to pickleball because of its ease of start and the fact that it doesn't require a high level of technical skill to participate. The second group consists of people who have played sports for many years, but whose age is no longer suitable for pursuing that sport at a higher level, so they switch to pickleball as a way to stay healthy and gradually improve their skills to participate in suitable tournaments.

As for Truong Vinh Hien, nicknamed the "pickleball prince," he came to this sport because... he played tennis. He has won 15 national Open Super Cup championships, including 3 singles titles and a clean sweep of first, second, and third place at the Asian Championships. Hien said he was a tennis player who was the national runner-up in mixed doubles. One time, the club where Hien trained opened a pickleball court, and he tried it out, finding it very interesting, so he gradually switched to playing both sports. Hien's story is not an exception, as most high-level pickleball players today have transitioned from tennis.

Writer and singer Akira Phan (right) at a pickleball tournament in November 2024 in Nha Trang City, Khanh Hoa Province - Photo: THANH LOC

Many people from various professions have become captivated by pickleball. Among them are quite a few journalists, especially sports reporters.

" Introduction" and "Enlightenment"

In early July 2024, when I first stepped onto the pickleball court, I felt a little awkward and shy, but I quickly adapted. Having been on the table tennis gifted team in high school and having played tennis for a short time, I got the hang of the pickleball quite smoothly.

Everything about pickleball is available online; you just need to learn it there. First, learn the rules, then the tactics, and finally the correct movements... Gradually, clips of Ben Johns (25 years old), the American pickleball player considered the most successful in the world today with hundreds of major and minor titles, or Quang Duong (the 18-year-old Vietnamese-American pickleball prodigy famous worldwide) teaching how to play and tactics appeared on Facebook and TikTok...

Some technical terms become familiar after hearing them so often, such as: kitchen area, also known as the non-volley zone; dink shot (a light, short shot used to force the opponent to return the ball from a position near the net); forehand (a technique used to hit the ball with the player's right hand, on the same side of the body as the hand holding the racket); backhand (performed on the left side of the player's hand)...

A family pickleball team - Photo: THANH LOC

With a competitive sport like pickleball, no one can play alone. The same goes for me, and what I needed to do was put in the effort to "enlighten" others. My "enlightenment" efforts were successful when I formed a pickleball group of four couples and maintained a regular playing schedule.

Have fun, but don't overdo it.

Proportional to the explosive growth of pickleball in many provinces and cities across the country are the online debates about the nature, suitability, and even attire of this sport. Strangely enough, despite its negative reputation, pickleball remains incredibly popular!

When U.S. Congressman Joel Pritchard and his two friends, Bill Bell and Barney McCallum, invented pickleball in 1965, they probably never imagined that decades later, in distant Vietnam, this sport would become so popular and spark so much debate. Initially, their idea was simply to create a fun game to entertain family and friends in their hometown.

For reasons unknown, many people have the prejudice that pickleball is a sport for those who "don't have the physical strength to play tennis, the stamina to play badminton, or the dexterity to play table tennis." Therefore, the term "health maintenance" is frequently used to disparage pickleball, especially when describing the repetitive dink shot motion involved in this sport.

In a strong counter-argument, Mr. Le Ba Thanh Xuan stated that most of those comments come from people who haven't actually tried pickleball. "It's true that this sport incorporates elements of the three aforementioned sports and is quite simple to start; anyone can join in the fun. But to reach a certain level, there's no such thing as 'maintenance' here. You'll need physical fitness, strength, dexterity, flexibility, judgment, and situational awareness, no less than other sports. On the contrary, this is a sport that burns a significant amount of calories," Mr. Xuan asserted.

From a professional perspective, Mr. Le Do Nhu Hoai, Head of the Sports Management Department (Quang Tri Provincial Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism), believes that many people worry that pickleball will emerge as a trend and then fade away, but he doesn't think so. “This sport involves a moderate level of physical activity, and the risk of injury is low. In Quang Tri province, pickleball is developing very strongly. We have sent staff for training in refereeing and tournament organization… to prepare for the future because it will certainly be very necessary in the coming time,” Mr. Hoai said.

It's a fact that pickleball has attracted players from many professions, ages, and genders. The pickleball court sometimes resembles a "red carpet" or "catwalk" with the appearance of many beauties, supermodels, and hot girls from the Vietnamese entertainment industry. It's not just celebrities who dress up; many other female players also wear tight-fitting outfits, short skirts, and sometimes quite revealing and skimpy clothing. There are also quite a few who come to the court primarily to wear revealing outfits. Therefore, some female pickleball players have faced criticism from many people.

However, putting that aside, the appearance of female players in sportswear has brought a very healthy and vibrant beauty to the pickleball community. “Women, or anyone for that matter, want to look beautiful. Every profession and every human activity aims for beauty, so why shouldn't pickleball?” wondered Ms. Nguyen Thi Lien (31 years old), a pickleball player in Dong Ha City, but implicitly affirmed, “There’s nothing wrong with women looking beautiful on the pickleball court.” I personally agree with this!

Nguyen Phuc

Source: https://baoquangtri.vn/xach-vot-di-tap-pickleball-191421.htm