PPA CEO Connor Pardoe Drops Bombshell: Automated Line Calling Is Coming
One of the unique things about professional pickleball is that players call their own lines. This line calling setup essentially trusts the pros to be honest, and it has worked to some degree. But it also dampens the sport’s legitimacy and has been the cause of tension and controversy quite too many times already. In fact, one can argue that every tournament is marred by a few egregious line calling mistakes that sometimes even overshadow the talent on full display.
At the PPA Select Medical Orange County Cup, for instance, Travis Rettenmaier admitted that he purposely called a ball out even though it landed two feet inside the baseline as retaliation for what he perceived was a bad line call by the other team a few points earlier. This eye-for-an-eye mentality is way too common at this level of pickleball, and it isn’t doing the sport any favours as it looks to ride its wave of popularity into actual legitimacy just like tennis, badminton, and all major professional sports out there.
An All-Seeing Eye Is Coming to the PPA Tour
It’s a big problem, but there’s some good news at least—and none other than PPA CEO Connor Pardoe shared it, doing so on Zane Navratil’s PicklePod. In his wide-ranging interview with Navratil, Pardoe dropped the bombshell of the year so far when he said line calling will be automated soon in pro pickleball, just as it is in the highest levels of tennis.
“We’ll take the eight pro courts that we have and there will be automatic line calling, so you won’t even call lines anymore,” he told Navratil.
Pardoe also added that the PPA has already signed a contract with a technology company to bring automated line calling to the PPA Tour and eliminate pickleball’s call-your-own line tradition at the pro level. The target date of automating line calling, also according to Pardoe, is as early as the fourth quarter of 2025.
If this is, indeed, the case, then pickleball at the pro level will not only be eliminating a usual source of major controversy in big tournaments, but it will also be making a huge leap towards improving officiating—something that’s expected at the highest strata of any sport. It will also add a degree of legitimacy to a sport looking to be taken seriously, particularly at the pro level.
(Watch Pardoe break the automated line calling news at the 1:15:05 mark of the video below.)
