Pickleball Is Inevitable: Fast-Rising Sport a Threat to Tennis Says 24-Time Grand Slam Winner Novak Djokovic
Pickleball is rising, and it’s why tennis needs to get its act together.
Tennis great Novak Djokovic, at a press conference in Wimbledon, expressed concern about a potential pickleball takeover of tennis at the club level, which the 24-time Grand Slam winner described as “the cornerstone of what tennis is about.”
The Serbian great, in particular, rued what he perceives as tennis’ inaccessibility—particularly to kids and everyday players.
“Tennis is a very global sport, and it’s loved by millions of children that pick up a racquet that want to play, but we don’t make it accessible. We don’t make it so affordable, especially in countries like mine that doesn’t have a strong federation, that has Grand Slam or history or big budgets,” Djokovic said.
Djokovic, who along with Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal formed tennis’s Big Three for well over a decade, identified pickleball as a big threat to tennis—particularly at that club level.
“People kind of have fun with it and say ‘Yeah but tennis is tennis. Tennis is the king or queen of all racquet sports.’ That’s true. But on a club level, tennis is endangered,” Djokovic pointed out. “If we don’t do something about it, globally or collectively, paddle, pickleball in the States, they’re going to convert all the tennis clubs into paddle, pickleball…”
Djokovic then did the math, noting how three pickleball courts can fit a single tennis court. And with pickleball taking the world by storm, it’s easy to see why club owners would be incentivised to build more pickleball courts than tennis courts.
Put simply, more pickleball courts are needed, and we reckon more will be built. Pickleball is already America’s fastest-growing sport, with the Association of Pickleball Professionals (APP) stating that an estimated 48.3 million adult Americans—or nearly 19% of the total adult population in the U.S.—have played the sport at least once over a one-year period from August 2022 to August 2023. That means more than 12 million more Americans played pickleball compared to the year prior, which amounts to a massive 35% increase year-on-year.
We also know the pickleball phenomenon is spreading beyond the U.S. and catching fire in Asia. China, for instance, expects to build some 10,000 courts for approximately 100 million players in the next five years. Malaysia, on the other hand, is in the midst of a pickleball explosion, with courts being opened left and right and pickleball associations being established one after the other.
Not only that. The sport has already gained traction ahead of Malaysia in counties including Philippines, Singapore, India, and Indonesia, among others. Even Japan, which has traditionally been slow to adopt new things, is already adopting the sport at a rapid pace.
We did say pickleball is rising, right?
Then again, we’re not saying pickleball will overtake tennis—at least not yet. But the fact that Djokovic sees it as somewhat of a threat to his fabled sport means we, picklers, are doing something right.
And if the great Novak Djokovic sees pickleball as a threat to tennis now, wait until he sees what the sport has in store for the future.
