- Monday, December 16, 2024
Eight-time Grand Slam winner says the learning phase in pickleball isn’t as strenuous as it is in tennis or even cricket
By: Shajil Kumar
MULTIPLE Grand Slam champion Andre Agassi on Friday expressed hope of pickleball making it to the list of Olympics sports “sooner than you are hoping”, adding that the fast-growing racket sport has had a “positive impact” on tennis in the United States.
While the former world No 1, eight-time Grand Slam winner and Atlanta Olympics gold medallist Agassi described tennis as the “most difficult racket sport in the world”, he said pickleball is not as financially straining and technical to learn.
“I think pickleball is going to add a great deal to this country. It’s going to add a great deal to sport. Olympics, I absolutely can see it, it’s going to maybe even happen sooner than you’re hoping,” Agassi said in Mumbai during the launch of PWR DUPR India League, which will be held from January 15-21, 2025.
“I will always defend tennis as the most difficult racket sport in the world. There’s nothing close to it. It demands the maximum from you physically, mentally (and) emotionally. It is skill (based) and physicality (is) unmatched,” he said.
Agassi, who is the co-owner of DUPR, which claims to be the most accurate rating system in pickleball, said the learning phase in pickleball isn’t as strenuous as it is in tennis or even cricket.
“It’s going to add to people’s lives here. The infrastructure is not going to cost much. It’s not like tennis, where you have to learn the fundamentals,” he said.
“Or like cricket, you have to learn the fundamentals right, else you can’t really (play the game). You don’t really have to (do that) in pickleball. You start getting better and getting challenged.”
“When you get challenged, you ask the person you’re playing with, ‘how did you do that?’ They’d tell you, and then you’d try it. Now you’re addicted on a different level and your levels keep going up and it’s so stimulating,” added Agassi.
Agassi said pickleball, which has basic elements of tennis with the game being played in singles and doubles across a shorter court with paddles and a ball, has made a strong impact on the people in the USA.
“We have 30 million people in America now playing it, more or less, and I promise you, it’s still at its infancy,” he said.
“Pickleball has had a positive impact on tennis. I’ve seen many clubs throughout the United States that were struggling economically and they’ve taken one tennis court and they’ve turned it into three pickleball courts or two pickleball courts.”
“All of a sudden there’s eight people playing in less than a space (for tennis) and economically they were able to stay alive,” he said.
Agassi said learning pickleball doesn’t require a lot of finances which makes the sport even more attractive.
“First of all, it’s not going to make you go broke like other sports like tennis. It’s affordable. You can experience success, which early, which is great for just social development, just children developing emotionally, mentally. It’s healthy,” he said.
“Tennis is a sport that unless you do it really well, you want to watch more than maybe even play. In pickleball, you want to play more than you want to watch once you get the bug,” he said.
“It’s almost like a beautiful, full circle… racket marriage, if you will (term it). Most people are going to play pickleball their whole life and then go to tennis, because tennis is Mount Everest. If you want to really learn that, the sooner you try to start learning it, the better you are.”
Agassi added, “But everybody will go from tennis to pickleball. Everybody that plays tennis will at some point in their life go to pickleball.”
