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I started playing tennis again a couple of summers ago, after a twenty-year hiatus. I found myself right back where I was before, absolutely loving every second of it: the strategy, the effort, and the people, too.

As I started to connect to tennis communities based out of Portland’s parks, my friend Harrison said I should play with this French guy named Clément. I kept asking for his contact information, but Harrison kept not sharing it. We are both busy and easily distracted people.

As my forehand and footwork progressed from mediocre to passable, I stumbled upon an issue of Portland Tennis Courterly in one of those plastic distribution boxes outside a public tennis court. I read every word, and there he was: Clément Daube had written a short essay about Roland Garros and how he fell back in love with competitive tennis via park tennis in Portland. Not only did I deeply relate, but now I could finally track this dude down! That’s exactly what I did, because that’s how obsessed I am with finding fun people to play tennis with, bonus points if you are French, and there is nothing creepy about that. I too am French, and after over a decade in the States, I’m seeking my people. I never have to explain myself to them; it’s nice.

Anyone who’s played with Clément can’t help but love him. He will do that: play, have a good time, and bring the fun kind of drama. You can’t blame him; is tennis even tennis without the drama? There will be French swearing, unsolicited but helpful technical advice, a lot of trash-talking about Americans, French people, BBQs that starts at 3 p.m., the price of cheese, pickleball, and everything in between, including ourselves, laughing out loud about the holes in our tennis shoes because we are cheap French people raised on Decathlon sneakers who fake-throw our racquets whenever we miss a shot. Entertaining and funny kind of drama.

Clément has an undeniable passion for tennis and life; it’s hard not to be drawn into his world. He is also very enthusiastic about being a Parisian. That’s how he introduced himself the first time we met. I quickly volleyed back that it wasn’t something to be proud of. He laughed, and I knew we’d become good friends. According to anyone who is not from Paris, Parisians are losers. Conversely, anyone who is Parisian—which means being born intra muros (in one of the districts within the city limits), and preferably having roots that extend back multiple generations—believes Parisians do it best. The “it” they supposedly do better means absolutely nothing. It’s a national debate, especially in sports.

* * *

One unexpectedly magical spring day, Clément and I met up to rally at a park in NE. I was trying to take it easy following an injury, which is really hard to do with Clément, even though he always goes easy on me so I can improve my game. We kept taking lengthy water breaks, chatting and enjoying the sun. Eventually, I decided to be wise and throw in the towel for the day.

As we packed up, he pulled out a film camera from his bag. He looked somber as he took photos of people playing in the heat of the afternoon. I realized it was his last time playing as a Portlander. He was moving back to Paris with his family in a few days. During the flourishing of our friendship, Clément had become a father, and his wife’s work visa was about to expire. Life stuff; it was time to throw in the towel on the American Dream, with no hard feelings. It all made sense: if you are going to have a family, play tennis, and be a scientist, all at once, you’re probably better off doing it in France. Yet, I’m writing these words to make clear that the Portland Tennis Courterly community reserves the right to be irrationally devastated by his departure.

Next time you are in Paris, remember to reach out to Clément, if you can find him. Tell him you are from Portland and go play tennis with him. You might be one of those lucky individuals who will have a once-in-a-lifetime experience hitting with a real Parisian tennis player who knows how to put a smile on people’s faces—which is not very Parisian of him at all!

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It’s a mid-summer day when Ed Osterman steps into Oregon State Correctional Institution (OSCI). He puts his gear through a metal detector—pickleball paddles and balls included—and signs a waiver that says, essentially, “if you get held hostage, we won’t come in and get you.”

Osterman is greeted by a crowd that seems to personify the inclusive spirit of pickleball—old and young, lean and broad, long-haired and bald. The scene could be any local pickleball court but here it plays out in a dated gym where every player wears the same uniform. As a volunteer with the Pickleball for Incarcerated Communities League (PICL), Osterman is at OSCI to run a round robin clinic for ten inmates who’ve earned the privilege to participate.

The sport, often associated with suburban neighborhoods and retirees, has found an unlikely home behind bars.

Pickleball’s rise in prisons mirrors its national boom. Though it’s been played in a handful of correctional facilities for years, including Portland’s Columbia River Correctional Institution (CRCI) and Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, the sport has recently exploded in popularity thanks to grassroots efforts like PICL. What began as a novelty has become structured and widespread, now existing in over 40 facilities across a dozen states, including our very own Tennis City, Portland, Oregon.

“These guys, most of them are going to get out someday and they’re going to be your neighbor,” explained Osterman. “They’re going to have a better chance of integrating into society again if they have something social they can do and an outlet—that’s pickleball.”

One inmate shared with Osterman that he purposely avoided participating in most sports in prison, especially those like basketball, where direct contact could lead to conflicts and flare-ups of anger. “Pickleball is a little different,” said Osterman. “You’re not coming into physical contact with anyone. It’s a competitive and sometimes aggressive game, but you’re not banging up against someone like you would in basketball.”

Roger BelAir, co-founder of PICL, recalled a conversation with the warden at San Quentin, the oldest prison in California. The warden had shared with him that one of the top five highlights of his career was the day BelAir introduced pickleball to the prison.

“Basketball is dominated by the young, the tall, the athletic, and everyone else is left on the sidelines,” BelAir said. “The warden told me, he says, ‘I predict the number one sport to be played on the inside of prisons is going to be pickleball.’”

CRCI in Portland has offered pickleball for years—long before its recent rise in popularity. “I've been working here for almost 26 years, and it's always been here,” said James Hanley, CRCI’s Correctional Rehabilitation Coordinator.

“I remember the first time I saw pickleball was so long ago, and now it’s super popular,” added Hanley. “And I'm like, yeah, that came from prisons, I think.”

At CRCI, pickleball is a popular activity that provides opportunity for adults in custody to engage in healthy recreation. “If we have yard right now,” predicted Hanely, “I can guarantee you that there’s a pickleball game going on.”

In the eyes of many, pickleball and prison are a natural pair. The sport doesn’t take up much room. It’s simple to learn. It’s not at all violent. It’s fun. It’s all about community.

But for some, the incarcerated pickleball experience leaves much to be desired. An anonymous source who served a year at CRCI about a decade ago described the setup as “pretty crowded,” with only an hour of yard time per day and just one pickleball court available.

“Winner stays on” was the only format that was used, which means that stronger players dominated court time while others watched from the sidelines. Though he had a background in tennis and turned out to be one of the better pickleball players, he admitted he didn’t enjoy the activity much. The wind made the game frustrating, often carrying the ball off course, and he preferred the facility’s other racquet sport offering, ping pong. Since his release, he hasn’t touched a paddle—and doesn’t plan to.

Joint pain is also a consideration. Osterman recalled talking to an inmate about pickleball and ailments. “A lot of people have knee and hip problems from playing,” he said. But such problems, like everything else, are quite relative. One inmate joked to Offerman that he had problems with his knees, sure, but he’d also been shot at and stabbed. That made Osterman realize “where I was and who I was dealing with. These guys have had much different lives than I’ve had,” he said.

While some might imagine that a tennis court would be a welcome addition to a prison yard, others are quick to point out potential challenges.

Pickleball’s simplicity makes it accessible, and with room on one tennis court for four pickleball courts, it’s much more space efficient.

“Pickleball is pretty easy to set up, and it’s a low cost sport, and it’s easy to learn,” Osterman said. “So when you compare pickleball to tennis, it’s much more adaptable to a prison setting. I’d be surprised if there are any prisons that have tennis courts.” (As of right now, no Portland prisons have tennis courts.)

However, Osterman believes the skills from tennis can translate to pickleball. He recalls one inmate who had played a lot of tennis prior to becoming incarcerated. “That skill set carries over, and I could see it in his game too,” Osterman recalled. He said to the inmate, “I can see your tennis and how you’re playing, but maybe you want to do this for pickleball. It’s a little different than tennis.”

If nothing else, pickleball offers one indisputable benefit—the pleasure of a racquet sport. Most facilities don’t have a lot of options beyond weightlifting, jogging and basketball.

According to BelAir, the co-founder of the pickleball in prisons initiative, not all sports require the same level of concentration that racquet sports do. “When you’re playing tennis, you don't think about anything else other than just hitting the ball over the net,” he said. “So it’s an incredible mental release for the guys on the inside.”

That sense of mental relief is part of what continues to motivate Osterman. Later this summer, he plans to reach out to OSCI again about hosting another pickleball clinic for the inmates. “But I'd also like to try again at Coffee Creek,” he added, highlighting ongoing efforts to expand pickleball’s reach.

When asked if there were any tournaments or competitions between different prisons, such as between Coffee Creek and CRCI, CRCI’s rehab coordinator, Hanley, responded, “No, and I would love to see something like that happen.”

So there’s no inter-prison competition—yet. But perhaps it’s only a matter of time. Pickleball’s reach knows no bounds: not space, not time, not the many Portland tennis courts that are being taken over, not even the walls of a prison.

While pickleball offers a recreational outlet behind prison walls, the sport has also landed at least one individual behind bars.

Josuha Wallace, co-founder of Oregon Pickleball Club (OPC), is heading to prison after embezzling tens of thousands of dollars meant for the club. Wallace raised $50,000 from investors to launch OPC but then went on to use the funds for personal expenses, including gambling and credit card bills. Despite existing for just a year, OPC racked up over $120,000 in unpaid debts before dissolving in 2023. Wallace will serve 26 months at FCI Sheridan, a medium-security federal prison on the way to Lincoln City (which features pickleball courts). His lawyer declined to comment, stating, “We’re not interested in doing any media requests.”

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You might think this is the wrong place to bring this up—I say, you gotta fish where the fish are. I bring my indictment of pickleball, a bastardized version of a real sport, to the people (fish?) who love it most, not to spark controversy, but to ask a favor: please do it somewhere else.

Anywhere else.

I know that this sounds like another old head complaining about the world changing to adapt to society’s needs, but please be assured that mommies and daddies were playing some version of pickleball long before today. It’s only more recently that the pastime has interfered with tennis players’ lives in such a way that it inspires them to speak out about it. Many before me have written impassioned letters about various injustices, and this is no different, really.

Let’s look at the facts: according to Portland Parks & Rec, there are 92 “Tennis Only” outdoor public tennis courts in the city of Portland, plus a dozen or so publicly accessible indoor courts (which cost $14/hr and up), and private racquet clubs whose monthly fees are upwards of $200. Anyone who has tried to book an indoor court at Portland Tennis Center knows that it can sometimes feel like you’re trying to score front-row tickets to Taylor Swift (for your daughter, of course…). Never mind trying to get private lessons with David R., he’s booked the fuck out. You want to join the Monday night 3.0-3.5 singles mixer? Good luck, chump. The weather, the lack of indoor courts, and the prohibitive price of private clubs makes tennis an already tough sport to play, no matter how badly you may want to. So on a dry spring day in Portland, you’ll find just about all the public outdoor courts full of tennis players. And rightfully so; they wait patiently through six or so months of rain to break out their racquets, hit the courts, and burn off all of that pent-up energy from winter.

You, my imagined interlocutor: Ok, but that’s how pickleball players feel, too. They can’t play in the rain, either.

Me: Who cares?

Pickleball skyrocketed in popularity starting during the COVID-19 pandemic, with Major League Pickleball showing up in Texas in 2021. You might call pickleball a symptom of long COVID. Even Andre Agassi, with his rat tail between his legs, has forsaken the great game that made him who he is (or, arguably, the game that he made into what it is) and crossed the metaphorical net to increase his net worth. Agassi became the inaugural chair of Life Time’s newly formed Pickleball and Tennis Board in February 2024. This is largely where my hatred for pickleball started … when Andre told Boardroom (Kevin Durant’s sports, media and entertainment brand) how much he loved the sport.

Here’s what he said: “[Pickleball] is a sport that, from a participation standpoint, I believe dramatically in the growth of the marketplace. There’s a low point of entry from a skill perspective, and there’s a quick and constant level of improvement. And then, there’s an equitable management of skill levels that can actually be enjoyed as a community. And people put their phones away for two hours. So I’m fully bought into the growth of the sport from a participation standpoint.”

What happened to tennis being a lifetime sport, not a Life Time sport, Andre?

Maybe the hate got worse when I saw a trailer for the Netflix movie The Electric State that depicted Agassi in an alternate universe showing highlights from his illustrious pickleball career. Am I overreacting?

Even though pickleball was invented in 1965, I’d never seen anyone play it outside of a gym class until a few years ago. Tennis, on the other hand, has been popular among amateurs for hundreds of years. Just in the blip of my own personal existence, I’ve been playing and watching tennis for over a quarter century.

Pickleball hasn’t yet paid its dues, either in time or cultural contribution. Even though, yes, it’s been growing at a rate of 311% over the past three years, it doesn’t have the actual numbers to carry out an occupation. It lacks the community of established fans and players needed to justify sharing the already highly coveted outdoor tennis courts. No one is rushing home from work to tune into a pickleball match on Flivee or Bloopl or whatever streaming service it’s broadcasted on. This is to say, it has no hoes.

If it did have hoes, then someone would build dedicated pickleball courts for those people to play on … right? I’m sure in time, if this growth continues, pickleball will have its own Wimbledon (I would call it Dinkledon, or the Jar Open) and legendary players, matches, and all of that good stuff that contributes to a sporting tradition rich in history and lore. But right now? Y’all need to do that shit somewhere else.

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My wife and I started playing tennis during the pandemic, while living in San Marcos, Texas. For my birthday, she purchased off of Amazon a “tennis starter kit,” which included two generic 110 square-inch racquets, a racquet bag, and two cans of balls, all for twenty-five bucks. After the first hour of hitting, I was hooked. Being a gearhead, I immediately wanted to go all in on proper tennis shoes, hats, shorts, that headband that Fed wore, and of course a player’s racquet. But my wife, knowing that I have a tendency to get ahead of myself—I’d already devoted hundreds of dollars to camping equipment, first edition books, cookware, surfing gear—suggested that I stick with tennis for a year before shelling out dough for the nice stuff. I agreed, and for one year we played with those cheap racquets. We also played with those same six balls all year, so inexperienced that we didn’t know what “dead balls” meant or how good it feels to play with fresh ones.

We could have invested in pickleball equipment. Not necessarily in addition to tennis equipment, but instead of it. I was in grad school at the time and could only afford one new sport venture. With its gentle learning curve and easy-to-access community, pickleball seemed in some ways like a viable option. But that’s before considering all this:

At San Marcos’s Rio Vista Park, there are six Laurelhurst-quality tennis courts—but there are also fewer than six, because the city has painted permanent lines for pickleball courts onto two of them: eight pickleball courts in total, with two on each side of each of the two tennis courts. Picklers bring their own portable nets, which are two inches lower than tennis nets at the center point, to fully convert the tennis court to pickleball. The hybrid courts are courts of last resort for San Marcos’s tennis players: the markings delineating tennis’s no man’s land overlap with pickleball’s kitchen, causing quite a bit of visual confusion. And unlike Tennis City, USA, with its plethora of park courts, the courts at Rio Vista are the only public tennis courts in all of San Marcos. Every weekend, the hybrid courts are consistently occupied by no fewer than thirty-two pickleball players. If picklers don’t have a net or the pickle courts are in use, they spill over onto the tennis-only courts and play a modified version of their game with a too-high net. All weekend long, from sunrise to when the lights shut off at midnight, the park is filled with picklers. Those without anyone to play with often take up yet another court, with a backstop, to practice “dinking,” a very unpleasant sound and also sight, given how close they stand to the wall. I know this sounds like a rant, but it was annoying to me as a new tennis player. Between this and the fact that we’d have to buy a hundred dollar net to properly play the game, the decision to play tennis over pickleball was an easy one.

Still, even if it was a pragmatic decision at first, something about pickleball gave us pause from the get-go. Even then, it felt like the tailgating variety of court sports. It lacks elegance. In the end, I think we choose and continue to choose tennis for a deeper reason. Tennis players have a way (or have the capacity, I should say) of moving beautifully.

Three years before I ever touched a racquet, I became infatuated with tennis while observing an amateur player at the Ossington Park courts in Toronto, Canada. I watched him warm up, going half speed, half power. The guy was wearing jeans, running shoes, and a cotton T-shirt, and it was spring, the same kind of spring that hits Portland with tastes of sunshine, cool breezes in the trees, couples holding hands in the park. The player looked weightless on his feet as he grazed the ball with a gentle brush up, scooping his backhand from low to high and then over his shoulder. His volleys, which required him to move his feet and separate his arms for balance, resembled dance. I was enchanted.

To be good at tennis is to be beautiful. To be good at pickleball is to be good at pickleball. Unlike pickleball, it takes years to become a good and beautiful tennis player: thousands of hours on the court, playing people both below and above your level. It requires drills and practice. It takes time and concentration to learn footwork, the fundamentals of the kinetic chain, and how to strike the ball in front of your body. I have now spent countless days on the court, practicing my serve by myself. I’ve devoted dozens of hours to watching YouTube videos on forehands, overheads, two-handed backhands, volleys, half-volleys, split-stepping and strategy. I’m engaged in the learning process because I know that the better I get, the more beautiful I become on the court.

When I play tennis, I get to perform. I move my feet to position my body, use my legs to generate power up through the ball. But also, equally important, I get to see my opponent respond to my actions. I get to witness their beauty while they witness mine. I also get to witness their shortcomings: the moon balls, frame shots, and hits into the net, as they in turn bear witness to my many mishaps. This interactivity and relationality affords my hitting partner and me intimacy and connection. The only experience that comes close to resembling playing tennis, or I should say having a good day playing tennis, is having a deep conversation with someone. The feeling of being truly seen and accepted, while truly seeing and accepting another.

In tennis practice, hitting with our friends, we say sorry when we hit a ball into the net or out beyond the baseline. We say sorry because the unforced error has stopped this connection. But sometimes the connection keeps going despite the error: someone might lob a long ball back, or return a shot after it’s bounced twice to keep the rally going. All of us are after the same thing: beautiful, dynamic rallies. It’s the core reason we’re all playing. In my limited experience, this has never happened in pickleball because rallying in pickleball is kind of boring.

The evolution of tennis, over hundreds of years, has brought into perfect balance performance and communication, which is a very good recipe for beauty. The size and geometry of the court allow just enough time to witness your opponent perform the gorgeous motion of striking a tennis ball; to respond precisely to their play is to carefully listen.

I haven’t felt this when I’ve played pickleball. The dimensions of the game—the shrunken size of the court, the size of the paddle relative to the size of the ball—mask flaws, which makes it easy to confuse pickleball ability with athleticism and grace. There isn’t enough room on a pickleball court for a body to move beautifully. The paddle is too short to accentuate the arm and wrist. Everything feels rushed and cartoonish. If tennis is a conversation, then pickleball is maybe like bickering?

Tennis, even at the amateur level, offers a deeper level of engagement, a more diverse array of possible movements, and more opportunities for true greatness. The early days of tennis with my wife, launching balls three courts down, saying sorry, laughing, cursing each other’s good shots, and then rapidly progressing together as players, are some of my favorite tennis memories. It’s a wonderful place to be: improving, refining, learning from one another. I love seeing a newcomer to tennis hit a beautiful shot, like a cross-court groundstroke that lands just inside the corner, or a well-executed backhand volley. I know quite personally that a beautiful groundstroke or volley doesn’t come easily; it can only be achieved through repetition, performance and hard-earned experience. I could watch it over and over again.

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