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| SUN LAKES LIFESTYLES | NOVEMBER 2025 | 57 Ethan Singer, staff reporter for e New York Times, recently compiled a photo-essay featuring pickleball courts viewed from drones. They were side-by-side shots of before-and-after: tennis courts migrating to pickle venues. The headline said, "How Pickleball Took Over Thousands of Tennis Courts." Singer grew up playing tennis and says he has only played a couple of games of pickleball. He roamed the country looking at the surge in our sport, often by transforming tennis facilities. He is far from tolling a death knell for the regal game. Anyone following the recent grand slam event at New Yorks' Billie Jean King Center saw a thriving sport. Nevertheless, pickleball is making relentless inroads in parks, country clubs and even driveways across the land. Pickleball's pint-sized courts give it a big edge from the standpoint of real estate alone. The ability to squeeze four courts onto one tennis court, as happened when our Board created the Pavilion on the north side, allows beleaguered city rec directors a chance to get more people playing on limited space. And it sure hasn't hurt that folks across America and beyond clamor for more opportunity to play a game that some once dismissed as a fad. Singer's article documents over 26,000 courts made in the last seven years, "a majority of them at the expense of once-exclusive tennis spaces." They found more than 8,000 tennis courts that now accommodate pickle. By 2024, the Times reports, "14 pickleball courts were being built or drawn each day, on average, across the country." Pickle's big brother still dominates. Singer cites trade group estimates that there are more than a quarter million tennis courts compared to about 68,000 for pickleball. They couldn't track indoor facilities so pickle probably has an edge there. "But the photographs are an expansive, bird's- eye view of what has been happening on the ground in all corners of the country: There's only so much ready asphalt to go around, and pickleball can't get enough of it." There is also a synergy when pickle comes to town. In Sawyer's Point Park in Cincinnati, for example, the director says that pickle has drawn an extra 150 players a day to the new courts and led to more upgrades including an ice rink and amphitheater. This is just one of many reasons to cheer the juggernaut that is our humble game. Play is heating up as the weather promises to go the other way. Give our morning cheerleader, Royce Newman, a call at (951) 809- 2303 to learn the best times to come out and enjoy. See you on the courts! Pickleball Club

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