From page 7
have to remember the funny rules, when to rotate on the court and it takes all four of us to remember the score.” It’s mostly a doubles game, which quadruples the hilarity.
And, as Pulliam says, virtually everybody is a beginner, which lessens the pressure. That’s even true for Ben Johns, whose biggest claim to fame used to be his status as hitting partner for his brother on the pro tennis tour. “I was playing tennis one day in 2016,” he says, “and I heard this fun popping sound coming from the pickleball court next door. I tried it and thought, This game is awesome, mostly because I was beating up on my dad all the time.” Now, as the world’s No. 1-ranked pro pickleball player in singles, doubles and mixed doubles, the 23-year-old Johns is beating up on a lot of other people too.
Johns, who now has the ultimate sports status symbol— his own signature paddle from Joola—loves that the sport is still young. “Golf has been around for four hundred years, tennis longer than that. There’s a right way and a wrong way to play them. But pickleball is still in a time of experimentation. When you figure something out, you expand the sport yourself. You can help it grow.”
So why are you sitting there