Table of Contents
Welcome to the Pickleball section of the site. I’ve recently started playing this great game and thought it would be a great addition to Rad Racquets. As such I have written a few words below about the game in general, and at the bottom you will find links to my most popular pickleball posts.
Pickleball – An Introduction
For some people, pickleball isn’t merely a hobby or a sport but a lifestyle. And even though pickleball is a relatively new sport, it has been rapidly gaining popularity over the decades.
You could also become a part of the worldwide pickleball community. Anyone can join it regardless of their age, sex, or physical capability. Even if you are in older age, it still isn’t late for you to grab a paddle and start playing.
But there are a lot of things you need to learn about pickleball to get started. And if you as a brand new pickleballer get confused at first, no one can blame you. It’s indeed a bit convoluted. And we’ve worked hard to get to where we are to make learning to play pickleball easier for you.
Regardless of which stage you are on – just learning pickleball rules or looking for pickleball equipment – we’ve got you covered.
Rules
The basis of any sport is its rules. If you don’t know how pickleball is played, you won’t be able to proceed on to the more complex stuff like strategizing.
A combination of ping pong, tennis, and badminton, pickleball offers its own unique set of rules to follow. Pickleball may seem silly due to its goofy ball and paddles, but it is indeed an interesting sport that opens whole new depths for lovers of recreational activities.
To help you get prepared for your first pickleball match, we’ve have made a huge article on pickleball rules. The pickleball rulebook is a rather hefty one, and there are plenty of things that need to be known. But we’ve compiled all the essential rules that you should care about as a recreational player in a separate article.
Before diving deeper into pickleball, do make sure to get acquainted with the rules. Otherwise, you won’t understand much from the game. And besides, rules also regulate what kind of equipment is right for pickleball, and you would need to know what to get in order to enroll in competitions.
You can read more about Pickleball Rules here.
Strategy
Like the racquet sports it is based on, pickleball can be played in singles or doubles. And this is the thing that opens virtually boundless opportunities for strategizing.
As a beginner, you may wonder what else you’d need for pickleball apart from good physical shape. In reality, there is much more to pickleball than speed and endurance, albeit they alone do play a big role in this sport.
It’s not about merely learning a couple of shots either. It’s about learning when exactly to use them. And as simple as this may sound, this is the thing that is going to come with months and years of playing.
You may be the most recreational player in the world, but you should know a thing or two about pickleball strategies. They will allow you to win more often. And besides, you would certainly feel better knowing that you are a good pickleball player.
You can read more about Pickleball Strategy here.
Equipment
Equipment is the staple of a good pickleball match. Fortunately for its lovers, pickleball doesn’t require a whole lot of expensive equipment. You will need to invest some money into getting all the necessary gear, but pickleball doesn’t really need to be that expensive of a hobby.
As a beginner, you would probably want to go for cheaper stuff. And that would be the right thing to do: our needs are very individual, and it could be a waste of money to get a pricey paddle. Who knows, maybe you grow as a player and discover that you wasted a hundred bucks on gear that is wrong for you.
Needless to say, you need a paddle, a ball, and a net. These three pieces are everything you need to dive into the world of pickleball, but there are some other things that you may want to get. Things like pickleball shoes, shirts, equipment bags may not make you a better player, but they most likely will make a good experience even better.
There is a lot for you to learn about, which is why we made an in-depth material on the pieces of equipment that you would need to have for a nice game of pickleball.
You can read more about Pickleball Equipment here.
Gear Reviews
And once you’ve got yourself acquainted with the basics of pickleball and decided to give it a go, you will need to buy some equipment to get started.
The range of equipment for pickleball on the market is exceptionally wide. And looking through all the paddles, nets, carry bags, and whatnot can be quite a challenge. To save you time, we’ve compiled all the equipment that we think is the best out there. And we are ready to present our findings to you.
First of all, you’d want to get yourself a good paddle. We’ve reviewed several great paddles for spin, so you could have a look at our material to get started.
Next comes a pickleball net. To be fair, not everyone is going to need a net since plenty of recreational centers and gyms have fully-equipped pickleball courts. But if you want to set up your own pickleball area, then our review of top pickleball nets is for you.
We’ve also thrown in a material about entire pickleball equipment sets. These sets can cover the needs of most people and, most importantly, cost less than all the items would separately.
And your equipment needs to go somewhere, right? You surely aren’t going to carry your stuff in a bag, are you? If you wish to give some nice treatment to your equipment and also make your life a little bit easier, then we have a review of top bags for pickleball for you.
Last but not least is apparel for pickleball. Once again, we’ve gone quite in-depth and prepared not one but two materials for you – one on shoes and the other on shirts. You may be wondering why you need to get special apparel, but believe us, you would want to wear the right clothes and shoes on the court.
Here are a list of our buyers guides: