No Turf War Between Us: Pickleballers and Tennis Players Should be Friends

Here at No Worry Home, we’re all about the efficiency and safety of your home. But before you look after your home, it’s important to look after your own physical and mental health!  And that’s one big reason why the co-founders of No Worry Home are avid ballers. In the case of Jon, the ball he hits is a pickleball and he does so nearly every day.  In Bill’s case, it’s a tennis ball that gets bashed around several days per week.

Can the Pickler and the Tennis Guy still be friends?

With the enormous rise of pickleball’s popularity over the last few years, there have been many reports of clashes between devotees of the two racket sports. Tennis players grouse that pickleball lines are encroaching on “their” courts. Even worse, some of their tennis playing buddies are “going to the dark side” and leaving behind the fuzzy ball in favor of the noisy plastic orb. Is it jealousy that prompts those disdainful sneers from tennis players about pickleball being “tennis for old people”?

For our part, there’s no conflict. Both are great sports and both provide considerable health benefits, both physical and mental. Plus, Jon and Bill like both games – and why not?  They are similar enough that if you’re accomplished at all in one, you can cross over to the other. Why not try and play both?

Racket/Paddle Sports are Great for Body and Mind

Numerous studies have shown that racket sports are among the best hobbies one can pick up for a healthy lifestyle.  Both are high intensity aerobic sports. Playing either sport, you’re bound to burn calories, get your heart rate up and work up a sweat. Both sports also increase core strength and are full body workouts.

A widely cited research study conducted in Copenhagen, Denmark, and refined at the Mayo Clinic in Cleveland, showed that playing tennis resulted in an average increased life expectancy of 9.7 years!!  The authors of both studies surmise that such remarkable results are from a combination of the intense physical workout together with the cognitive benefits of racket sports, which are both social and also promote agile mental processing during play.

While the health benefits of tennis have been studied more than pickleball, so far, there is some data emanating from wearers of Apple Watches that suggest that the physical benefits of pickleball are very similar to tennis, as reported in late 2023 in the journal, “Well + Good”: click here for the article.  And just as tennis is a social sport, pickleball may be even more social. The games tend to be shorter, allowing for more interaction among players, and many pickleball groups rotate among many players who have time to socialize in between games.

In short, there’s every reason to believe that the health benefits of pickleball are similar to the well-documented and remarkable benefits of tennis.

Let’s all Get Along!

For Bill’s part, he really enjoys the occasional pickleball game. As a life-long tennis player, he finds it pretty easy to switch over and play at a fun, club-competitive level. While he doesn’t want to see any more tennis courts converted to pickleball, he’s all in for more purpose-build pickleball facilities. If you need a fill-in picklepartner, or a club tennis ringer, give Bill a call.

Jon was once a competitive high school tennis player but he’s now all pickleball all the time (when he’s not lifting weights at the gym). He loves the competitive aspects of the game and he plays hard. But he also finds the social aspects really valuable. In fact, some of No Worry Home’s earliest members came from the pickleball courts!

In the end, our message is this: both sports are great and they are great for just about everybody. If you haven’t picked up a racket or a paddle in a while, or at all yet, give it a try. Pickleball may be a little easier to get started with, but there are plenty of ways to get on the tennis court too, at any age.