It has been hyped up by the likes of Nick Kyrgios, Patty Mills and Adam Scott, and few social media feeds are safe from an influencer picking up a paddle. Pickleball will now make its Australian Open debut in a milestone that marks the fledgling sport’s legitimacy, as participation booms and professional opportunities mature.
The format that resembles mini-tennis with paddles and plastic, hollow balls has now overtaken rugby union, baseball and billiards in participation in Australia. With popularity soaring, local pickleballers are lobbying the government for official status to help with funding for court shortages and integrity measures to police burgeoning elite competitions.
Tennis Australia’s head of game expansion, Callum Beale, says the Australian Open has included accessible paddle formats like padel and pop tennis in recent years to expand the appeal of the broad tennis category, but this year’s first pickleball slam is a “symbolic” moment.
“[The Australian Open] is the greatest platform we can provide, and at a minimum, it’s one way we want to show that pickleball is here, it’s here to stay, and tennis wants to play a leading role in how it is grown and developed across Australia,” Beale says.
Pickleball Association Australia – which sits outside the Tennis Australia organisation – reports it has 16,000 registered players, roughly doubling its membership annually in recent years. Chair Jen Ramamurthy believes many like her have enjoyed tennis in their youth and are now drawn to a game that isn’t as demanding on their bodies but just as fun, skilful and competitive.
“You’re getting to see a lot of people in that older demographic that are picking up pickleball, but they have left tennis, and Tennis [Australia] are aware of that,” Ramamurthy says.
Beale says there is little or no cannibalisation between formats like pickleball and padel (pronounced “pa-DEL”), or even with traditional tennis. “They are fundamentally different products and different experiences,” he says.
“We do see padel more for the skill seekers, it’s slightly more of a premium and a niche product. For pop tennis [another format using paddles and low bounce balls], it’s more for our fun casuals. And for pickleball, it’s really for those sport explorers, particularly the older adult around a general non-judgmental stage, and the tagline is ‘anyone can pickleball’.”
The government’s flagship sporting survey AusPlay tracked pickleball participation for the first time in results released in October. Around 90,000 combined pickleball and padel players aged 15 or older were counted in Australia.
The new entrant has already managed to attract about half as many players as rugby league or bowls, and exceeds the count for established sports such as rugby union (70,000), baseball and billiards (both 77,000). “Whether you come from squash or badminton or table tennis or tennis, you’ve got skill sets – and they’re all quite different – but they all translate and are easily used on a pickleball court,” Ramamurthy says.
Danni-Elle Townsend was part of the Australian table tennis team until last year, when she took up pickleball full-time. She is now the top-ranked Australian female mixed doubles player and, as a member of the National Pickleball League (NPL) and a participant in the coming Pickleball World Rankings Indian league – which offers a minimum payment of US$15,000 (AU$24,000) – the 21-year-old says she is now financially “comfortable” as a full-timer in the sport.
“Asia is such a big market, they have so many people playing, so I think going to those leagues, those events, that’s where the money will come,” Townsend says. “And then, of course, paddle sponsorship and brands eventually are in the picture for me.”
Adam Thompson founded Pacific Pickleball in 2022 with Anthony Liveris, the son of Brisbane 2032 Organising Committee president Andrew Liveris. Since then it has evolved into an organisation that runs Major League Pickleball Australia (MLPA) – a separate league from the NPL that promises closer connections with its American sibling – as well as the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) Tour Australia.
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He says there are probably 20 or 30 Australians who could now live on their pickleball income. “You’ve got a super fast growing sport, you’ve got these incredible economics of rapid growth players, purchasing gear at all levels,” Thompson says.
Mills, Scott as well as cricketer Steve Smith and former Olympic volleyballer Nat Cook are franchise owners in the MLPA, and Kyrgios has a stake in the Miami Pickleball Club alongside Naomi Osaka and NFL player Patrick Mahomes. Their youthful appeal has drawn others to the sport, and the game – invented in the USA in the 1960s – is slowly growing its appeal from its retiree roots.
Ramamurthy has seen the average age of players drop from somewhere in the 60s several years ago, to where it now is at 55 due to the boom, but there are growing pains. The sport has yet to secure its status as a national sporting organisation in the eyes of the Australian Sports Commission.
She says pickleball needs funding to keep it accessible and ensure infrastructure keeps up with demand, as well as support from Sport Integrity Australia, “which is going to become very, very important for us as all this pro stuff comes about.”
Townsend, who is known to play music on a portable speaker during matches, is happy to find a sport that better suits her.
“This old man called me the Nick Kyrgios of table tennis once, but that’s just because he was losing to a nine-year-old girl and he didn’t like it,” she says. “In table tennis, I was always made to be so professional, or just very mellow, and that just wasn’t me, and I just wanted to have a sport that I could let out some of my personality.”
