匹克球在中国火了：八百万人常打，一年一千场比赛

Have you heard of pickleball?

In the past few years, more and more people in China have been playing pickleball.

In 2023, a student started university in Shenzhen.

He had to pick a sport for his PE class.

He didn't want to play badminton again, and he felt tennis involved too much running and was too tiring.

He watched pickleball videos online and chose pickleball.

In the first class, after the teacher taught for a little while, he could already hit the ball over the net.

He said: pickleball — you just play and you get it.

So what kind of sport is pickleball?

Its paddle is like a ping-pong paddle, but much bigger.

The court is the same size as a badminton court, but the net is much lower.

The ball can bounce on the ground before you hit it back, which is like tennis.

So people call it "three-not-alike."

It's like ping-pong, like badminton, and like tennis, but also different from all of them.

The ball is made of plastic and has lots of little holes.

Pickleball was born in America.

In 1965, on a small island in America, two dads wanted to get their kids moving.

They had a badminton court at home, but not enough rackets.

So they grabbed some other paddles and a plastic ball with holes, and played across the net.

Later they lowered the net, invited the neighbors to play too, and the three families set the rules together.

That's how the sport began.

So from the very start, pickleball was a sport for the whole family.

Now pickleball is very popular in America, and the number of players is growing very fast.

In China, about eight million people play pickleball regularly, and around twenty million have tried it.

Why do so many people like playing pickleball?

First, it's easy to learn — play a little and you've got it.

Second, the court is small and you don't have to run much, so older people can play too.

Third, it's often four people playing together; when a game ends, people waiting on the side can swap in, so it's easy to make new friends.

In Shanghai, one pickleball club already has more than 1,200 members, most of them young people in their twenties and thirties.

There are more and more competitions, too.

In 2024, China's pickleball tour had only eighty-some stops.

This year it has about a thousand, and ninety-nine cities have hosted events.

If a friend invited you to play pickleball, would you go?