匹克球在中国火了：八百万人常打，一年一千场比赛

A paddle much bigger than a ping-pong paddle, a plastic ball full of little holes, and a net lower than a badminton net.

That's pickleball, a sport that has taken off fast in China over the past few years.

In September 2023, a student we'll call Joe started his first year at the Chinese University of Hong Kong in Shenzhen.

Choosing a PE class, he didn't want badminton, which he already knew well, and he felt tennis meant too much running and was too tiring.

After watching videos online, he decided to try pickleball.

The first class started with bouncing the ball on the paddle; the professor demonstrated a few times, and he quickly got the ball over the net.

Now he can't remember what his first shot felt like — only four words: just play and you get it.

Pickleball has a nickname: "three-not-alike."

Its paddle is like an enlarged ping-pong paddle, and its court is the same size as a badminton doubles court, about thirteen-plus meters long and six meters wide.

The ball can bounce before you hit it, which is like tennis.

On each side of the net there's a zone a bit over two meters wide that players call "the kitchen"; standing there, you can't volley the ball out of the air.

That rule stops players from smashing at the net all the time, so games depend more on patience and control.

The sport was actually born in a family's backyard in America.

In the summer of 1965, on an island in Washington State, two fathers wanted to find something for their bored kids to do.

They had a badminton court, but not all the equipment, so they grabbed other paddles and a plastic ball with holes and started hitting it across the net.

Later they lowered the net and invited neighbors to play; the three families changed the rules as they played, and a new sport was born.

Today pickleball is hugely popular in America, and has been the country's fastest-growing sport three years in a row.

In China, an estimated eight million people play regularly, and about twenty million have tried it.

Why is it so popular?

First, it's easy to pick up; people with a background in badminton, ping-pong or tennis learn it almost instantly.

Second, the court is small and there's less running, so older people can keep it up.

Most members of one Beijing club are middle-aged or older, and some are nearly seventy.

Third, it's very social.

Doubles needs four players, and when a game ends, people waiting at the side can rotate in.

One Shanghai club has more than 1,200 members, over seventy percent of them young people aged twenty to thirty-five.

And a badminton court only needs a lower net and a few extra lines to become a pickleball court, so the cost is low.

Competitions are multiplying fast.

The China Pickleball Tour had only eighty-some stops in 2024; this year it has grown to about a thousand, and ninety-nine cities have hosted events.

Sports brands like Li Ning and Anta have also started launching pickleball products.

Do you think pickleball will become a sport everyone in China can play, like ping-pong and badminton?