Characters You See In Pickleball Open Play

Unless you’re well established with a private group, or you play at someone’s house all the time, odds are you’re diving into “Open Play” in Pickleball at your local park or club. And open play means you just never know who you’re gonna be playing with or against. The paddle stack can be fickle and set you with any number of people with quirks or odd tendencies.

Here’s a tongue-in-cheek guide to all the characters we see in open play.

• The Illegal Serve player. This could be a new player who slices through a serve or hits a side-arm tennis stroke because they just don’t know any better, or it could be someone who really misses the spin serve and keeps trying to sneak it in despite its ban starting in January 2023. Either way, calling out the Illegal Serve guy in open play can lead to some dented feelings.
• The Line Cheat. This person may be doing it on purpose to take advantage, could be losing their vision and just not know, or could literally not know that “the line is in.” But one or two shady line calls from “Cheatin’ Bob” can really sour a game.
• The Player who complains about Lobs: For some reason, lobbing is sometimes considered unsporting in Pickleball. The #1 ranked Women’s doubles pro melted down at a tournament last fall because she was being lobbed into the sun side of the court. Someone even proposed banning lobs to the USAPA rules committee last year. Lobs are just as much a part of Pickleball as they are in Tennis and the kvetching needs to stop.
• Player who Lobs all the time: This player can be frustrating to play, if only because, hey, we came to play pickleball, which usually involves dinking at the kitchen, not chasing down one lob after another. If you’re lobbing from the baseline on the return of serve, you just need to stop.
• Player who hates bangers: there’s a certain segment of the player base who grew up playing a very slow version of the game and actually get offended if you have the audacity to speed up a shot. I’ve literally had teaching pros criticize me on the court for choosing to attack instead of hitting yet another dink at the net. The game is evolving before our eyes as tennis players move into the sport and paddle technology enables more power, and we’re going to see more “bangers” going forward; get used to it.
• Player who overhits everything: this player may have come from tennis or racquetball and hits everything as hard as they can. Every shot they make either hits the tarp behind the court, blasts someone in the chest (or head!), goes into the net, or ends the rally. They have no concept of a dink or drop, and eliminate the “fun” out of rec play.
• Player who never hits to the better player: We all know this person. Begs to play with the 4.5 guy at open play, and then proceeds to hit *every shot* to the weaker player. It’s open play, not a tournament. Don’t ice out better players, or else they won’t play with you any more. You want to know why the top players in your area don’t go to open play anymore? This is why.
• Guy who hits to the female all the time: a variation of the above, where a mixed doubles situation turns ugly when an aggressive male player blasts balls at a lesser female. Again, this is open play and not a tournament; instead of proving you can overpower someone weaker than you, why not work on your dink game?
• The self-appointed Open Play Coordinator: when there’s too many people for too few courts, you’ll get a “Chad” or a “Karen” who takes it upon themselves to keep things moving, to make sure there’s no cheating the system, and to ensure the proper rotation. These people are helpful … up to a point. But when it starts to sound like the president of your local HOA, its time to take a step back.
• Player who gives out advice but can’t make a shot: this can be aggravating when “Coach Mary” tells you about all the clinics they’ve attended with name-brand teaching pros and feels free to correct your play mid-game, but then can’t execute on simple shots.
• Player who tells you every point what you did wrong. A slight variation from “Coach Mary” above, the one who gives out constant “free advice” to their partner. Helpful tip; unless your DUPR is better than mine, zip it on the court.
• Player who makes two shots in a row and starts talking smack. Easy there bud, you’re not Matt Wright.
• The 3.5 player who signs up for 4.0+ play. Labeling certain times of play as “advanced” or “4.0+” play inevitably leads to players with an over-inflated view of their talents showing up and causing issues for everyone. Telling someone they’re not as good as they think they are inevitably leads to a shouting match.
• The guy who says he’s a 5.0 but screws around the entire game. Hey, sometimes you come to open play and you want a competitive game. So you get paired up with a player who supposedly is a top player, and then they spend the entire game going for crazy shots and purposely leaving balls up and you lose 11-2. Are they just afraid of playing it straight and being exposed for not being as good as they are?
• Player who gives up if they get a weaker partner. I get it; you’ve waited 15 minutes in the paddle line and get matched up with a guy wearing sandals who has played the sport for about 45 minutes. Its open play, you have to take the good with the bad. At least try; we’re all adults here.
• Player who thinks they’re too good to play with lesser players: this player has an outsized opinion of their own talents and, frankly, shouldn’t be at open play to begin with. Often budding teaching pros or paddle reps who are trolling rec play for customers, but can turn off these same players by arrogantly declining to play with them when asked.
• Mr. Furious. This player is mad they missed a shot, mad that someone hit it at their body, mad about a line call, mad about the ball you’re using, mad about the wind, mad about the court condition, mad about the sun. Lighten up Francis; its a game.
• The group who doesn’t realize there’s a court rotation. There’s 20 people waiting, but a small group camps out on a court as if its theirs for the afternoon. They usually bring all their bags and stick them along the fence, and often times have grandma sitting in the corner watching them play instead of using the bench outside. It is never an easy conversation convincing them that they have to leave after 15-20 minutes when there’s 40 people waiting to play.
• The husband/wife pair who bicker mid-game: have an argument about something last night? Let’s continue the argument on the court today! That’ll make for a fun day for everyone involved.
• The husband/wife where the husband corrects wife after every point. We’ve all seen this train-wreck in action, a cringe-worthy stream of corrections on the court where a more experienced husband tells his beginner wife (who is probably playing just to placate Hubby in the first place) what they did wrong after every mistake.

Pickleball communities endeavor to be inclusive and social, to prioritize fair play, and the rulebook even has “guidelines” throughout that foster the same.

Don’t be one of these people.

(did I miss any? DM me in the comments)