Casey Doyle
A pickleball paddle wall at any big box store looks the same at every price point: bright graphics, words like "power core" and "spin technology," and prices that can vary several times over from one paddle to the next. Nothing on the shelf tells you what that price gap buys, or whether the cheap one ... Read more
Pickleball is harder on your knees than it looks. The court is small, so most of your movement is quick lateral shuffles and sudden stops rather than long straight sprints, and that side-to-side loading is exactly what stresses the ligaments and cartilage around the knee. Add in the sport's skew toward players in their 50s, ... Read more
A worn-out factory grip makes a pickleball overgrip an urgent buy. Your hand starts sliding at 4-3 in the third game, you choke up on the handle to compensate, and suddenly your third shot drop (a soft shot that lands in the kitchen so the serving team can move up to the net) lands three ... Read more
Choosing between an elongated and a standard pickleball paddle is one of the first real decisions a player faces once they move past their first cheap paddle. It's easy to get confused because both shapes still look roughly rectangular at a glance. The real difference comes down to how a fixed amount of paddle surface ... Read more
How long a pickleball paddle lasts is one of those questions with no single answer, because two people can buy the exact same paddle and get wildly different results. One person plays three times a week in Arizona heat, and the paddle feels dead in eight months. Another plays once a week in a climate-controlled ... Read more
The 14mm vs 16mm pickleball paddle question comes up constantly once a player outgrows their first cheap paddle. It's easy to see why. Nearly every serious paddle line today, from the Onix Mayhem to the Selkirk lines to a dozen smaller brands, sells the same shell in two or three core thicknesses. The number refers ... Read more
Padel vs. pickleball confusion is constant, and it's not just the similar-sounding names. Both are paddle sports growing fast right now, both are usually played in doubles, and both use a solid paddle instead of a strung racket. From across a parking lot, a padel court and a pickleball court can look like variations on ... Read more
If you want to clean a pickleball paddle without damaging it, the short answer is: use less product than you think, applied the right way. A pickleball paddle that has not been wiped down in a month is not just dirty. It generates less spin, and depending on what is on the face, it may ... Read more
A good pickleball paddle cover is cheap protection for a paddle that spends more time getting knocked around than most players realize. It rides loose in a gym bag, bounces off a car floor mat, sits in a hot trunk between matches, and gets tossed on a bench between games at the rec center. None ... Read more
Most new players never think about how to hold a pickleball paddle until it starts costing them points. They grab a paddle the same way they'd grab a hammer, and that's not a terrible start. But there's a real difference between a grip that gets you through your first open play session and one that ... Read more