How to Provide for Pickleball Without Taking Away From Tennis
After Tampa, Fla., started converting tennis courts for pickleball use, the city’s actions captured the attention of the U.S. Tennis Association (USTA)—in a good way.
While demand for pickleball facilities was high, Tampa chose not to purpose-build new courts designed specifically for pickleball. For one thing, “we didn’t have millions of dollars” for such an undertaking, and while large pickleball complexes might work in other places, Tampa is a large, sprawling city, said Heather Erickson, a manager with the Tampa Parks and Recreation Department. It made more sense for equity’s sake to sprinkle smaller facilities throughout the city, “making sure every neighborhood has access to pickleball,” she explained.
Just as important: providing widespread access to pickleball without taking away opportunities to play tennis, which is hugely popular in Tampa.
That meant never adding pickleball lines to a standalone tennis court (a practice that, in certain circumstances, the USTA actually does not oppose) or to high-use or tournament-hosting tennis facilities. And at multicourt tennis facilities where conversions were possible, no more than half of the courts were striped for pickleball, and fencing was installed where necessary to separate the two sports.
“We were adamant about not taking away opportunities for tennis players just to satiate demand for pickleball,” Erickson said.
That’s why Tampa received a formal, favorable Park Agency Tennis Assessment from the USTA.
To be clear, the USTA’s stance is that, ideally, tennis and pickleball should have their own separate, dedicated spaces because both sports are in growth mode. In the recreation world, pickleball is an up-and-comer, but tennis is hardly a has-been. In fact, a 2023 National Tennis Participation Report found that 23.6 million people played tennis at least once in 2022, compared to the 8.9 million people who picked up a pickleball paddle.
In an attempt to satisfy both parties, the cheapest option is to just put some pickleball lines on a tennis court and designate it for dual use. But this can lead to conflicts and complaints if tennis players and pickleball players end up vying for use of that shared court.
At shared courts with open-play access, “We find that pickleball tends to just take over the site,” said Todd Carlson, a director within USTA’s Infrastructure Services division. “I’m sure it’s not intentional, but it tends to drive tennis players away because they don’t want to play among the denser, noisier courts occupied by pickleball players.”
The USTA has put out a Statement of Guidance to ensure the two sports can coexist and that recreation managers can responsibly keep up with demand for each. Through its Tennis Venue Services arm, which Carlson directs, the USTA provides grant dollars along with masterplan and design assistance for projects involving tennis, ensuring the “sport of kings” doesn’t get short shrift due to budget constraints. The organization also offers advisory support for pickleball delivery, designed in part to help rec managers avoid “knee-jerk” reaction to “squeaky wheel” demands from the pickleball-playing population, Carlson said.
The USTA plugs local demographic data as well as the Physical Activity Council’s latest figures on sports and recreation participation into a computer model to determine the true demand and growth trajectory for both sports in a given area. From there, the organization can help determine infrastructure and programming needs, as well as the community impact of a proposed project.
Nationally, USTA breaks down into sections and then into districts, each with its own polices about dual-use courts. Some prohibit adding pickleball lines to tennis facilities that host leagues or tournaments, while others have allowed it. But the sections all agreed that striping tennis courts for shared use with pickleball works best at sites with just one or two existing courts, and pickleball lines should be added in such a way that doesn’t detract from the game of tennis. (For example, yellow lines are a definite no-no.)
The USTA asks that public park agencies consider two other options before converting tennis courts. The first is creating sport-specific sites. Where that is simply not an option, both tennis and pickleball can be played and enjoyed in nontraditional spaces, according to the Statement of Guidance. Look at all hard surface areas for possible conversion, such as a concrete slab, multisport court sites or vacant parking lots.
“They did a great job with this in Tampa,” Carlson said. For example, “They saw an opportunity at an outdoor rink that had a lot of cement around it and built pickleball courts on that hard space.”
Tampa also relocated bleachers at another site and converted the bleacher pad into courts.
Now, Carlson points to Tampa as an exemplar of how to cater to pickleball and tennis players alike. “I tell everybody across the country, ‘Hey, talk to Tampa. They really thought through how they were going to go about this.”