hey guys today's video i want to tell you why i prefer tennis over pickleball but some of you
might remember a video that i released a while ago called pickleball is killing tennis and i'm happy
to report that tennis is doing a lot better i was honestly in that video just reporting on what i'm
seeing on the tennis courts here in southeast florida and often they were empty throughout the
day while pickleball courts were always jam-packed but i'm here to tell you that the situation in
florida has improved regarding tennis courts are now packed throughout the day even in the
tough hours in florida between let's say 11 and 4 o'clock people are still playing tennis i'm
definitely seeing a difference in the amount of tennis that's being played at the recreational
level and when i made that video a lot of you guys had commented how in your part of the country the
tennis situation was quite good i was claiming in that video that you often see people waiting
in line to play pickleball but you hardly ever see that in tennis and you guys especially in the new
york area were telling me that people are waiting in lines to play tennis as well so i do think that
these two sports can coincide while pickleball is absolutely exploding tennis seems to be growing
as well okay so let's get started with why i think that tennis is better than pickleball and remember
all you guys that like pickleball better than tennis i'm gonna get into that in this video you
might be surprised at some of the reasons that i give but nevertheless this is my opinion i prefer
tennis over pickleball for the following reasons the first one is the ball sound here listen to
this see when i hit this ball and see how nice that sounds and then when i put different spins
on it the sound changes and this is something that's really beautiful about tennis and have
you ever wondered why people are in the crowd and not saying a word they're not allowed to
make a beep that's something that's very unique to tennis and john mcenroe once said that players
need to concentrate on the sound of the ball and there is some truth to that if you
take out the sound of the ball if you ever tried to play tennis with headphones it changes
everything we don't always realize how important the sound of the ball is because you're going to
hear a different sound when you hit the ball well and you're going to hear a different sound when
you hit the ball poorly now take a listen here i'm going to hit a flat serve and you hear what that
sounds like and i'm going to hit a slice serve you hear there's a difference there and now a kick serve
three different sounds and i'm able to distinguish between these three sounds now on the other hand
pickleball has a sound that's quite frankly annoying and irritating to listen to now i will
add that when you're actually playing pickleball and you're smacking the ball around it's not
quite as annoying but from the outside is a lot more annoying than tennis i like to compare it
to somebody blowing leaves the sound it makes when you're actually doing it yourself when you're
blowing the leaves it's kind of fun but listening to that sound from the outside is an absolute
nightmare and in my opinion i find the sound that this pickleball thing makes a very
reason why i think tennis is better than pickleball is the drip and to some of you
guys who are older who are watching a drip means basically a clothes and take a look
at how stylish tennis clothes are you see these shoes you see the tennis shorts you see the rafa
shirt you see the federer hat and yes you can wear a rafa shirt and a federer hat now joking aside
tennis clothes have always been cool back in the day with mcenroe and borg when they were
wearing sergio tacchini and fila these were such cool brands that people were dying to get their hands
on some of these clothes and even though the clothes in my opinion in tennis are not as stylish as they
used to be like back in those days i still think that tennis clothes and especially tennis shoes
are maybe the best looking the coolest outfits out of all sports and i guess you could wear
tennis shoes and tennis clothes when you play pickleball but i have to say i've seen some people
playing pickleball that are dressed extremely casually as if they were going to the beach and
in tennis on the other hand there is an etiquette you can't just show up to the court any type of way
a lot of clubs actually have dress codes and generally you do have to wear tennis attire
and not only do i think that there's nothing wrong with that i actually like dressing up for tennis
another reason why i think tennis is better than pickleball is tennis etiquette there is a certain
way you have to behave on the tennis court it's a gentleman sport after all i have played on a
tennis court next to pickleball players many times i often hear hooting and hollering there seems to
be less of the culture of tennis where everybody is supposed to be quiet and everybody is supposed
to behave there it's more i would say party time people are very loud when they play they're having
fun and i'm sure that it's a lot of fun to play pickleball but on a tennis court you can't behave
that way if i played against someone who was hooting and hollering after every single point
it would be extremely annoying why and not that tennis isn't fun but it's just not something
that we're used to as tennis players again it's a gentleman sport we used to it being a gentleman's
sport which means that you have to behave of course some people misbehave on the tennis court as well
but generally speaking people on a tennis court behave differently than they do on a pickleball
court and me personally since i'm used to that on a tennis court i find it quite irritating and this
brings me to the next point why i think tennis is better than pickleball it's the fun factor and
you're going to be surprised because pickleball is a lot more fun than tennis and it relates to the
last point that i made people seem to be having a lot of fun when they're playing pickleball
and people tend to get really frustrated when they play tennis and they don't seem to have
fun at all and you're probably asking yourself nick why would you like that because
here's the thing if you're on a tennis court which is quite a big area and you have two people who
have never played tennis before and they bring a handful of tennis balls and they try to rally
back and forth they don't have any technique to speak of and they're going to have a horrible time
every few seconds they're going to be picking up balls is that fun absolutely not you can step on a
pickleball court even as a beginner you can find a way to start getting that ball back and forth and
getting into a rally the technicality of tennis is far more complex than the technicality of
pickleball and the only way to have fun in tennis is if you learn the fundamentals and you are
able to maintain a rally with your partner then it becomes fun now the next two points that i'm gonna
bring up are huge factors why i think tennis is better than pickleball and the first one
is the professional level there's nothing better in this world than to watch tennis at the pro
level think about all those unbelievable matches between nadal and djokovic or federer and nadal
i'm gonna go out here and say that in my opinion tennis is absolutely the best sport to watch on
tv i know there's a lot of american football fans there's a lot of soccer fans but to me
there's nothing better to watch than a great tennis match on tv now i have tried to watch
professional pickleball on the tennis channel i actually subscribe to tennis channel plus
there's no plug i just love the tennis channel and i have it on my tv pretty much all day long and i
have a section on tennis channel plus that's professional pickleball and i tried to watch
it and yes these players are incredibly good but you know what happens at the professional level
in pickleball because there's really no power in pickleball you can hit that thing as hard as you
want because it has holes in it and it's made out of plastic it's not going to fly that fast
so all it ends up being is a touch and feel game i watch these professional players and it seems that
they're just kind of maneuvering and finessing the ball around the power game is completely missing
from pickleball and that's why in my opinion at the professional level it's less entertaining
to watch on tv compared to tennis the next point i'm going to bring up is the number one reason in
my opinion why there are some tennis courts that are being converted to pickleball that's something
that i don't like to see i don't have any problems with pickleball i think it's great that people
are playing it but it's just kind of sad that tennis courts are being converted into pickleball
in my last video on pickleball there was a few petitions that people put out so that their
local tennis courts don't get converted into pickleball but the number one reason why i think
that this is happening all over the country is that it's a lot easier to find people to
play with in pickleball compared to tennis what i've been able to observe in pickleball is that
independent of your level you can step on a court and join a game pretty easily and now in tennis
this is not going to happen a lot of people hate that about tennis they call players who are
better arrogant cocky for refusing to play with weaker players but i'm going to explain to you
why this is the case see i played high level tennis this means i played tennis for money every
time i stepped on a court there was something on the line you know prize money or i played in
division one college it's a little different but indirectly money was involved as well in form of a
scholarship but in other words for me it would be absolutely impossible to just go out and hit with
someone who's a recreational level player would be an absolute waste of time for me and i wouldn't
do it does that sound that i'm arrogant or cocky not at all it's the same way if i asked rafa or or
federer to play with me they wouldn't play with me because i am obviously not at their level now
the same goes for somebody who's at the 3.0 level who wants to play against the 5.0 the 5.0 is never
going to play a match with a 3.0 because again it is a waste of time now why is that the case
because here's the deal to get to a certain level in tennis whether it be the 5.0 level or the high
level or even the elite level you have to spend an enormous amount of time on crafting your skills
and once you develop those skills and you play it at a certain level now you're going to seek out
players who are of that same level and obviously it's going to be a waste of time for you to play
with someone who hasn't put in all that time who hasn't worked as hard as you and play someone
that you can beat o and o in 30 to 45 minutes so do you understand what i'm saying it's not that
players of a higher caliber are too cocky to play with weaker players it's just that they've put so
much work at their tennis and of course it's very understandable they don't want to waste their time
and play with somebody who's extremely weak and look the same might be true in pickleball to
some extent and it might become even more evident once pickleball continues to grow and once you get
better and better athletes playing pickleball that you're going to see different levels of pickleball
but it appears to me and you can correct me if i'm wrong in the comments that it's a more inviting
game it's a lot easier to pick up a game in pickleball and this is a big advantage for pickleball
over tennis because it is true that in tennis sometimes it's very difficult to find a partner
so you're probably thinking nick why is it an advantage for tennis it's obviously an advantage
for pickleball well in my opinion it's something that i like about tennis because i did put in all
the work into tennis i play tennis every day for many years i can't even count them i spend every
day on the tennis court so there's a certain pride that i carry with myself and not just me
anybody who plays tennis at the high level has that same pride and to all you guys who think
that's not fair i want to be able to play with better players well here's what you have to do
you have to work really hard you have to put in the same amount of work that better players
have put in to reach their level and then you can start playing against better players