The growth in pickleball is on an explosive trajectory, in part due to it’s social play format. Unlike tennis, where it is common for only 2 or 4 players to organize a match, pickleball is often played in what is know as “Open Play” formats.
Open play is a casual, recreational play format where groups of players, often more players than courts available, show up at a designated time and play and rotate partners over a 2 hour period. When there are more players than courts, players will “paddle stack”.
“Paddle Stack” allows more players to participate than the capacity of the courts. As players finish games, they stack their paddles and wait until a court opens up. This provides players a little break to socialize and get water and since games are only about 10 minutes long, the waits times can be a nice break between games.
Open play formats are pretty common just about everywhere in the country now. In the early days of Pickleball, the open plays were typically held inside gymnasiums at the local YMCA or community rec center and you might have used a signupgenius to register. Today, you can find a couple variations of open play events. The most common open play pickleball format are those held at public park facilities. Often, these are just show up an play formats at a designated time. Some, may have online platforms where you need to register in advance to avoid too many players or to limit play to certain skill levels. The other open play option is organized by an organization or private club. These are typically “paid” programs and require advanced registration and payment on platforms like CourtReserve. While many of the public open play events are free, it can be a box of chocolates in terms of participation and skill levels. The benefit of paid for events is you will have a better idea of how many players are participating and it is a bit more restrictive on skill levels. While most of the the private clubs are member only facilities, it is common to allow guests to come to open play events for additional daily fees to help attract new members.
Finding public open play events can be a bit tricky unless you are a savvy social media stalker. One of the big challenges in pickleball, is the fragmentation and growth pains of the sport. Since there is no true leadership or organization at the national level providing platforms and programming, it is the wild wild west when it comes to organizing open play. Unlike Tennis, where the USTA is the defacto standard for leagues and tournaments, Pickleball is an unmanaged sport, where the players and clubs create the local programming.
Note that the playing level often starts around 2.5, which is a level of a recreational level. These ratings are derived from NTRP tennis ratings and in reality most players are “self rated” which leads to a lot of subjectivity in the ratings. Unless you play tournaments, you likely don’t have an official rating, just a guideline based on what your coach rated you or based on your social and recreational play.
To maximize your play opportunities, players should attend clinics and private lessons until they reach around a 3.0 level (subjective). Before attending any open play events, you should have these minimum skills : get your serve in 90% of the time, return serve 90% of the time with your peer level group and make your third shot 80% of the time. I put together a page that highlights many of the skills that are prerequisite for open play. https://tennisdevelopmentinnovation.wordpress.com/pickleball-group-classes/
Beggining players and intermediate players are ahead to refine and hone the basic sending and receiving skills of the first 3 shots. This video highlights those skills required for the first 3 shots:
I’ve attached a few YouTube clips below of players that are in the 2.5 – 3.0 level, to give some baseline to what those skills look like in a live play format. Each video is only about 5 seconds and I’ve included those clips that represent beginner level.
In summary, open play is for players that understand the rules, the scoring, the etiquette and can play at a level similar to the above YouTube clips. The great thing about pickleball is that you can learn these skills pretty quickly and there can be minimal investment in formal instruction, however I highly encourage regular coaching to avoid picking up bad habits and incorrect technique that might slow down your development. Players will learn a lot from just playing and supplementing your play with a trained coach. Formal training can help you learn the game much faster and open up more opportunities to play. And I’ve found that players that are winning, have more fun 🙂
If you have any questions or would like to schedule a private lesson or clinic, just click this link
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