Pickleball (匹克球, ピックルボール, 피클볼)

I don't think pickleball is very popular in the Asian countries yet, but it's exploded here in the US. i've been on record as saying pickeball is just tennis for lazy people, or just a passing fad; maybe I've given it an unfair shake. Just tonight I wandered around on a summer evening....and there was a tennis court, full of pickleball players. No one playing tennis. All pickleball players seemingly having fun, and it hit me: pickleball is a genius invention, and I can't believe I didn't think of it sooner. Tennis is such a frustrating sport, full of chances for errors: you hit it too hard, it goes out. You hit it too flat, it hits the net. you hit it too soft, the other player gets an easy shot. Points end early and often, and there's a HUGE learning curve, especially for serving: I played years and years of tennis and still don't have a reliable serve where you have to hit it overhead into a box diagonal to you, and you have to spin it in because the box is kind of small: very hard to get into it, kind of like violin or computer programming. Pickleball is easy and the complexity that drives tennis away turns into simplicity that draws people into pickleball. That and the camaraderie: pickleball is always played in a group of 4 from what I've seen, and the physical intimacy of the partners does matter. Tennis has doubles too but it's all just one shot kill, the average rally is like 2 shots. Pickleball you get a wider racket, the ball doesn't go as far, people get to hit the ball more. That's really all there is to it: it's more fun. Leave tennis to the professionals on TV like Jan Sinner and Carlos Alcaraz. Pickleball is for the masses. It's probably one of the sports that has the best shot of becoming an Olympic sport; lacrosse and a bunch of other sports try but don't have the mass support. Probably one of the best things to come out of the pandemic. Pickleball is like something I probably would have have thought of when I was younger, like when I worked as a camp counselor during summers after college; a time of creativity and inspiration, where I thought everything was possible and my ideas would be accepted. Before I went to law school and got a MAJOR reality check of what life is really like, most people don't appreciate your ideas, going against the grain is frowned upon, people will only listen to you if you have power or they have some incentive to listen to you (money, fame, attractiveness being some of the most common). Maybe in another lifetime or the 2nd half of this life I'll come up with something genius, that no one else has thought of, that revolutionized how people do things, something as earth-shattering as changing tennis courts everywhere into pickleball courts. Until then, they're just fanciful whims in my head.