Pickleball is now the “fastest growing-sport in the world” and the obsession seems to have taken over in just the last few years in many countries including the UK.

But pickleball was invented more than 50 years ago in Washington state, USA.

Pickleball only exists today because a man and his friends put their heads together and got creative when they didn’t have the necessary materials to play badminton.

On a summer afternoon in 1965, Joel Pritchard and his friend Bill Bell were trying to find an activity that their families could enjoy together. They ended up using ping pong paddles, a badminton net, an asphalt court, and a wiffle ball.

The families initially tried playing the game like badminton with the net higher off the ground but soon discovered that the game was more fun when the net was lower so they created the rules for their newly developed game.

The game pickleball was named after the founder’s dog, “Pickles,” who kept running off with the ball between plays. This led to it affectionately being called “Pickle’s ball,” and later “Pickleball.” This is the most favoured answer to the unique name.

There have been some very interesting rule changes over the years in pickleball. Originally, the non-volley zone (NVZ), now called the kitchen, was 6 feet, 6 inches from the net, like in badminton. However, this was changed for safety reasons so they moved the kitchen line back another 6 inches. So now our pickleball kitchen is 7 feet wide.