Nick Kyrgios, tennis pros blast tennis vs pickleball tweet
A pickleball player has sparked a massive response after a tweet comparing the skills needed in his sport with professional tennis.
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A top-ranked pickleball player has sparked a cavalcade of ridicule over a viral tweet comparing his sport to professional tennis.
Pickleball, a sport using paddles and a court half the size of a tennis court, has exploded in popularity in recent years.
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A number of retired tennis professionals have turned to the sport and former college tennis player Christian Alshon is now one of its better players, currently ranked fifth in the year-long competition race and No. 12 overall.
The 24-year-old decided to take to X, formerly Twitter, to compare the two sports.
“Pickleball has made me a much better athlete than tennis ever did,” he wrote.
“Faster reaction time and speed are needed since the ball is only coming from 10 feet away.
“Point for point, pickleball requires more skill than tennis.”
The tweet has garnered almost 500 replies to date, including a number from current and former tennis pros.
The first reply came from Australia’s Nick Kyrgios, making no mistake of his opinion on the hot take.
“Yeah. Let’s hide under the bed after this statement hahahaha,” he replied.
“Bro, get me the best pickleball player and compare his talent to Roger Federer. Wild tweet, wild thought. Delete right now.
“I love pickle. But you had too many tequilas.”
Alshon himself has not shied away from his take, pinning it to his X profile and firing back at some of his critics.
Former world No. 4 James Blake was among those to take shots at Alshon’s tennis career.
“That might be because you were playing a pretty low level of tennis,” he wrote.
“Maybe if you were familiar with the athleticism it takes to excel at the sport you would realise how ridiculous this statement is.”
Andy Roddick, the 2003 US Open champion, wrote what many agreed with in terms of endurance and stamina required in the sports.
“Also one requires running and matches that last an hour or more,” he wrote.
He also called Alshon’s take “one of the most ridiculous things on Twitter” and called it a “dumb conversation”.
Former top-ranked pros like Roddick, Andre Agassi and Steffi Graf have been seen on pickleball courts in recent times.
Ex-professional Tara Moore had a solid point in her reply to Alshon’s tweet.
“You could take any professional tennis player and put them in pickleball and they’d hold up,” she replied.
“I don’t think you could say the same for the opposite way around.”
A great number of people implored Alshon to delete his tweet, including Australia’s former doubles champion Rennae Stubbs.
Others thought it may have even been an April Fool’s Day tweet, although it dropped on April 2 in the United States.
Alshon, who appears to be relishing the attention, finished off with a challenge to Kyrgios.
“We’ve barely scratched the surface of pickleball’s potential,” Alshon wrote.
“Imagine if pickleball had more athletes like Federer, Djokovic, and Alcaraz. Then we could compare.
“Come to pickleball, you might be able to break the Top 10.”
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