An Overlooked Pioneer in Racket Sports

Imagine smacking a deflated tennis ball while sliding through sand that worked its way into every cracked surface on a shrunken-down tennis court. The sun is blazing, sweat drips, and your bikini top and gym shorts are barely holding on. This is paddle tennis: fast, scrappy, and full of fire. For over a century, the game has rallied players who thrive on its grit, speed, and close-knit community.

Paddle tennis was invented in 1898 by Frank Peer Beal – then a teenager in Michigan. A few decades later, he moved to New York City and officially founded the United States Paddle Tennis Association in 1923. His goal? To create a sport that kids could play in crowded urban neighborhoods. He shrank the tennis court, swapped traditional racquets for solid paddles, and used a softer ball. The result: a fast-paced, easy-to-learn game built for community — and it took off.

While paddle tennis was born in New York, the sport found its soul in Venice Beach, California, starting in the 1940s. Introduced as part of the city’s beachside recreation push just steps from the ocean, the game took root and quickly developed its own fast-paced, gritty West Coast flavor. The Venice courts draw all kinds of people — locals, tourists, actors, athletes, and everyday legends. Over the years, familiar figures like Andy Roddick, Arthur Ashe, and even Serena Williams’ coach – Patrick Mouratoglou – have dropped by to play.

“I’ve played with the best – pros, legends, (Hollywood) stars. Out here, it doesn’t matter,” says Marcus Canillas, a longtime Venice pro player and coach known as Hit With Marcus. “What matters is your game and how you show up.”

Despite appearances, paddle tennis – also known as pop tennis – is not dying. In fact, it boasts more players now than at any point in its 127-year history, with nearly 2 million players worldwide. Thanks to social media and renewed interest, long-standing courts and communities have surfaced across the globe. What’s under threat isn’t the sport itself, but its historic footholds. In Venice, local players are fighting to protect legacy courts from the rapid encroachment of pickleball.

Born in 1965 on Bainbridge Island, Washington, as a backyard family game, pickleball has become the fastest-growing sport in America, helped by slick branding, celebrity fans, and major investment. Its rise has cast a long shadow, creating the illusion that other paddle sports are fading. In reality, the pickleball boom has opened doors — elevating paddle sports of all kinds. Once-exclusive tennis clubs are now updating their courts to include paddle sports like POP Tennis, pickleball, and padel, and new backyard and residential courts are appearing across the United States.

That growth hasn’t come without friction. Pickleball’s rapid expansion has led to contested shared use of existing courts. In Venice – where POP Tennis players have battled for decades – the legacy courts show wear: cracked pavement, broken gates, and fading lines, yet funding for restoration remains elusive. While no city council has formally converted paddle tennis courts into exclusive pickleball courts, a few have been designated for shared use during specific times. Still, some pickleball players defy these rules – adding temporary lines, altering net heights, and playing outside allotted hours. The result is rising tension. As lines blur, so do boundaries. Some enthusiasts treat these courts as their own, often ignoring the history and heritage embedded in the asphalt, but the paddle community refuses to fold.

Despite the cracked pavement and elusive restoration funding, Venice Beach’s paddle scene endures. Newcomers rent paddles from a beachside booth and earn their place in the game. Some new players sit on the sidelines for weeks before getting invited to a match. Others lose to 70-year-old veterans who’ve been hitting harder and smarter for decades.

The courts mirror the community: cracked but strong. Paddle tennis is fast — much faster than pickleball — and it takes skill and hustle to win. It’s more forgiving to the body than tennis, which means you’ll find people playing into their 60s and 70s. Weather and court conditions also add flavor. Venice’s open-air courts are exposed to sun, wind, and sand. Unlike covered clubs or indoor facilities, here, you adapt or lose. That’s part of the charm and the challenge.

The game is growing, but why isn’t paddle tennis more popular? Some say it’s been held back by a lack of marketing. Others point to internal politics, past scandals, lost tournament funds, and inconsistent leadership. The biggest barrier; however, has been its identity crisis. 

Over the years, three different paddle-based sports — paddle tennis (now POP Tennis), platform tennis (1928), and the international sensation padel (with 25+ million players globally), have all been casually referred to as “paddle” or “paddle tennis.” The confusion has been creating problems for decades.

“Padel and platform tennis are frequently referred to as paddle and paddle tennis, which led to a lot of confusion in many parts of the country,” says Mitch Kutner, President of the International POP Tennis Association. “That’s one of the reasons we rebranded paddle tennis to POP Tennis – we wanted to honor its roots while helping it stand apart.”

That name change helped, but confusion still lingers. Search 'paddle tennis' online or on social media, and POP Tennis might only appear once in every 25 results. Add to that the popularity of related sports like platform tennis — in online searches, the paddle sports scene becomes even harder to navigate. 

Not to mention some players still refuse to call it POP Tennis: “There’s POP Tennis on paper, but on the courts? It’s still paddle, and always will be,” says one Venice regular. For these die-hards, paddle tennis thrives as they see it as not just a game, but as an integral part of American history — a place they call home. 

Canillas reminisced, “I dream of the day when tournaments draw real crowds and prizes hit $50,000, like the Pop Paddle Tennis Kings of Venice Tournament. It’s not about the money. It’s about getting the sport out there and Venice on stage.” 

That tournament – once the crown jewel of paddle tennis – brought together top players from around the country and helped revive excitement around the game. Since then, local players have been working hard to keep the sport alive – pushing for new court signage and petitioning the City of Los Angeles to recognize paddle’s legacy in Venice with proper maintenance and support.

Beyond California, the spirit lives on in places like New York, where most POP Tennis play happens at Peter Cooper Village & Stuyvesant Town in Manhattan or Jones Beach on Long Island. Meanwhile, in Florida, the annual POP Tennis tournament in St. Augustine continues to draw passionate players from across the U.S., proving the sport still has national roots and reach.

Increasingly, POP Tennis is also showing up in unexpected places indoors and outdoors with dedicated courts and growing communities in countries like Japan, Italy, Sweden, India, parts of the Middle East, Australia, and New Zealand. The sport is also gaining global recognition through high-profile appearances including the international RacquetX convention and its return to the 2025 Australian Open for the third year in a row.

“You don’t just play paddle or POP tennis,” Canillas continues, “You live it. You put everything you got into keeping it in the spotlight. Your time, your sweat, your voice.”

As long as there’s sun, sand, and hitters like Canillas chasing down every point, POP/paddle tennis isn’t going anywhere. Not in Venice. Not ever.

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