US tennis icon and former sexiest man alive, James Blake, defends pickleball on the PicklePod. Blake is an owner in Major League Pickleball and an advocate for the sport. The Twitter trolls have been blowing up Blake’s DMs and he has a message for the haters. Pickleball is here to stay.
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Show Notes:
0:00 Sexiest tennis player alive according to People Magazine
4:30 James Blake ends pickleball vs tennis debate
9:28 Pickleball poaching players before they reach tennis
15:34 Has tennis reached a plateau in the US?
19:29 Roddick proponent and opponent
26:10 See the game up close for true appreciation
28:43 An open ear with Major League Pickleball
33:10 Zane questions if team pickleball is a gimmick
38:05 Let’em yell or make it civil
45:04 Rapid Fire: Tennis stars get graded
49:55 Best predictor of pickleball success
55:22 Pickleball itself is a gimmick according to trolls
59:38 Listner questions for Stop Alzheimer’s Now
17 Comments
Zane rocking the new Pandas gear
Let's goooo
James Blake for President 😂🎉
I love me some Pandas. Best logo for a team has to be the Rocket City Trash Panda's.
Great pod with a great guest home boy James. San Diego PB Rocks!!
Best part of dreambreaker is seeing ppl who don't normally play singles play, and the male vs female matchups. The breakup with starting playing 2 pts is a better idea than doubles in the dreambreaker
James Blake is a total stud! Great program guys!
Court level view in tennis sucks cause you can't see what the player on the other side is doing.
Zane using that dial-up internet connection or what?
We went to San Clemente for the PPA event. My 10 year old competed in his first rated tournament and we watched all the pro matches we could during the weekend. Guess what we watched at night in the hotel room? French Open. My kid was captivated. There's no way he would've given tennis a second glance without his love of Pickleball. So this argument that pickle is taking away a generation from tennis is not written in stone. The two sports can compliment each other. I'm too old to get into tennis but I can play competitive games of pickleball with my son. If he decides he loves tennis, I'll be there every step of the way, cheering him on. I'll be happy that he's staying active, challenging himself, and growing as a person, regardless what sport he chooses
I’d argue that pickleball is bringing more eyes to tennis. Two years ago I could give a bakers shit about tennis, but since pickleball I’ve been more interested in other racquet sports.
Great interview guys. I am willing to put money on Callan not being the worst tennis player on tour.
James Blake is very well spoken and I appreciate hearing his point of view especially about empty tennis courts.
I think part of what keeps the dreambreaker from feeling gimmicky to me is how well the people who don't regularly play singles still manage to do, even against 'real" singles players. If they were always getting destroyed, that'd be a different story
I agree with Dawson, don’t decide at a doubles match sport with the singles performers
I was playing Pickleball at a Tennis facility and stopped to watch some coaches teaching 7 or 8 yo kids to play Tennis. They could barely hit the ball; they just didn't have the strength to hit a Tennis ball well yet. I think Pickleball would be a great starting platform for all racket sports, and then you can decide which sport(s) you want to stick with. Many of my older Pickleball friends play Tennis or Racquetball or Ping Ping or Badminton as well.
And I think what Blake says at about 17:40 about all the options people have affecting the growth of Tennis (or any other activity) is spot on. In a recent college course I took about history, the prof was going on and on about how the younger generations were so lazy, a conclusion he backed up with age distribution of marathon runners through time. I demolished his argument, with one of my main points being that young people today, percentage wise probably don't do as much of any of the older, more traditional activities because of so many options. I wonder how many Parkour runners there were back in the 60's and 70's? If you look at that instead of Marathons, you'd conclude that today's youths are nearly superhuman in comparison with us older athletes.
My mother loved to watch tennis (not a player) but I really couldn't get into watching it until I started playing pickleball about 10 years ago. Now I can really appreciate the strategy of the game. But I don't think I will be taking up tennis, besides the fact that I love Picleball (3-5 days a week), I am 77 years old.😁