In This Issue…
🎉 2024 Resolutions
🎾 The many new balls you’ll see on your courts
📆 Programming this week
🏞️ New Courts in Development
🤩 Pickleball Pro Tour Begins streaming today

Plan Ahead: What a storm we just had. We hope everyone managed to stay safe and dry. The rest of the week will see mid-40s to 50 temperatures, with wind picking up over the weekend on Saturday and Sunday. Watch out for the steep temperature drop on Sunday. Next week will see temperatures dip below freezing, so make sure you book all your indoor play ahead of time!

Pickleball Court Closures: Since 2024 started, we’ve lost access to the courts at North Meadow Handball Court (97th and Central Park) as well as the two courts at Roosevelt Island.

Forward this to your favorite NYC pickleballers to keep them in the loop!

Happy New Year!

We hope you all had a healthy and happy start to the New Year. We’d love to hear some of your resolutions if you have them, especially if they’re related to pickleball!

For us, one of our resolutions is to continue to work on our physical mobility and wellness. It’s a terrifying thought for us to imagine being sidelined by a serious injury. We’ve had many already in our community who have had to deal with long-term injuries that have kept them off the court. We’re continuing to work with Fit Club New York and their team of physical therapists to work through injury recovery and injury prevention. Let them know you’re part of our community and you’ll get discounted assessments and PT sessions, on top of whatever your insurance covers. They have locations in Williamsburg, Dumbo, Chelsea, and Astoria.

I would also love to start playing in tournaments again! The last tournament I played in was nearly a year ago and I miss being in the trenches with a partner and the commitment of drilling and shoring up weaknesses. If you’re a 5.0 player looking to play some tournaments this year let me know at [email protected].

The Balls, They are A-Changin’

As if pickleball as a sport wasn’t changing enough, now we’re looking at new balls entering the market that consumers will need to consider. I’ve written a blog post detailing the differences between the current market leaders, the Franklin X-40 and the Durafast 40, and then go into the reasons why three brand new balls will make an immediate impact on what types of balls you may encounter on the pickleball courts.

Find out which balls you should know about heading into 2024.

DEAL ALERT: Franklin is having a Buck a Ball promo deal right now on their website. The only problem is that the internet gave them the hug of death and they are working on getting back online. It is only happening today, so keep refreshing their website to see when balls are back in stock. This is the lowest price we’ve ever seen X-40s so grab em if you want em. When we hear that the site is back up, we’ll post an update on our Instagram @nyc_pickleball.

Programming this week

Thursday 1/11: Morning Advanced Open Play and Advanced Drill Session (Major Owens)
Friday 1/12: Morning Advanced Beginner Drill Session (Stuydome) and High Intermediate Open Play (Major Owens)
Saturday 1/13: Evening 6-8 PM Advanced Beginner Open Play and Intermediate Open Play (Stuydome)
Sunday 1/14: Evening 4-6 PM Advanced Beginner Open Play and Intermediate Open Play (Stuydome) with
Monday 1/15: Morning Intermediate Drill Session (Stuydome)

We also have a few more spots in our 4-week development league for 3.0+ players starting on January 21st. This league will focus on the fundamental skills and techniques to get low intermediate players on the right track to 3.5 and above play.

New Courts in development for Brooklyn

The Community Board 2 of Brooklyn (which covers Downtown Brooklyn, Boerum Hill, Brooklyn Heights, Fulton Ferry, DUMBO, Vinegar Hill, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, and the Brooklyn Navy Yard) has been in discussions to renovation and redesign Commodore Barry Park. The current approved design features 2 enclosed pickleball courts in the heart of the park.

You can review the entire plan and presentation here. Completion is estimated to be by 2026, which seems like a long time to wait for 2 pickleball courts, but overall the park proposal looks stunning.

Pickleball Pro Tour Begins this Week

It’s been a long off-season since the last pro pickleball events, so enthusiasts are excited to see the PPA back in action this week in sunny Palm Springs, CA.

There are a lot of new things happening this week that should be interesting to watch out for:

• Several former tennis pros making a splash including Jack Sock, Donald Young, Chao Yi Wang, and Genie Bouchard

• New Vulcan balls as mentioned in our blog post

• New serve rule being tested at the pro level - no more tossing the ball up, even on a volley serve. Ball must be dropped from hip height.

• New progressive draw schedule, much like tennis where each day is one round of each event. So instead of one day being all gendered doubles, you can watch all the events throughout the day.

The round of 32 will start being live-streamed this afternoon around 3 PM EST, so be sure to tune in and watch! We have former NYC resident Alex Neumann making a run in men’s singles as we speak.