Every year during the run-up to the Wimbledon Championships, I receive numerous emails from the All England Club. The event’s promoters masterfully blend information about the tournament’s rich history with marketing items. I open and read all their communications. This year, one of the tidbits they shared stopped me cold. It was something that I already knew, but this year, it hit a little differently.
When tennis was first added to the All England Croquet Club in 1877, the space came at the expense of a croquet court. The rest is history. Tennis quickly surpassed croquet in popularity at the club. In 1899, it officially changed its name to the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club. That is still the official name, though one of the C’s is omitted in the AELTC acronym. It isn’t clear if the missing C is croquet or club.
As I compiled my annual list of upcoming USTA grass court tournaments for yesterday’s post, I was struck that almost all the venues are still identified as cricket and croquet clubs. Additionally, one site was first a fox hunting club. Unlike the AELTC, many of this year’s host sites didn’t add tennis to their names. That’s pretty cool and a rare example where reverence for tradition on this side of the pond seems to exceed the AELTC’s willingness to name itself for an upstart sport. Just sayin.
Currently, as pickleball mania sweeps the nation, the majority of new courts for that sport are coming from converted tennis courts. I am starting to wonder if this phenomenon mirrors the historical shift from croquet and cricket to tennis.
Over the past week, I have imagined how croquet and cricket players might have grumbled about the sudden influx of tennis into their territory. The new sport undoubtedly was harder on the immaculate lawns than the original sports. I am sure the constant thwacking of tennis balls was off-putting and jarring to their ears. I also suspect that even the genteel version of early tennis was less serene than croquet and cricket and created a lot more noise.
In other words, I am wondering if tennis was once just like pickleball.
For what it’s worth, croquet is still played at the AELTC. While the croquet areas are lined as tennis practice courts during the fortnight of the championships, they are converted back to croquet once the tournament ends. Croquet is still considered to be a vital part of the club.
I hope that if pickleball completely takes over tennis, its players will continue to support the sport just as tennis has done for croquet and cricket. However, I worry that pickleball enthusiasts may not muster the appropriate level of reverence and respect. Hopefully, it won’t come to that.
- History – 1870s, About Wimbledon History Resource, Wimbledon.com, last viewed June 21, 2024.
- About the AELTC, Wimbledon.com, last viewed June 21, 2024.
- At the All England Club, they’re also wicket smart, Chuck Culpepper, The Washington Post, July 9, 2022.
That’s an interesting thought and probably somewhat true, though several big differences. Croquet was probably only a rich person’s sport, though the onsite of tennis probably was too, though still somewhat true, nowhere in the initial years. Pickleball is the opposite and one of the cheapest sports around as long as there’s a court, though you could still put a net anywhere on pavement and be able to play with or without lines. The hitting of tennis balls is probably quieter than the hitting of croquet balls, though tennis balls are hit a lot more often during a game/match than croquet balls. Neither are noise population nor anywhere as loud as pickleballs being hit. But yes, I’m sure the croquet players weren’t exactly thrilled with tennis at their clubs in 1877.
It’s hard to imagine pickleball coming anywhere near as popular as tennis. Tennis is a very popular global sport and entertaining to watch. The WTA is likely the more popular women’s sport league in the world. Obviously some people enjoy watching pickleball, but overall watching pickleball is boring. It’s a relatively easy sport to start playing, but not really that interesting at the professional level. While tennis initially took over grass courts, grass court is mostly dead around the world. Tennis is played on hardcourt/clay 99+% of the time. Pickleball can only be played on hardcourt. Tennis is still growing, too. What I’m saying is if croquet was actually that popular or remained very popular, its popularity would’ve continued and/or croquet would be quite a bit more popular than it currently is, which it seems quite very unpopular overall currently.
Anyway, it’s good to have a lot of different sports out there for everyone to find what they enjoy. It is unfortunate that if there is a new sport coming about that it hurts another pre-existing sport, especially if that pre-existing sport is still considerably more popular even when the new sport has been around for awhile now since 1965. Pickleball isn’t a new sport at all actually. And there’s other similar sports like padel, but I guess pickleball is the most popular of these newer paddle games. While in theory I’d like pickleball to continue for those who enjoy it, what I see is that it hurts tennis in many ways so I don’t want to continue or excel at least. The pickleball culture seems quite disrespectful to everyone but themselves, so I have little hope they’d show the amount of respect tennis deserves. Thankfully, I don’t see how pickleball would ever approach overtaking tennis in the slightest. I hope I’m right.