Pickleball in Canada

One of the comments I often hear about Apike pickleball paddles is that they give players who use them an unfair advantage over players who do not use them. However, since every pickleball player has the option of purchasing an Apike, I don’t see any validity in that argument.

Would a tennis player using a 21st-century graphite tennis racquet have an advantage over a player of equal skill wielding a racquet from the Jimmy Connors era? Sure he would. But why would anybody today choose to play with a wooden, fiberglass or aluminum racquet when graphite tennis racquets are so readily available?

Racquet technology moves on. So does the technology of pickleball paddles. The days of garage-manufactured 2G pickleball paddles are ending. It’s only a matter of months until major brands like Wilson, Babolat, Prince and Head start mass producing pickleball paddles in their Chinese factories and begin flooding the North American market with 3G paddles that will look and feel like Apike, Hush and Edge.

Apike and other 3G pickleball paddles do allow players to hit harder. Compared to most 2G paddles, Apike can give intermediate to advanced players a power increase in the range of 3 to 6 mph. However, this does not necessarily translate into an advantage. As every top player knows, the harder you hit the ball, the more likely it is to go out.

At the Canadian National Pickleball Championships in Calgary in 2011, all of the top players and/or teams used 3G pickleball paddles. In fact, everyone who went home with a medal played their championship match with an Apike. Yet, spectators who witnessed the tournament unfold will tell you that power had nothing to do with victory.

Nobody won a gold medal for hitting hard in Calgary. Rather, the winning teams all won because they outplayed their opponents and placed the ball where they wanted to place it.

That, to my mind, is why 3G paddle users dominated the Canadian National Pickleball Championships in 2011. Apike and Hush paddles provided players with the consistency they needed to compete at the highest levels.