Pickleball has won the hearts of Newton’s 50-and-older crowd over the past two years–as a leisurely hobby for some and a high-stakes competition for others.

As early as 7 a.m. year-round, Newton residents hear the click-clacking of red pickleballs hitting the courts, interrupted by spats over game calls and paddle tapping to show good sportsmanship. The players, many of them retired, defy all assumptions about their age group as they march onto the court.

“It’s been kind of crazy to see how big it is here for sure,” said Michael Cornish, assistant director of sports at the Wells Avenue YMCA in Newton. 

Cornish has worked as the assistant sports director there for two years and became the head of pickleball last summer. When he first joined the Y, the sport hadn’t yet made its way to the mainstream in Massachusetts. But he noticed an uptick on the indoor courts in the winter of 2023-24.

“I know I talk to a lot of people who are retiring, and they’re here every day because this is their post-retirement thing,” Cornish said.

The indoor courts at the Wells Ave YMCA can hold up to 24 players, and Cornish says they fill up when the gym opens at 7 a.m., with an additional 20 to 30 picklers standing in line to play. This is the case until around 10 p.m. (earlier on weekend nights) when the gym closes.

“It’s gotten to the point where it’s more popular than tennis,” Cornish said.

With only three indoor courts available, the Church Street YMCA gym in Newton is not a primary destination for local picklers, but the courts still fill up when they’re available, said Paige Willis, the sports and recreation director at Church Street.

“They’re always asking for more, but we have other programming,” Willis said.

Joel Pritchard, a congressman from Washington state, created the sport out of an old badminton court in his backyard to remedy a boring weekend with his family and friends in 1965. Twenty-five years later, in 1990, the game spread to all 50 states, and it continues to grow today.

Pickleball gained even more popularity during the pandemic as an easy way to exercise; it doesn’t involve close contact or extreme physical exertion. Influential celebrities like Leonardo DiCaprio and George Clooney helped popularize the craze when clips of them playing went viral on social media.

“It gives you an objective,” said Agi Sardi, a computer engineer in Newton who plays at the Y up to three times per week.

Sardi says pilates and yoga are just as good of a workout as pickleball, but working with a group motivates her more to get active.

Rich Bryden keeps his focus on the pickleball at the Wells Ave YMCA, Newton. Photo by Wen Qi

Paul Antonellis, who is retired, started playing three years ago, practices an average of five days a week, and participates in tournaments with friends around the area. He said the game does come with risks.

“There’s a lot of injuries,” he said. “I tore two tendons last year. I was out for four months because I gotta let it heal. A lot of people have leg injuries, they fall, yeah, there’s a lot. The orthopedic people love pickleball.”

Toward the beginning of the craze, Cornish says, some players took the game too seriously, which led to fights.

“They’ve gotten better with it as of lately in terms of being able to turn it down a little bit,” Cornish said, “but definitely in the beginning people were getting very competitive to the point where like, you know, me or my supervisor would pretty much have to go on there and warn them that they have to relax a little bit or they can’t play.” 

He recalled an instance when a player let his passion get the better of him.

“I remember these two grown men in their 40s or 50s,” he said. “One of them was going to put away the pickleball net, the other one wanted to keep playing, and they got into an argument that led to a push, led to a couple shoves, and we had to step in and break it up.”

While there have been several instances pushing the boundaries of good sportsmanship, Cornish concedes most players do not resort to violence and stick with trash talk.

Michael Sseksi, 25, a certified nursing assistant in Waltham, plays five times a week with a patient in Newton he cares for. His patient has cognitive issues that affect his personal life, but when he gets on the court, Sseksi says, he knows exactly what to do.

“So that, I think, helps him to keep his mind together, like something that he can hold onto,” said Sseksi, who is originally from Uganda.

After Sseksi began to take his patient to pickleball, he realized that he should join the game and get some exercise instead of watching from the sidelines.

“Whenever I would come in in the morning,” Sseksi said, “they would say, ‘Hi, Michael,’ and I felt like I was home.”

This story is part of a partnership between the Newton Beacon and the Boston University Department of Journalism.