| Pickleball in Australia | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Governing body | Pickleball Australia Association |
| Nickname | PAA |
| First played | 2010 |
| Registered players | 16,729 As of 5 February 2025[update][1] |
| Clubs | 267 |
Pickleball, a paddle sport that combines elements of tennis, badminton, and table tennis,[2] was invented in the United States in 1965, onBainbridge Island,Washington. Labeled the fastest growing sport in the United States since 2021, the sport is rapidly gaining popularity in Australia.[3]
In September 2024 AusPlay, a report issued by Australia's Clearinghouse for Sport, in coordination with theAustralian Sports Commission, found that as of June 2024 over 92,000 Australians had played the sport in the previous year.[4] Trilogy Funds, thetitle sponsor for the 2024 Australian pickleball championships, declared pickleball as, "Australia's fastest growing sport".[5]
The first time pickleball is known to have been played in Australia was in 2010 in theSunshine Coast Region ofQueensland, but it wasn't until 2015 that the sport started to be taken more seriously. The first purpose-built Australian pickleball courts were installed in 2016, inCaboolture, Queensland, with the first pickleball association, the Pickleball Association of Australia (PAA), formed in 2017. The original Pickleball Association of Australia was renamed the Pickleball Association of Queensland (PAQ) in 2020, when a new Pickleball Association of Australia was formed to act as the national governing body for Australia.[6]
From January 24th to the 26th, at the end of the2025 Australian Open tennis tournament, theAustralian Open (AO) held its firstAO Pickleball Slam tournament with one hundred thousand dollars in prize money.[7]
ThePickleball Australia Association (PAA), anot-for-profit organization, was formed in 2020 to act as a nationwide governing body for pickleball.[1] The PAA held its firstPickleball Australia State Member Strategy Conference in February 2025.[8]
The PAA state members include the following subnational organizations:[9]
The following reflects the pickleball-related statistics reported in Pickleball Australia's Annual Reports.[10]
| Report year | PAA members | Female members | Male members | Avg member age | Players nationwide |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019/2020 | 967 | ||||
| 2020/2021 | 2,000+ | ||||
| 2021/2022 | 3,800+ | 57% | 42% | 59 | 12,000+ |
| 2022/2023 | 7,300+ | 55% | 44% | 57 | 25,000+ |
| 2023/2024 | 15,166 | 53.7 | 45.8% | 56 | 92,641 |
Arating system assigns each player an individual score based on their skill level. Their skill level can be assessed by evaluating the player against a standard table of progressively harder skills, or assigned using analgorithm based on actual game results. In March 2025 the PAA announced that theDynamic Universal Pickleball Rating system (DUPR), would be the official rating system for all PAA sanctioned tournaments.[11]
Aranking system lists all players, or teams, in a hierarchical order based on accumulated points they earn at each tournament they play. In 2024 the PAA implemented its first nation-wide pickleball ranking system and revised it in 2025. Each PAA sanctioned tournament is assigned a tier level, 1 through 6, and each tier level awards points to players based on their placement in the tournament. The higher the tier, the more points that are available.[12]
The National Pickleball League Australia (NPLA) was established in January 2023, with its inaugural tournament held in July 2023 on theGold Coast.[13] The NPLA's first full season started in March 2024 with 18 teams across 3 states, each team having 6 players (3 men and 3 women). The competitions consisted of a specialized team format called NPLeague with a total prize of $100,000.[14] The finals for season 1 were held in June 2023 with the Jalapenos of Victoria winning the $50,000 top prize.[15] The Season 2 NPLA finals was won by the Queensland Caterpillars in November 2024.
On October 23, 2024, it was announced that the NPLA would be the exclusiveOceania league and tournament provider forPickleball World Rankings (PWR). NPLA tournaments will be incorporated into the PWR World Tour where participants can earn points to qualify for the PWR World Series.[16]
Pacific Pickleball, and thePacific Pickleball League, were founded by Adam Thompson andAnthony Liveris.[17] In September 2023, shortly after the Pacific Pickleball League was established, the organization worked out a cooperative agreement withMajor League Pickleball in the United States, and the Pacific Pickleball League was rebrandedMajor League Pickleball Australia (MLPA). All games are played following theMLP team format established by the MLP in the United States. Pacific Pickleball continued to operate the Australian Open and Masters pickleball tournaments following the traditional tour format.[18]
In February 2024 the Pacific Pickleball organization was itself rebranded as thePPA Tour Australia after reaching an official partnership with the Professional Pickleball Association Tour in the United States.[19]
The Australian Pickleball Championships (APC) have been held since 2018, except 2020 and 2021, when the event was cancelled due to theCOVID-19 pandemic.[20][10]
Professional pickleball made its first appearance at theAustralian Open in 2025 with a $100,000 prize purse. Theinvitational tournament had a total of 24 players, including many of Australia's top pros, as well as select international players. A team-based format with two men and two women on each team was used, with a total of six teams. Team names were selected fromMelbourne's most popular laneways.[21]
| Final result[22][23][24] | Team name & color | Male players | Female players | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st place | Hosier - Pink | Joseph Wild (AUS), Harrison Brown (AUS) | Michaela Haet (AUS), Nicola Schoeman (AUS) | |
| 2nd place | Guildford - Green | Zach Taylor (USA), George Wall (AUS) | Roos van Reek (NLD), Caroline Dhenin (FRA) | |
| 3rd place | Finders - Charcoal | Armann Bhatia (IND), Lucas Pascoe (AUS) | Danni-Elle Townsend (AUS), Selina Turulja (AUS) |
In 2024 Australia-ownedMoose Toys began selling Pickleball Blast, a table-top game inspired by the sport of pickleball.[25] The two-player children's game requires players to use a hand-held mechanical paddle to hit a plastic pickle back and forth over a net while trying to flip the lids of the opponent's pickle jars.
Pickleball in Australia is governed by the Pickleball Australia Association (PAA), which aligns its rules and regulations with the Global Pickleball Federation's standards. The official rules are detailed in their Pickleball Rulebook, accessible through the PAA's website. You can also find a more simpleguide to pickleball rules in Australia on the PAA's website.
| Pickleball by county | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Governing bodies |
| ||||
