A century-old teaching-pro group thinks a bigger tent—pickleball, padel, squash—is better for tennis: “We is how we grow”

In the future, will we stop saying, I play tennis, and start saying, I play racquet sports?

I asked that question a little more than a year ago, in a story about the mammoth new racquet-sport facilities that have been sprouting up around the U.S., and which now routinely come with courts for tennis, pickleball, padel and platform tennis. No longer, it seemed, would tennis go to war with its increasingly popular little-brother sports. Instead, it would try to feed off their grass-roots energy, and break down the barriers between them.

A year later, I’m back with a related but slightly different question: In the future, are “tennis pros” going to be called “racquet sports pros” instead?

The United States Professional Tennis Association (USPTA), a trade organization that certifies and represents teaching pros, obviously thinks so. Earlier this month, the century-old group changed its name to the Racquet Sports Professionals Association. Aspiring teaching pros can now be certified in five sports: tennis, pickleball, padel, squash, and platform tennis.

The evolution didn’t happen overnight. The USPTA began certifying platform tennis pros in 2017 and pickleball pros in 2020. According to CEO Brian Dillman, the new branding is, at bottom, a recognition of a rapidly shifting business landscape.

“The market was demanding this change,” Dillman says from his office at RSPA headquarters in Lake Nona, Fla., near Orlando.

“Clubs are adding new racquet sports facilities, and we want to take advantage of that.”

Dillman, a former Division 1 college tennis player at the University of Illinois and GM at Wilson Sports, believes “there has never been a better time to be in the racquet sports industry.” For him, the participatory numbers are too clear to ignore. Shifting the emphasis from tennis to racquet sports opens up a bigger potential marketplace for instructors.

“You have 20 million tennis players. You have 55 million racquet-sports players.”

To make his case, he flips the common fear of pickleball on its head. For a decade or more, tennis players have viewed pickle as a sort of invasive species, crowding us out of our own courts while generating all the grassroots passion and media attention.

In Dillman’s more hopeful vision, pickleball is a ground-floor game. It can get racquets and balls into more people’s hands, and get them interested in sports where more training is needed.

“Pickleball is the base of the pyramid,” he says. “You can go out and learn it in an afternoon and start to play right away. Tennis, padel and platform require more skills.”

As more players move between racquet sports, the broadened RSPA hopes to give instructors more sports to teach.

“We want to offer our members the opportunity to round themselves out,” Dillman says. “There’s a lot of learning they can do from other sports, and a chance to change their approach to teaching.”

Pickleball pros, with less technique to teach, will do more event organizing, and focus on match tactics. Padel and squash, which was just added to the RSPA’s certification roster this year, are seen as big areas for growth among pros. Anyone who wants to improve or compete in those sports needs to take lessons.

“Squash has always had strong pockets in the U.S., and now it’s going to be an Olympic sport,” Dillman says. “Padel will grow as facilities grow. Right now, there are more coaches than courts in the U.S.”

That said, tennis remains the heart of the teaching pro business and the racquet sports industry. While pickleball’s meteoric growth has garnered headlines, tennis has also experienced its own, less-heralded renaissance since the pandemic. The two may go hand in hand. This year the US Open, even with increased ticket prices, broke attendance records. It wouldn’t be a stretch to think some of that new interest has come from people who recently picked up a racquet for the first time to play pickleball.

“Tennis is our core,” Dillman says, “and you can’t remove your core.”

Tennis is the core, but it’s no longer the only path to a teaching career.

“Now we can offer a complete suite, and help our members achieve what they want to achieve,” Dillman says.

“The mindset isn’t us vs. them. It’s we. We is how we grow.”