Otolaryngologists Say Pickleball, an Increasingly Popular Sport, Helps Them Thrive in Their Specialty

by Cheryl Alkon •

The sport of pickleball, which mixes elements from several other racquet sports, is gaining popularity across the United States. It’s played head to head in either a singles game with two players or in a doubles game with teams of two facing off against each other, much like tennis. Pickleball players use smooth paddles that are larger than ping pong paddles to hit a ball resembling a wiffle ball across a net. The court is close in size to a badminton court.

What’s unique to pickleball is the area closest to the net on each side, called the kitchen; players must stay out of it while they volley the ball back and forth. The ball can cross the net without bouncing or can bounce once. If anything falls into the kitchen during play—such as an errant ball, or even sunglasses or a hat—it’s a point for the other team. The game ends when one side’s point count reaches 11.

According to statistics collected by the 2022 Sports & Fitness Industry Association Single Sport Report on Pickleball and presented by USA Pickleball, 4.8 million people were playing the sport in 2021; there has been an 11.5% increase each year for the past five years.

The people playing include otolaryngologists Bronson C. Wessinger, MD, Todd Lindquist, MD, and Shane White, MD. All three gravitated to pickleball after focusing on other sports, and all say the game has taught them valuable lessons.

“I played tennis my whole life, and my longtime tennis coach got me into pickleball at the beginning of the pandemic,” said Dr. Wessinger, a second-year otolaryngology resident at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. “I was at home in Mobile, Ala., from medical school at Vanderbilt because all classes were remote.” A tennis standout, Dr. Wessinger began playing at age 9, rose up through the United States Tennis Association junior circuit, and ranked as a top player in his state and region—“I believe I peaked at No. 1 or 2 in Alabama and in the 50s in the Southeast,” he said. His school’s varsity tennis team at UMS-Wright in Mobile, was state champion five out of the six years he played with the team.

“While it would be a sin for me to say I didn’t like tennis, I get less frustrated with pickleball,” he said. “Tennis frustrates me because I’ve been playing it for so long. I have much lower expectations for myself on pickleball compared to tennis. There’s no history of the money and time invested like there was for tennis, so I’m OK with having an off day or losing a pickleball match.”