Tennis Channel interrupted the broadcasting of Coco Gauff’s match at San Diego Open to simultaneously show the Pickleball event
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Coco Gauff and an ongoing Pickleball match
Pickleball is one of the fastest growing sport in the United States of America that has gained much popularity with thousands of pickleball tournaments played across the continent with almost 4.8 million people playing the game in the last two years. It has much resemblance to tennis as in tennis racquets are used whereas in pickleball, players use solid faced paddles.
Tennis Channel is the official broadcaster of the San Diego Open, a WTA500 event. But of lately, the channel received a lot of criticism and was questioned for their actions that did not go down well with the tennis fans. During the Round of 16 clash between Coco Gauff and Bianca Andreescu, the channel interrupted the telecast of the match between Gauff and Andreescu and rather chose to show a pickleball event and the tennis match both in split screens.
This was not the only time where the broadcasting of a pickleball match interrupted the tennis matches. During the match between another American Madison Keys against Daria Kasatkina, the same thing was repeated by the Tennis Channel with both the games broadcasted in split screens.
Pickleball has gathered attention with many sportspersons investing in the sport
The popularity of the sport has given the opportunity to many famous sportspersons and legends to buy a team in the expansion plan of the Major League Pickleball that will be played in the 2023 season and become proud owners like the NBA legend LeBron James who is already a part of the game as a team owner.
The recent legends to become owners is the partnership between American football quarterback legend and 7-time Super Bowl champion Tom Brady and the former Belgian tennis player Kim Clijsters who have bought a team in the expansion team that is led by Knighthead Capital. Brady has often been spotted playing the game with his family as it has become a neighborhood game in America and feels it as a good investment because of its popularity.
Pickleball is a fusion between tennis, badminton and ping-pong and is played on the court which is smaller in size as compared to a tennis court. With its growing popularity, it may be a threat to the sport of tennis.
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Prateek Pradhan
(601 Articles Published)