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- Why pickleball will break your heart
Why pickleball will break your heart
Explaining the difference between power and pop
Pickleball is set up to break your heart. If you play long enough, feelings of jealousy, sadness and even wanting to quit are inevitable.
But that's also part of what makes it great -- you can't feel sad when things go south unless you built something meaningful in the first place.
Below we offer some tips on how to roll with the ups and downs that pickleball presents.
In this issue:
The kids have arrived on the big stage 🤩
We’re giving away the unreleased RPM Jade 🙌
Where pickleball is growing the fastest 🌏
Sign up for Honcho’s winter leagues 💪
The best paddles for maximum pop 💥
Let’s cook! 👨🏻🍳
HIGHLIGHT OF THE WEEK
Teenagers turn heads at PPA Tour Arizona Open
We’ve been saying it for a while now: The kids are coming. In fact, some of them have already arrived on the biggest stage, and the shots they’re hitting are scary good.
Despite eventually taking the loss against Jack Sock and Augie Ge earlier this week, 15-year-old Maverick Messinger and 14-year-old Francis Chi showcased incredible talent and poise on Championship Court. They took Sock and Ge to a third game and nearly pulled off a huge upset.
Add them to the rapidly growing list of young players to keep an eye on going forward.
🔗 Check out these crazy shots on Instagram, Facebook or TikTok
GIVEAWAY
We’re giving away 8 UNRELEASED RPM Jade paddles
We’ve teamed up with RPM Pickleball to give away EIGHT of their UNRELEASED “ultra spin” Jade pickleball paddles! 💎
The Jade is one of the most hyped paddle releases we can remember, with a new foam core and durable grit surface that is touted to hold up even after several months of heavy play.
We’ve had ours for a couple weeks (review coming soon!), and have been extremely impressed with how it plays.
HOW TO ENTER THE GIVEAWAY
2️⃣ TAG a few friends on Instagram (every tag is a new entry!)
3️⃣ FOLLOW @rpmpickleball and @thekitchenpickleball on Instagram.
The giveaway ends Sept. 23.
🔗 Shop all RPM paddles here — use code “KITCHEN” at checkout for 15% off!
PICKLEBALL GROWTH
The 10 countries where pickleball is growing the fastest
We’ve known for several years that pickleball is growing in popularity all over the world. Now we have the data to see just how fast that growth is happening.
DUPR recently pulled 12 months of new user growth to see where the sport is taking off globally. The data was clear: Pickleball is exploding in Asia. Several countries in the region had growth rates well above what we’ve seen in the U.S. the past couple years.
Below are the fastest-growing pickleball countries, based on DUPR user data.
10. Vietnam: 110% year-over-year growth
9. Malaysia: 120%
8. Singapore: 153%
7. South Korea: 159%
6. Thailand: 170%
5. Japan: 170%
4. India: 182%
3. China: 183%
2. Indonesia: 405%
1. Phillipines: 1,213%
GEAR
The best pickleball paddles for maximum pop
Pickleball paddle performance is a nuanced topic these days.
As paddle technology has become more advanced in recent years, different models and construction methods produce drastically different performance and feel characteristics.
One of the areas where we’ve seen a lot of separation recently is in power and pop. The two phrases used to be synonymous in the paddle space, but that couldn’t be further from the truth in 2026.
WHAT IS POWER?
Think full swings, like third-shot drives and putaways.
The way a lot of paddles are designed now, a bigger swing will activate the core in a different way than a softer shot.
Many refer to this as the “trampoline effect” — the ball is sinking into the paddle, then getting shot back out as the core rebounds.
WHAT IS POP?
Think counters and punch volleys in fast exchanges at the net.
The paddle is doing most of the work for you to produce speed off the paddle face.
Paddles with high “pop” can sometimes be trickier to dial in feel on drops, resets and dinks, because the ball feels like it’s jumping off the paddle face quicker.
PADDLES THAT STAND OUT WITH HIGH POP
RPM Q2: This paddle has a firm, stable feel and is very quick off the face. It’ll definitely put you ahead in hands battles if that’s something you want to emphasize in your game. Shop here — use code “KITCHEN” at checkout for 15% off!
Paddletek Bantam TKO-CX: This is an oldie but a goodie. It came out about 2 years ago, but still tests very high in terms of pop (especially the 12.7mm version). Shop here — use code “KITCHEN” at checkout for 10% off!
Holbrook Fuze: This has been Holbrook’s most popular paddle ever. It uses a “dual density core” that features a low-density foam in the bottom/middle of the paddle and a high-density foam at the top of the paddle and down the sides. This increases stability, so you get a solid strike even on off-center hits. Shop here — use code “KITCHEN” at checkout for 15% off!
FLiK F1: This paddle delivers arguably more overall firepower than anything else on the market. Shop here — use code “KITCHEN” at checkout for 10% off!
HONCHO PICKLEBALL LEAGUES
Registration for winter leagues starts Sept. 21
Registration for all Honcho winter leagues officially opens Monday, Sept. 21, with league play starting the week of Nov. 9. (No league play the week of Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Years). 🥳
🏓 8 weeks of league play.
📍 90+ cities nationwide.
🤝 Beginner-friendly and competitive leagues.
🍻 A great way to meet new people and find a consistent crew to play with.
💰 Early Bird pricing for the first 2 weeks of registration.
🔗 Register here — use code “KITCHEN” for the lowest price
MENTAL GAME
Pickleball will break your heart. It’s designed that way.
“You’ll have fun!”
“You’ll meet people!”
“You’ll compete again!”
All of those things are true about pickleball. But you also will get your heart broken. If you play long enough, it is inevitable.
And the strange, sad feelings you have when it does — the ones you’ve never said out loud because “it’s just pickleball” — are not a sign that something went wrong. They’re a sign you did it right.
THE FEELINGS NOBODY TALKS ABOUT
If you’ve had a partnership or a group change on you, see how many of these you recognize.
Jealousy: Real, hot, embarrassing jealousy — watching your old partner laugh with someone new and feeling something you thought you’d retired in middle school.
DUPR/Court Reserve/PlayTime Scheduler stalking: You know exactly what we mean. Checking their DUPR. Looking at the bracket. Scrolling to see who they played with Saturday. Doing the math on whether the new partnership is going better than yours did. Feeling left out. The Thursday game still exists. You’re just not in it. The group chat still goes out, but your name isn’t in the thread.
Wanting to quit: Not because you don’t love the game — because the game is now the place where the hurt lives, and quitting feels like the only way to stop walking into it.
Feeling lost: You used to know exactly where you belonged at those courts. Now you show up and don’t know which game to get into, and it feels like your first week all over again, except worse, because you remember what it was like to belong.
THE SADNESS MEANS YOU’RE DOING IT RIGHT
The alternative to a partnership that can break your heart isn’t a safer partnership — it’s a shallower one.
If you are sitting with any of the feelings on the list above, you didn’t take the game too seriously. You played doubles the way doubles is meant to be played. You went deep enough with a person to actually get good, and deep enough that it hurt when it changed.
That’s not a mistake to fix. That’s the whole thing working. That’s how you know it was real to begin with.
QUICK HITS
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