The tricky back-and-forth over pickleball and tennis

Programming Notes from The Machine’s October story

A men’s doubles final in last month’s Simon Cup. (Ryan Bacic/The Machine)

Programming Notes columns dish on how The Fairfax Machine’s most deeply reported stories came together, sharing anecdotes and insights that didn’t make the final cut.

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Last month’s piece on hope in the tennis-pickleball wars came from the same well that my favorite stories to write (and many of the best stories I read) often do: firsthand experience.

My wife and I moved in April to Reston, a town where — as I note in the piece — its tennis courts moved in before its first residents did. I felt as if I’d read tennis’s epitaph again and again the past few years as pickleball picked off its players, but all through this past spring, tennis players occupied the courts near our house deep into the lamp-lit darkness.

In the summer, we bought rackets and joined them.

Credit seeing “Challengers,” which made tennis look sexy and cool. Credit seeing all those people playing, which made it look like The Thing to do in Reston. But it made me curious whether my wife and I were part of a larger trend in the sport. Put the epitaphs down: Was tennis hitting back?

I hadn’t read a story like that, and that question activated my reporting. In the end, I answered it — but stumbled upon a different angle that interested me more. That happens with many of my favorite stories, too.

Below: glory and heartbreak in my pickleball social league, how I set about reporting the piece, the TV history of Reston’s Simon Cup, and extra thoughts on the future of pickleball.

Playing both sides

I played tennis with my brother a bit as a kid, but before this year most of my experience was in Mario Tennis. (I am very good at Mario Tennis.)

I’ve played more pickleball, actually, starting with hitting the ball around with my dad in Florida a few years ago. Last fall, I joined a good friend and two of his college buddies for two seasons of a DC Fray social league. I named our team Art of the Dill.

Art of the Dill was a juggernaut, at least until it counted. We dominated the regular seasons at Kraken Kourts both times, then collapsed in both playoffs as the No. 1 seed. I didn’t exactly rise to the occasions.

But we did get fun matching sweatbands.

I understood and sympathized with concerns about outdoor pickleball noise, but when I moved to Reston, I planned to keep playing it a bit. Get some fresh air. Meet the neighbors. Maybe earn a little redemption.

In April, then, I bought a pickleball paddle on Facebook Marketplace. It came from Kathy Whittington, who I quote briefly in the piece.

When I reached back out to Kathy in August for the story, she asked me whether I’d used it. I had to admit I hadn’t. I’d started tennis instead.

A sprawling source list and a struggle

I began this story with a hunch, but a hunch in journalism only gets you to your first phone calls. I needed to see whether tennis really was growing in the area and, if so, what that counterintuitive growth looked like.