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Pickleball Team Names, Sorted by What Your Team Is Actually Like
Quick answer: Almost every pickleball team-name list is the same list of kitchen and dink puns in a different order — Dink Floyd, Grateful Dinks, Kitchen Nightmares — which is why four teams at your club already have one. Pick from what your team is actually like instead: the 7am crowd, the pair who only dink, the group that plays three times a week and never keeps score. The name has to survive being said once by a tournament desk and printed at two inches. Once you have one, it... Read more...
Tennis Team Names, Sorted by What Your Team Is Actually Like
Quick answer: Pick a name that says something true about your team, not the best pun you can find. A name works if the opposing captain can say it once over the phone and get it right, and if it still reads at two inches across a chest. The lists below are sorted by what your team is actually like — the 8am team, the sandbaggers, the team that ends at the bar — because "500 tennis team names, alphabetical" is how you end up as the fourth Net Results... Read more...
Tennis Coach Gifts: What Teaching Pros Actually Keep
Quick answer: The end-of-season gift a tennis pro actually keeps is something they can wear while teaching, because they are on court thirty hours a week and they go through shirts faster than anyone in the club. A performance tee like Victory Pose (from $26.95, S–4XL) works; a mug does not. If a group is chipping in, outerwear is the gap — pros own dozens of shirts and one jacket. Do not buy equipment. Racquets, strings, grips and shoes are professional tools they have strong, specific opinions about, and yours... Read more...
What to Wear to a Pickleball Tournament: Pack for the Day
Quick answer: Pack for a day, not a match. A pickleball tournament is five to nine hours of waiting punctuated by short, intense matches, often outdoors on unshaded courts, and the thing that ruins people's day is not their shirt — it is having exactly one of everything. Bring two shirts minimum, a layer for the morning, and a change for after. There is no national pickleball dress code equivalent to a tennis club's collared-shirt rule, but your tournament's own rules are published in advance and are the ones that... Read more...
Long Sleeve Tennis Shirts: The Three Jobs They Actually Do
Quick answer: A long sleeve earns its place in a tennis bag for three specific jobs — the cold-morning warm-up, sun cover on a long exposed match, and the layer you keep on for the first two games and then take off. It is not a winter garment on its own. Ours are 5.3 oz cotton with ribbed cuffs and a taped neck, cut slightly longer in the body than the tee so it stays put under a mid-layer, S–2XL, front print only: Victory Pose from $32.95. What people get... Read more...
Tennis Tank Tops: When They Beat a Tee, and When They Don't
Quick answer: A tennis tank is the right choice above roughly 85°F, on hard courts with no shade, and for anyone whose sleeves stick to their arms by the second set. It is the wrong choice at a club with a collared-shirt rule, and it is a judgement call anywhere a dress code is set by the host site rather than nationally. Ours are unisex, XS–3XL, 4.2 oz cotton with a wider armhole and a raw-edge neckline, cut narrower through the chest than the tee — Tennis Pilsner from $29.95... Read more...
Pickleball Stickers for Paddle Covers and Water Bottles
Quick answer: You can put stickers on a pickleball paddle's edge guard, handle and cover — but not on the playing face, because USA Pickleball's equipment rules require a uniform playing surface and anything that changes its texture makes the paddle illegal for sanctioned play. Kiss-cut vinyl comes off a composite edge guard cleanly. Bottles, covers and bag panels are where a sticker actually gets seen anyway. Start with Pickle Patch ($5.95), Sticker 3-Pack ($9.95) and Pickleball Lite (All The Dinks) ($5.95). Introduction Pickleball decorates itself more than any other racquet sport,... Read more...
Tennis Stickers for Water Bottles: What Actually Stays On
Quick answer: For a water bottle, you want a kiss-cut vinyl sticker with a matte finish, cut to the outline of the artwork rather than a square, and no bigger than about three inches so it sits flat on a curved panel. Ours are exactly that — $5.95, 3x3 in, kiss-cut with a 1/8 inch white border, matte, weatherproof and dishwasher-safe on the outside of a bottle. Bagel Brew, Continental Grip Lager and Net Rusher are all $5.95. What kills a bottle sticker: paper stock, a glossy laminate that scratches,... Read more...
Self-Rated, Computer-Rated, Appealed: How NTRP Ratings Work
Quick answer: There are four kinds of USTA NTRP rating and they behave completely differently. A self-rating (S) is the one you give yourself when you have never played league. A computer rating (C) is generated at year end from your actual results. A dynamic rating is recalculated after every single match, to the hundredth, and is never published. An appealed rating (A) is one you asked to move. The rule that catches people out: a self-rated player who produces three dynamic ratings clearly above their level in one rating... Read more...
NTRP Ratings Explained: What 3.0, 3.5 and 4.0 Actually Mean
What NTRP levels actually mean, quoted from the USTA's own documents. Why a 3.5 is a band of fifty hundredths, why 3.0 to 3.5 is about direction and not power, and how to read the definitions as a practice plan. Read more...
Pickleball Secret Santa Gifts: What Fits a $10, $15 or $25 Limit
Quick answer: Pickleball Secret Santa is easier than tennis at low limits, because pickleball players decorate their paddle covers and water bottles and tennis players mostly do not. Under $10, a $5.95 sticker like Pickle Patch or Pickleball Craft is the gift that gets used. Under $15, two of them. Straight answer on shirts: our cheapest pickleball tee is $25.95, so nothing we make fits a hard $25 ceiling except stickers. At $30, Allegedly A 3.0 from $25.95 works if you know the size. Skip paddles entirely — players are... Read more...
Tennis Secret Santa Gifts: What Fits a $10, $15 or $25 Limit
Quick answer: At a strict $10 or $15 limit, the only tennis gift worth giving is something the player uses every week, and for that money that means stickers — Seventies Serve, Net Rusher and Baseline Rally are $5.95 each, so two or three make a real gift inside a $15 cap. At $25 you can give a set of four. Be aware of one thing before you shop us: our cheapest shirt is $25.95, so if your exchange has a hard $25 ceiling, we do not have a tee... Read more...