Tennis Lessons: Pickleball’s Fight against Fragmentation

In North America, pickleball has gone from suburban fad to cultural phenomenon. Courts are full, equipment sales are on the up and broadcasters are vying for rights. Yet beyond the United States and Canada, the game is still in its infancy. From my perspective as chair of the Pickleball Federation of the Americas, this is both an opportunity and a risk. If pickleball unifies its structure now, it may mature into a coherent global sport. If it does not, it risks the fate of tennis: glittering stars but perpetual fragmentation.

Tennis has never spoken with one voice. The first championships—Wimbledon in 1877, the US Open in 1881, the French Open in 1891 and the Australian Open in 1905—predated any central authority. In 1900, Dwight Davis’s eponymous cup turned national rivalry into spectacle, laying the groundwork for the sport’s global reach.

The International Lawn Tennis Federation (later the ITF) was created in 1913 to standardise rules and exert control, but the four Grand Slams remained independent. In the 1970s, professional players—fed up with limited pay and scheduling disputes—founded the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) in 1972 and the Women’s Tennis Association (WTA) in 1973. These bodies took charge of the professional tours. What followed was a sport governed by competing fiefdoms: Grand Slams with tradition and money, the ITF with legacy competitions like the Davis Cup, and the tours with player loyalty.

The consequences were predictable: squabbles over calendars, battles for authority and endless tinkering. The Davis Cup, once a jewel, became a casualty—its format revised so often that it lost both fan engagement and commercial appeal.

Roger Federer’s Laver Cup, launched in 2017, offered a rare glimpse of clarity. Its format—Europe versus the rest of the world, over three days, with escalating points—guaranteed drama until the end. Rolex and Mercedes-Benz signed on. Arenas sold out. A $50m property was born. Yet the Laver Cup, for all its polish, is only another patch on tennis’s quilt. It adds excitement which could be a goal but it does not resolve the underlying disorder.

Other sports have managed to avoid such balkanisation.

• Football: FIFA’s World Cup, inaugurated in 1930, sits atop the pyramid. Domestic leagues and continental cups matter, but all point toward a single, ultimate stage every four years.

• Cricket: Once dominated by bilateral series, cricket unified through the ICC World Cup (1975) and, more recently, the T20 World Cup. While club leagues such as the IPL thrive, the world championship remains the sport’s narrative anchor.

• Basketball: The NBA Finals crown the best club team; the Olympics and FIBA World Cup settle national bragging rights. Despite tensions, the hierarchy is clear to fans.

• Rugby: Fragmented for decades, the sport found coherence with the Rugby World Cup (1987), which quickly became its pinnacle event.

Each case demonstrates the same insight: without a unifying summit, a sport risks confusing its fans and diluting commercial value.

Pickleball’s Opportunity

Pickleball is still a blank slate. In North America, its rise is meteoric; elsewhere it is embryonic. This is precisely the moment when governance counts. Delay, and splinter tours, rival federations and disconnected calendars will spring up, entrenching division for decades.

Examples like Pickleball Cup may provide an alternative. It is not just another tournament but a framework: regional cups in the Americas, Europe, Asia-Pacific and Africa; winners advancing to a world final; sponsors able to back one premium global product; players, from club to elite, part of a coherent pyramid.

The history of tennis shows the cost of leaving governance to chance. For over a century the sport has been strong in talent and weak in structure. Pickleball, by contrast, still has the chance to write its story cleanly. If it seizes the moment, it can avoid the errors of tennis and emulate the clarity of football, cricket or rugby. If it hesitates, fragmentation will become permanent.

The choice: unify early—or pay for division forever.