Four tennis legends with 42 Grand Slam wins try different sport in Pickleball Slam 2 event on Sunday

MIAMI — Tennis legends Andre Agassi and John McEnroe were contacted a couple of years ago by a promotion company pitching a new event. McEnroe openly scoffed at the idea. Agassi was skeptical. They both heard of the hot new sport with the silly name but at first were not sold on getting involved.

That changed quickly.

Pickleball Slam 2 happens on Sunday at the Hard Rock Live in Hollywood, and the event, like the sport, has gotten big fast.

Agassi and tennis star wife Steffi Graf will face McEnroe and Maria Sharapova in a doubles match with $1 million in prize money at stake — and ESPN cameras televising it live. (Visit Pickleball Slam 2 for details and ticket information.) The quartet represent a combined 280 ATP or WTA tournament victories and 42 tennis Grand Slam titles: 22 by Graf, eight by Agassi, McEnroe’s seven and five by Sharapova.

A related amateur tournament is going on in Miami Beach on Saturday, the day before, with 64 teams vying for $25,000 in cash prizes.

Enlisting tennis stars to promote pickleball seemed a natural, because the upstart sport is Tennis Jr. in a way, the same concept but on a smaller court with a different ball and a paddle instead of a strung racket.

“We had that [first] conversation and nobody was sure they wanted to do it,” Agassi recalls. “It was, ‘I don’t know, I haven’t played it.’ We’d be competing in a whole new arena we knew nothing about at the time.”

The grand experiment was Pickleball Slam 1 last spring, with Agassi and Andy Roddick defeating McEnroe and Michael Chang.

“John’s always fun to beat up on,” Agassi kids.

McEnroe quickly grew to like the sport. With Agassi it’s closer to love, enough that he is now a part-owner of Komodo Pickleball, an equipment manufacturer.

“After we played, it became more about how much enjoyment we’ve gotten from it,” Agassi said. “I couldn’t think of anything better than including my wife. We have gotten so into it. We exercise. It’s a great outlet. You can get people together from all different levels and they engage with it and improve quickly. It’s a blast. It’s a blow of calories. What else can you do at 53 years old that you can actually say you’re getting better at?”

Agassi dispels the notion the two somewhat similar sports are in any way rivals.

He jokes, “I think that pickleball is working in spite of the name pickleball,” but adds, “There’s no reason why these two areas can’t play nicely in the same sandbox.”

Pickleball is said to have been invented in the state of Washington in 1965 by Joel Pritchard, who later served as a U.S. Congressman and as the state’s lieutenant governor. The origin of the name pickleball is murkier.

The sport only has taken off nationally the past five-plus years as a recreational phenomenon. There are now two professional pickleball tours and a pro league. Efforts to make pickleball an Olympic sport are ongoing as the game begins to grow internationally — especially in China.

Basing the Pickleball Slam in South Florida was not by accident and it has gained a fast foothold among the area’s notable annual sporting events. Florida is considered a hotbed for the sport, and was ranked No. 1 by justpaddles.com on its recent list of the Five Best States For Pickleball.

“It’s been an evolution,” Agassi says. “It’s growing crazy.”