The RoundHouse | 10/23/2019 3:22:00 PM

 
Where are they now?
 
Lucy Kovalova, women's tennis (2011-15)
 
Kovalova ended her college tennis career and wanted to stay active. She stayed in the family of racquet sports with pickleball.
 
"It's a way for me to stay competitive," she said. "I enjoy the pickleball culture, because it's not as cutthroat as tennis culture. I enjoy traveling to cool places and being with great people."
 
She also won right from the start and continued winning, often with Wichitan Matt Wright, who played tennis at Michigan, in mixed doubles. She counts victories in the singles, doubles and mixed doubles (with Wright) in USA Pickleball National Championships in 2018 as her highlight. In April, she won doubles at the U.S. Open and finished second in mixed doubles. In 2017, Kovalova and Wright won the Tournament of Champions and U.S. Open.
 
At Wichita State, Kovalova earned All-Missouri Valley Conference honors three times. She spent two years on the MVC Scholar-Athlete team and earned MVC Freshman of the Year honors in 2012. Her Shocker teams played in four NCAA Tournaments and won the MVC regular-season and tournament titles all four seasons.
 
Growing sport – Kovalova is in on the pickleball's rise, both as a competitive sport and a hobby.
 
"Everybody can play," she said. "It's easy to figure out the game, compared to other sports like tennis. It's affordable. You can play on public courts."
 
Kovalova isn't a full-time pickleball professional. She teaches tennis at the Wichita Country Club. But the prize money in pickleball is growing, she said. Depending on the tournament, she said prize money has increased to $4-5,000 for a doubles team to split, up from $1,000 a few years ago. 
 
"You're competitors on court, but as soon as you're off court, you're friends again and you go for dinner," she said. "Maybe it's because we're not competing for a lot of money yet. People are still looking at it as it's not their main income. It's not like I'm depending only on that prize money."

Game on - Pickleball is played on a rectangular court, 20 feet by 44 feet. Competitors use a paddle (larger than ones used for table tennis; smaller than tennis) and plastic ball with holes.
 
"A person with tennis background would take only a little time to get used to shorter paddle and wiffle ball," she said. "All of us tried it and loved it right away. It was pretty easy transition from tennis."
 
Prestige place - One big sign of the sport's growth is the site of November's 2019 USA National Championships at Indian Wells Tennis Garden near Palm Springs, Calif. Indian Wells is one of the top tennis venues in the world.
 
"That was a big step for pickleball to host nationals at the facility that's well-known for tennis." she said. "It's just like a paradise to play there. Pickleball gained a lot of credibility by hosting the nationals at Indian Wells Tennis Garden."

Paul Suellentrop covers Wichita State Athletics and the American Athletic Conference for university Strategic Communications. Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.