{"id":313235,"date":"2026-06-19T16:29:11","date_gmt":"2026-06-19T16:29:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/313235\/"},"modified":"2026-06-19T16:29:11","modified_gmt":"2026-06-19T16:29:11","slug":"professional-pickleball-makes-its-debut-in-tampa-bay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/313235\/","title":{"rendered":"Professional pickleball makes its debut in Tampa Bay"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. &#8212; The sound is undeniable.<\/p>\n<p>The back-and-forth pitter patter of pickleball has a unique sound. It\u2019s the sound of the fastest growing sport in America.<\/p>\n<p>And now, professional pickleball has come to Tampa Bay for the first time. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stpeteathletic.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">St. Pete Athletic<\/a> is playing host to the <a href=\"https:\/\/majorleaguepickleball.co\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Major League Pickleball tournament<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Teams from all over the country are competing for pride and prize money. Reuben Pressman, the managing partner for St. Pete Athletic and one of the owners of the Florida Smash team, is riding the wave of the sport\u2019s popularity.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s a very accessible sport,\u201d Pressman said. \u201cAnyone can hop on the court and have fun the first time that they play, no matter who you are.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Pro_Pickleball_at_St_Pete_Athletic.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"hashed-image image\" img-data-alignment=\"center\" img-data-width=\"percent-hundred\" loading=\"lazy\" img-data-caption=\"Teams from all over the country are competing for pride and prize money. Reuben Pressman, the managing partner for St. Pete Athletic and one of the owners of the Florida Smash team, is riding the wave of the sport\u2019s popularity. (Spectrum News\/Katherine Smith)\" img-data-wrap-text=\"true\" img-data-editing=\"true\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Teams from all over the country are competing for pride and prize money. Reuben Pressman, the managing partner for St. Pete Athletic and one of the owners of the Florida Smash team, is riding the wave of the sport\u2019s popularity. (Spectrum News\/Katherine Smith)<\/p>\n<p>Once a sport aimed at the elderly to keep them active, pickleball has grown into a sport for all ages. More younger players are joining the movement. The social aspect of the sport is one of the main draws.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s building a community around sports fitness, wellness, movement and all of that,\u201d Pressman said.<\/p>\n<p>Florida Smash team member Paula Rives, a St. Petersburg native, grew up playing tennis. She made the switch to pickleball after college.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s so available,\u201d Rives said. \u201cPeople can learn really fast. It has a really big community and there\u2019s always a spot for everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Some of the top talent in pickleball will be on display this weekend. And their sport will be on display.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a real sport, real competition,\u201d MLP MC Joshua Flores said. \u201cAnd these players are out here putting it all on the line. And it\u2019s grown so much that you really can\u2019t see anything like this anywhere else.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ST. PETERSBURG, Fla. &#8212; The sound is undeniable. The back-and-forth pitter patter of pickleball has a unique sound.&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":313236,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[770,28,13013,115,596,110,202,204,203,199,201,200,135,106,835],"class_list":["post-313235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-community-news","tag-florida","tag-katherine-smith","tag-news","tag-pinellas-county","tag-sports","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news","tag-tampa","tag-things-to-do","tag-vod"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=313235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/313235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/313236"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=313235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=313235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=313235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}