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The fresh pickleball vs tennis debate is far from its end as Andy Roddick recently took a fresh dig at the sport amid his online spat with a young tennis pro-turned-pickleball player named Christian Alshon.
Roddick no longer competes on the tennis courts but his love for the sport hasn't died. He quit the sport professionally in 2012 but his post-retirement life has revolved around tennis majorly since then. He currently covers the sport as an announcer, an analyst, and a podcaster.
Furthermore, Roddick hasn't shied away from voicing his opinions online, especially on tennis-centric issues. A couple of days ago, he joined the likes of James Blake and Nick Kyrgios in opposing Christian Alshon's view that pickleball created superior athletes.
"Pickleball has made me a much better athlete than Tennis ever did. Point for point, pickleball requires more skill than tennis," Alshon wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Roddick labeled Alshon's opinion dumb, writing:
"If anyone pickle person ever ranks higher in tennis than what Sock will be at end of this year in his new paid pickle hobby, I'll commentate a pickle match standing on my head. This ain't a real discussion. Fun game. Dumb conversation."
Alshon for the most part debated with James Blake but Roddick chimed in at several instances. He eventually exited the conversation writing:
"He's had his attention. Now I just want to get kicked out of this conversation like he got kicked out of Virginia. Pickle is fun, and I understand how all this is good for it. It does nothing for us. I'm out."
Alshon, however, didn't let Andy Roddick slide and took a dig at his podcast.
"You're the one that responded to me first. This is more engagement than your podcast gets in a year, I believe that does something for you," the youngster tweeted.
A couple of days later, the former US Open champ reignited the row. He took to X and shared a video of a traceur doing parkour. Roddick sarcastically called the activity "less athletic" than pickleball, saying:
"Another thing that's less athletic than pickleball ……. How would this guy be able to keep himself out of a kitchen during all the dinking? That takes real athleticism."
Christian Alshon challenged Andy Roddick for a pickleball showdown
During the heated exchange, Christian Alshon bet $300,000 in total for pickleball duels with Andy Roddick, James Blake, and Nick Kyrigios.
"@NickKyrgios @JRBlake @andyroddick how about this. I challenge you three to back to back singles matches for 100K each. I’ll give you 2/1 odds which in your minds should be crazy good odds. You have 6 months to train," Alshon wrote.
An X user suggested that Alshon's challenge felt like a knockout blow to Roddick in a way similar to his losses to Roger Federer on the tennis court.
"Christian owned you on Twitter like Federer owned you at life," the user wrote.
The American then ridiculed Alshon's short-lived tennis career in his reply to the user.
"Yeah. He’s totally like Roger. If Roger had D-2 titles in his Twitter bio and played pickleball," Andy Roddick wrote.
For context, Andy Roddick played against Roger Federer 24 times between 2001 and 2012 and could collect only three wins.
