What Makes a Pickleball Pro? Tanner Tomassi Weighs In

This week on Cracked Paddles, Alex Crum and Kevin Dong sit down with one of pickleball’s fastest-rising personalities: Tanner Tomassi, better known to fans as Tanner Pickleball. After building a massive following as a competitive Fortnite streamer and traveling the globe as a professional paintball player, Tanner found a new obsession in 2022—pickleball. What started as a casual hobby quickly turned into a full-blown pursuit of the pro life.

In this episode, Tanner shares the story of his unlikely path from viral video fame to grinding for respect on the courts of Delray Beach. He opens up about what it was like to face off against Anna Leigh Waters, the surprising power of lefty-righty doubles teams, and who he’d pick as his dream doubles partner. The guys also dive into a spirited discussion about what it really means to be a “pickleball pro” in today’s fast-growing sport and which skill separates elite players from everyone else.

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0:00 Introduction
7:00 Tanner Tomassi Interview
12:00 Record Against ALW
13:43 Avoiding Doubles with AC
15:34 What's Your DUPR Equivalent?
20:15 Is Fortnite or Pickleball Content More Lucrative?
25:12 Why are Righty/Lefty Doubles Pairs so Powerful?
32:08 Who is Tanner's Dream Doubles Partner?
34:20 Define a Pickleball Pro
41:15 What is Next After Pickleball?
47:51 What Pickleball Skill has the Biggest Gap in Level?
54:30 What's next for Tanner?