The Invisible Edge

The paddle had not changed. The hand holding it had.

It was late in a hot indoor match at the English Open. The air conditioning was running, but so was the sweat. The grip had become damp, the paddle no longer felt settled and a movement that should have been instinctive had become something to think about.

Once that happens, a player responds. They wipe the handle on a shirt. They reach for a towel between points. They tighten their fingers and try to stop the paddle moving.

That last adjustment creates another problem.

Pickleball players are taught not to strangle the handle. A grip pressure of three or four out of ten leaves the hand relaxed enough to control a dink, absorb pace and change the paddle face. When the handle feels as though it might slip, that instruction becomes much harder to follow.

The hand squeezes. The forearm tightens. Touch disappears.

Then, being pickleball players, we wonder whether it might be time to buy a new paddle.

Rob McEvoy finds the imbalance strange. Players will spend hundreds of pounds or dollars debating carbon-fibre surfaces, core thickness, swing weight and thermoforming, while paying much less attention to the point where all that technology meets the body.

“One thing we’ve found is that grip is a very under-researched area,” he says. “There’s not much research into how people’s hands are affected by sweat or oil. It just presumes everybody is the same, and they aren’t.”

McEvoy is the CEO of Sahara Dry, a sports technology company based in Thailand. Its grip spray is intended to repel sweat without leaving the white residue of chalk or the sticky surface associated with resin.

The company now has products for pickleball, golf, fitness, gymnastics, shooting and other sports. Its route into pickleball has involved a scientist on a university golf team, pole athletes asking for less feminine bottles, an impressed Bulgarian gymnastics coach and a shooter who introduced himself by sending McEvoy proof that he was world number one.

It is a serious attempt to solve a very ordinary problem, led by a man who accepts that some of the language surrounding it can sound suspiciously grand.

One Year in Thailand

McEvoy grew up in Rossendale in north-west England. His professional background included work with rugby clubs such as Sale Sharks, Cornish Pirates and London Welsh before he moved into agency life.

He eventually decided to try living somewhere else and came to Thailand for a year.

That was the plan, anyway.

He stayed, built a life, married and had a child who, in McEvoy’s words, “thinks he’s Thai”. He has now applied for citizenship and works full-time at a university while building Sahara Dry alongside it.

He also puts on what he calls his “international voice”, though Rossendale remains plainly audible.

Thailand had already helped McEvoy develop his first sports product, a golf training aid. Manufacturing in Asia was cheaper and more flexible, particularly for a small company unable to place enormous opening orders.

The product sold reasonably well. Then the Thai baht strengthened, McEvoy’s margin disappeared and the venture stalled.

What remained was useful experience. He knew how to have a sports product manufactured, packaged and sold. More importantly, other people knew he had done it.

One of them was a scientist connected to the university golf team who had spent more than a decade working with the material that would eventually become the basis of Sahara Dry.

“He’s one of the experts globally,” McEvoy says. “He approached me and said, ‘I know about the product you had, and I need some help trying to make this a business-to-consumer product.’ It went from there.”

Both men were golfers, so golf appeared the natural first market. It was also a difficult one for a small company with a limited budget.

They looked elsewhere.

The first three targets were racquet sports, esports and pole. Only one became the early engine of the business.

“Pole was brilliant for us,” McEvoy says. “They don’t make much money. It’s an extremely dangerous activity, they all use grip and they loved it. We used that to fund what we were doing in other sports.”

The choice sounds unexpected only until you think about the mechanics. Pole athletes are attempting gymnastic movements while their bodies are supported against a vertical metal surface. Grip is fundamental.

The athletes began using Sahara Dry. Then some reported that their boyfriends were taking the pink bottles to the gym and asked whether McEvoy could produce a black version.

From pole came fitness. From fitness came athletes involved in golf and gymnastics. One gymnastics parent suggested shooting. Racquet-sport users began asking whether the same idea would work for pickleball.

The company grew sideways, one sweaty hand at a time.

Dry the Hand First

McEvoy begins his explanation with an important correction.

Sahara Dry is not meant to be sprayed on to a hand that is already dripping with sweat. The player should dry their hands first, then apply it before playing.

Traditional chalk or magnesium-based products work by absorbing moisture. Absorption has a limit. Once the material has taken in enough sweat, its effect declines and the athlete must apply more.

McEvoy says Sahara Dry takes a different approach. When the spray evaporates, modified silica is intended to settle within the fine lines and folds of the hand. The treated surface repels water, causing moisture to bead rather than spread as easily across the skin.

He compares the effect to rain on a lotus or banana leaf.

Research into lotus leaves has shown how microscopic surface structures, combined with water-repellent chemistry, can reduce the area of contact between the leaf and a water droplet. That helps the droplet retain its shape and roll away.

The same broad principle is established in materials science. Its performance within Sahara Dry’s finished product, applied to moving human skin during sport, is the company’s proposition.

“You still sweat,” McEvoy says. “It’s not an antiperspirant. The sweat comes out, but it can’t go into the wrinkles because the powder is in them. If your hand moves, or your hand is vertical, the sweat will fall away when it’s microscopic.”

The dried material is intended to be translucent, avoiding the white coating left by some chalk products. McEvoy says it can also be sprayed on to a grip or applied inside and outside a glove.

Then there is the word likely to divide an audience.

Nanotechnology.

For some consumers, it suggests serious research and a clever solution. For others, it sounds like a scientific term attached to a bottle to make an everyday product more impressive.

McEvoy understands the scepticism and does not pretend to be the scientist who developed the material.

“I’m at the edge of my limit of science, really,” he says.

He has, however, seen the modified silica under magnification. His description is less technical than the language of molecular structures and water contact angles.

“It looks like a city that’s been bombed,” he says. “It’s got spires sticking out and holes in it. It’s very rough.”

That irregular structure is part of the water-repelling effect claimed for the product. The particles operate at nanoscale, which is the basis for the company’s use of the term nanotechnology.

None of this settles the question for a player. Scientific terminology can explain how a product is supposed to work. It does not prove how useful it will be during the third game of an outdoor session in Florida, Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur.

Sahara Dry’s more persuasive argument is immediate and practical.

Spray it on. Pick up the paddle. See whether the hand feels different.

The Small Slip That Changes the Shot

A paddle does not need to fly from a player’s hand for grip to affect a point.

Small movements matter.

McEvoy calls them “micro-slips”. A slight movement at contact may alter the paddle angle, reduce control or encourage the player to hold the handle more tightly on the next shot.

The faster the paddle travels, and the greater the force passing through it, the more important stability becomes.

This is particularly relevant to a sport becoming quicker at almost every level. Modern paddles produce more power. Players attack from deeper positions. Exchanges at the kitchen line happen too quickly for conscious correction.

At professional level, the differences can be minute. Recreational players are more likely to experience the problem in a simpler form. The grip becomes damp, confidence in the paddle falls and the hand begins doing things it was not doing earlier in the match.

A grip spray cannot repair a late contact point or prevent a player attacking a ball below the net. It cannot produce soft hands in somebody who has never developed them.

What it may do is remove one avoidable source of movement.

“When you want to hit that shot, particularly the smash, you don’t want it slipping out,” McEvoy says. “You’ve got the power of the ball on the paddle and that can cause micro-slips.”

His own testing takes place in conditions capable of exposing the weakness quickly. In Thailand, McEvoy has played in temperatures around 35 degrees Celsius with heavy humidity. He usually applies the spray before starting and again after each game during longer sessions.

“If we were testing in England, we could test for about a week a year,” he says.

What Happens to the Grip?

Pickleball players can become oddly loyal to the material wrapped around a paddle handle.

The overgrip must have the right thickness, texture and colour. It must overlap by the correct amount and finish at precisely the right point. A product that threatens to dry it out will be treated with suspicion.

McEvoy says Sahara Dry changes the conditions in which a grip deteriorates, but does not shorten its life.

“It will dry the grip, but sweat also destroys the grip,” he says. “What we’ve found is that a grip sprayed with Sahara Dry will last as long as a grip that is not. It just deteriorates in a different way.”

A wet grip holds sweat, oil and dirt. Friction then works on the material during play. A grip kept drier may wear differently, while cleaning it after a session can help preserve it.

That is Sahara Dry’s account of its testing. The company will need to provide clear evidence as it places the product in front of more experienced and increasingly sceptical pickleball consumers.

The industry has trained those consumers to be sceptical. Equipment launches arrive with claims about spin, stability, dwell time, sweet spots and power. Some are backed by meaningful testing. Others rely on language vague enough to promise almost anything.

Grip spray now enters the same marketplace.

The honest question is whether it solves an overlooked performance problem or simply gives an equipment-hungry sport one more thing to buy.

For McEvoy, the answer lies in repeat use.

“We know it sells well when people try it,” he says. “Once people buy it, they buy it again.”

That is a commercial claim based on Sahara Dry’s own sales experience. It is also why the company’s biggest challenge is not explaining the chemistry. It is getting the bottle into somebody’s hand for the first time.

The World Number One Has a Certificate

Sahara Dry has reached elite athletes in several sports, although contractual and commercial restrictions mean McEvoy cannot publicly identify all of them.

The company’s route into rhythmic gymnastics began when a Japanese business tested the product but hesitated over whether it would comply with the sport’s rules.

On a Tuesday, it declined to order.

On the Thursday, it asked for 200 bottles.

McEvoy wanted to know what had happened during those two days. The answer was that the product had been tested by one of the world’s leading rhythmic gymnasts, who wanted to continue using it.

Not long afterwards, he met a Bulgarian Olympic coach in Thailand. A training session was stopped so she could tell him how strongly she felt about the product.

“Eastern European gymnastics is quite a hard crowd to impress,” McEvoy says. “She stopped the practice, ran over and said, ‘This stuff is unbelievable. I need this.’”

Shooting produced another introduction.

McEvoy attended an event with little knowledge of the competitors. One shooter tried Sahara Dry, liked it and asked whether he could buy it at a particular price.

McEvoy thought the price was too low.

The shooter asked whether he knew who he was. McEvoy did not. The man responded by sending him a certificate showing that he was a world number one.

“I said, ‘Yes, you can have that price. That’s okay.’”

These accounts provide colour, but the athletes are unnamed and their experiences cannot be independently assessed. McEvoy does not want Sahara Dry to become dependent on famous people being paid to hold a bottle.

Partly, that is a matter of budget. Elite endorsement is expensive. It also reflects his belief that audiences increasingly recognise the difference between genuine use and contractual enthusiasm.

“We want people to find it and use it rather than pay people,” he says. “The audience is very savvy. They know when somebody has been paid for something.”

Pickleball complicates that issue further. The sport has millions of recreational participants, but many do not follow its professional players closely. A leading touring professional may carry less influence inside a local club than the teaching pro or the 3.5 player who knows everybody and plays five times a week.

For a product that is invisible once applied, local demonstration could be more valuable than a logo or a post from a professional player.

A Product Looking for Its Sport

Pickleball arrived on McEvoy’s radar through athletes using Sahara Dry elsewhere.

The company had already entered racquet sports, particularly badminton, which is far more established in Thailand. The difficulty was that major badminton manufacturers often produce their own grip powders. Sponsored athletes may be unable to use a product supplied by another company.

Pickleball does not yet have that established grip-product market.

Its players also like equipment. They buy new paddles, overgrips, shoes, bags, eyewear and training aids in the hope of becoming better, remaining comfortable or simply enjoying the game a little more.

That makes the United States the largest opportunity. The southern states combine a huge playing population with the heat and humidity that make sweat management relevant throughout much of the year.

Sahara Dry is working with an agency to reach American facilities, where players can try the spray rather than being asked to accept a scientific explanation online.

McEvoy sees facilities, coaches and retailers as the practical route into the sport. A small bottle included with a paddle or made available during a club session could introduce the product at the moment the problem is being experienced.

Asia remains important. McEvoy says Sahara Dry sells through regional online platforms into countries including Malaysia and Singapore, while Vietnam has become more accessible as an ecommerce market. The company also has sales routes into Australia, New Zealand and Taiwan.

Thailand gives it access to lower-cost manufacturing, smaller production runs and athletes competing in genuine heat. It also places the business thousands of miles from the American market it most wants to enter.

“America is the biggest show in town, pickleball-wise,” McEvoy says. “There are a lot of people playing in the southern states all year round. It’s a much bigger market than Thailand.”

The company is therefore trying to build globally while remaining small. McEvoy describes Sahara Dry as a sideline venture that is becoming increasingly full-time, a familiar stage in which a founder’s supposedly secondary business begins occupying the hours intended for everything else.

The Problem With an Invisible Product

Sports equipment usually advertises itself.

A paddle has a shape, surface and colour. Shoes are visible across the court. Bags carry oversized logos. Even an overgrip can become recognisable when enough players begin using the same bright pattern.

Sahara Dry disappears.

If it works as intended, there is no white residue, sticky coating or obvious sign that anything has been applied. A professional could use it throughout an event without the audience knowing.

“I’ve joked that if we made it blue, people would use it,” McEvoy says. “Being invisible is one of the selling points, but it also makes it more difficult to promote.”

That problem explains why the company’s future in pickleball may depend on conversation. Players inspect each other’s equipment, borrow paddles and ask questions between games. Someone spraying their hands at the side of the court will almost certainly be asked what they are doing.

McEvoy is willing to lean into pickleball’s less serious side. Sahara Dry already produces scented products for gymnastics, including strawberry and watermelon. When the possibility of scented pickleball spray is raised, he pauses.

“Really?”

Possibly.

Pickleball is, after all, a sport played with a perforated plastic ball by adults who willingly discuss whether a paddle should be described as “plush”. Strawberry grip spray would hardly be its strangest development.

Behind the humour sits a legitimate equipment question.

Players and manufacturers have spent years examining almost every part of the paddle. They have changed its surface, core, shape, weight and balance. Regulators have built tests to control what it can do to the ball.

The hand holding it is still expected to manage with a towel.

Sahara Dry may prove to be a useful answer, or one of many accessories that find a temporary place in pickleball’s expanding kit bag. The product still needs broader independent testing and the verdict of players who have no commercial reason to like it.

The question it raises will remain either way.

A paddle can cost £300. Its materials can be studied under a microscope, approved by a governing body and debated for weeks.

Then the player picks it up with a wet hand.

Chris Beaumont

Founder and Editor-in-Chief

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chris Beaumont is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of World Pickleball Magazine. Chris follows the global game closely, reporting on the latest news, developments, stories and tournaments from all five continents. He also hosts the World Pickleball Podcast, interviewing people at…

View All Articles →