Planting the Game: How Pickleball Is Taking Root Across Africa

by Capt. Collins Munene

When Ron Ponder arrived in Antananarivo with a paddle bag and a bucket of balls, there was no federation waiting for him. No courts marked out. No local rankings or leagues.

Key Takeaways

Pickleball is taking root across Africa through individual ambassadors like Ron Ponder and Captain Collins Munene rather than institutional programmes
The sport’s growth on the continent follows a three-layer model: people, infrastructure, and networks
Africa’s pickleball development offers a template for sustainable grassroots growth in emerging markets

This article features in the May 2026 issue of World Pickleball Magazine. For the full collection of features, interviews, coaching insights and global coverage, download the complete magazine here.

There were only a few curious people, drawn by the simple question of what this new game might be.

That is how pickleball begins in many parts of Africa. Not with infrastructure or investment, but with someone willing to show up, teach, and stay long enough for the first rally to take hold.

The First Layer: People Before Structure

Across the continent, pickleball is not being introduced through campaigns or top-down programmes. It is being carried in by individuals: coaches, volunteers, federation builders, and players who believe the game should be accessible to anyone willing to pick up a paddle.

That philosophy has been formalised through the Confederation of African Pickleball’s “Pickleball for the People” initiative, a framework built around a simple idea. The sport should not be confined to clubs or gated systems. It should be taught, shared, and embedded in communities from the ground up.

The model is deliberately practical. Ambassadors travel with basic equipment, run clinics, train local coaches, and leave behind enough knowledge and structure for the game to continue. The goal is not visibility. It is continuity.

One visit, handled carefully, can do more than introduce a sport. It can establish a rhythm of play, a small community, and eventually the foundations of a federation.

The Second Layer: The Work That Makes It Possible

But enthusiasm alone is not enough.

At some point, growth depends on something less visible: equipment, logistics, and the ability to move people and resources across borders that are not always easy to navigate.

This is where figures like John Shaffer, through the Good Sport Foundation, have become central to the sport’s development.

Shaffer’s approach is direct. Equipment goes where it is needed. Travel is funded. Courts are built. Connections are made.

In the Democratic Republic of Congo, that meant supporting a national delegation to attend the African Games, ensuring not just participation, but preparation. Paddles, shoes, and balls arrived ahead of the team, alongside advice on court construction that would leave a lasting footprint.

In Rwanda, Malawi, and Seychelles, similar interventions have ensured that interest in the sport is not lost simply because there is nothing to play with.

In Kenya, the model expanded further. A community event, run in partnership with the Kenya Mental Health Alliance, used pickleball not as a competitive outlet but as a social one. The purpose was not performance. It was connection.

That idea runs through much of the work being done across the continent.

The paddle, in this context, is not the point. The connection is.

If you’re following how the global game is shifting week by week, the World Pickleball Report breaks this down every Wednesday.

The Third Layer: Networks That Scale It

If grassroots work plants the game, and logistical support sustains it, the next step is scale.

That scale does not arrive automatically. It depends on access to networks that can connect sport to schools, businesses, and institutions.

In East Africa, one of those networks is Rotary.

At the Rotary District 9214 Conference in Munyonyo, Uganda, pickleball was introduced not as a finished product, but as an idea that fits within an existing ecosystem. Business leaders, educators, and policymakers were already in the room. The sport simply needed a way in.

The logic is straightforward.

School partnerships build participation.
Corporate leagues support infrastructure.
Coaching pathways create continuity.

These are the same pillars used to grow organisations. They are now being applied to a sport still in its early stages on the continent.

In that environment, pickleball is not competing for attention in isolation. It is being carried into rooms where decisions are already being made about investment, community programmes, and long-term development.

What Still Holds It Back

For all the progress, the constraints are clear.

Access to courts remains inconsistent. Equipment still needs to be sourced and distributed. In many regions, the structures required to track participation or organise competition are still being built.

Growth is uneven. Some countries are establishing federations and regular play. Others are still at the stage of first contact, where the sport is introduced to a group for the first time.

What is striking is not the speed of expansion, but the nature of it. There is no single model being applied across the continent. Development is shaped by local conditions, by available space, by community leadership, and by the ability to connect with the right partners at the right time.

A Sport Built One Place at a Time

Taken together, the pattern is clear.

Pickleball in Africa is not being rolled out. It is being built—through people, supported by resources, and scaled through networks that already exist.

It starts with a coach or a volunteer, often with very little. A paddle, a few balls, a group willing to try something new. That is the first layer.

If it holds, it is supported. Equipment arrives. Courts are marked. Players travel. That is the second layer.

If it continues, it connects. Schools, businesses, and organisations begin to take notice. The game moves beyond the court and into a wider system. That is the third layer.

Not every introduction reaches that point. Some stop at the first stage. Others take longer. But the ones that do progress tend to follow the same path.

Which is why the most accurate way to understand pickleball in Africa is also the simplest.

It does not begin with a plan or a federation.

It begins the same way it did in Antananarivo.

With someone turning up, putting a paddle in a hand, and seeing what happens next.

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