"Goodness, I'm still trying to unlearn tennis": Steffi Graf admits having a hard time adapting to pickleball

Steffi Graf will make her pickleball debut alongside her husband, Andre Agassi at Pickleball Slam 2 where they will face the team of John McEnroe and Maria Sharapova on Sunday February 4 at the Seminole Hard Rock Hotel and Casino Hollywood in Florida.

Graf though admitted ahead of the event that she has had a challenging transition to pickleball and despite her husband Andre Agassi having a different take, she said that unlearning tennis has been an issue. Jack Sock is one of the only tennis stars that seems to have mastered it with Eugenie Bouchard struggling in transitioning in the main sport, this is due to a more patient and measured approach being needed.

"Goodness, I’m still trying to unlearn [tennis]. I have not had an easy time. I want to move around. I want to hit the ball. I don’t want to slow down and be patient, waiting for the right moment to attack," Steffi Graf told Sports Illustrated.
"I tend to want to keep my feet moving. That’s what I learned in tennis. My mind knows what I should be doing, but my body is not quite ready to let that tennis mind go," she added.
"I have a bit of a hard time getting back into that [competitive] mode. I want to enjoy it. I love the challenge of it. I do like the competition, but I also don’t want to get too competitive."

"We know when we get to our boiling points or when we get upset with ourselves. We are able to pick each other up pretty well," Graf said in the same interview about training with her husband. "But it has happened the last few months that a paddle kind of, you know, slipped out of the hand and just kind of went into flying into a corner. But that’s because we’re mad at ourselves. It’s been a challenge for me—a good challenge," she added.