OLDSMAR, Fla. — The approach to hitting a pickleball varies depending on its placement or who’s playing.

What You Need To Know

  • Tampa Bay Pickleball has opened behind the Oldsmar Flea Market

  • The business, which is a warehouse that holds six pickleball courts, was started by two brothers who are 20 and 16 years old

  • They host tournaments and game nights that can impact your official pickleball score

  • To privately rent a court it costs $40 to 60

For Kennedy Klaus, finesse is his game, while his brother, Ben Klaus likes domination.

“I'm partial to dinking,” Kennedy said. “[Ben] likes hitting drives more.”

It’s two different approaches toward the same goal—thriving on the court of America’s fastest growing sport. But this game wasn’t something the Klaus brothers spent much time doing. They say it was more of their grandma’s thing.

“She's always the one talking to us, ‘It's the fastest growing sport in the nation. You guys got to play; you guys got to play more,’” Kennedy Klaus said.

While that got them to grab paddles and whiffle balls, an even bigger idea popped in their heads when they were looking to do some real estate investments with their father, who is a financial advisor.

They came across a building behind the Oldsmar Flea Market.

“I took some numbers of the building and realized we could actually fit six courts in here, pretty much just slammed in right to the wall,” Kennedy Klaus said.

Kennedy Klaus, 20, and Ben Klaus, who is only 16, had this vision for a building that previously housed old coats and other things.

“Supposedly,” Ben Klaus said, “I’ve heard it was an indoor petting zoo.”

But now, it’s the home to Tampa Bay Pickleball where people are coming from around Florida and the country to play some pickleball in the air-conditioning.

“I think last week we had people drive in two hours all the way from Lakeland through rush hour traffic and everything like that,” Kennedy Klaus said.

They opened the place in April, filling the space with six courts and hosting tournaments along with rating nights where your performance affects your rating as a pickleball player.

When it comes to the ratings, Kennedy Klaus has some catching up to do to match his younger brother and his competitive fire.

“He does more than me,” Kennedy Klaus said of his brother. “That’s partially why his ratings are higher.”

Things have gone so well so far that they’re looking into growing the business to the other buildings behind the flea market.

In the few months they’ve been open, word of mouth has brought in crowds to play something they couldn’t have imagined when the two brothers plotted this out.

“All these places are taking two, three, four years to get started and we could go and have the idea over New Year's and get it up and running in three months is just kind of a perfect storm to have everything just coming together,” Kennedy said.

Now, they get to enjoy the fruit of their labor.

“One thing our mom is always saying is there’s too much pickleball talk at times,” Kennedy said.

But the Klaus brothers wouldn’t have it any other way.

“We're looking to just keep growing and keep doing everything the best we can,” said Kennedy.

They’ll keep working on their game and their business perfecting as much as they can for the foreseeable future.

It costs players $10 to $12.50 to play for about four to five hours. To privately rent a court, it costs $40 to $60.