You Can Put An Eye Out Doing That

In my last column entitled “Foot Note,” I discussed the importance of wearing proper protective footwear both on and off the court. In addition to protecting our feet when playing pickleball, we also need to be concerned with protecting our eyes. I recently went to the optometrist for my yearly exam. When he saw me wearing my supportive orthopedic boot, he asked me if my foot injury occurred on the court. I explained that my injury was not related to playing pickleball but had occurred simply from misstepping off of a curb and landing incorrectly on my foot. 

As our conversation continued, he said that he was now seeing a noticeable increase in pickleball-related eye impact injuries. He proceeded to enlighten me to the fact that not all pickleball-related eye injuries were caused by impact from the pickleball, but that many of the injuries he was seeing were actually caused by the person being hit in the eye by their partner’s, or believe it or not, their own paddles! This got me thinking on the many factors which can lead to eye injury during play. 

As the mentality of pickleball strategy has evolved into a game of power, eye injuries can occur at all levels of play.  Players on advanced levels know when to utilize power shots, and they execute them with precise placement. The problem with many entry-level players (aka bangers) is that they are trying to hit the ball so hard that they virtually have no control over where their shots are actually going. Because of this fact, players who are new to the sport make up the highest percentage of injuries. The confined space of a pickleball court creates more opportunities for some kind of contact with any part of the body than playing on a tennis court. The close proximity of your opponent, being as little as 14 feet apart, provides very little time to react to a fast-moving ball being hit right at you. In addition to that, you and your partner are standing very close to one another, swinging paddles. This whole scenario is an inviting opportunity to encounter some type of contact with either the ball, a paddle, or even one another.

Also, consider the fact that you are not always playing with a partner whose game you know. You don’t have that sixth sense and instinctive knowledge of your partner's style of play or their strengths and weaknesses. Another issue of playing with a partner whose game you don’t know is stacking. In order to be strategically successful and safe, players need to be aware of each other's intentions. Stacking also needs to be practiced - players should have a combined pre-meditative understanding of where and why they are moving to execute a shot. Communication with your partner is vital to both a winning strategy and safety from possible injuries.

Obviously, the simple solution to the problem is to wear some type of eye protection when you play. Most eyewear now has impact-resistant lenses, so if you have prescription glasses, you’re good to go. If you wear contacts, any type of generic industrial protective eyewear will do the job. There are also several brands of sport-specific fashion frames available of which you can apply your prescription to the lenses, and as the old saying goes “If you look good, you feel good, and if you feel good, you play good.”