A 19-year-old professional pickleball player with military ties was one of four athletes who recently traveled to overseas bases to boost troop morale.
Brooke Revuelta visited 12 military bases across six countries, holding pickleball clinics, playing exhibition matches and, in some cases, playing against the troops. She was the youngest pro athlete on the Armed Forces Entertainment’s Pickleball Pro Tour, alongside Danny Jensen, Walter Lau and Helen To.
“There’s no better way to give back in my opinion, as a pickleball player. It’s the best thing you can do,” said Revuelta, whose great-grandfather, grandfather and stepfather all served in the military.
Pickleball pro meets military life
Revuelta said the troops, families and civilians loved to see them play.
“Every time we would hit a great shot or a super hard shot, they would just kind of go crazy,” Revuelta said. “And it was fun to get the reactions like that.”
One veteran in Italy who attended a pickleball clinic told Revuelta the clinic was “the best event they have put on in 17 years.” Another time, a reservist showed the athletes a pickleball court they created in a hangar.
But teaching children on the bases was one of the highlights for Revuelta.
“I feel like kids always have fun whenever they’re running around hitting a ball,” she said. “So the couple of kids clinics we had, they were so in love with the sport and having a great time. One kid was like crying after and said she didn’t want me to leave.”
Finding pickleball
Revuelta started playing pickleball about two years ago while “looking for an out” from tennis. She had played tennis since she was 4 years old and felt she had plateaued.
“I was not doing bad, not doing great, but I wanted to find something fun, and I found pickleball and then I ended up playing more pickleball than tennis every day,” she said. “So I made that transition after a few months.”
She’s not alone in enjoying the sport. Pickleball has been the fastest-growing sport in the United States for three years running, with a growth of 51.8% from 2022 to 2023, according to the Sport and Fitness Industry Association’s Topline Participation Report.
USA Pickleball reported that in 2024 it had more than 2,000 “dedicated ambassadors” and upward of 62,000 members.
The biggest draw for Revuelta was its community.
“The people are all so nice and welcoming. And in tennis, it wasn’t — it’s not the same,” she said. “So pickleball I was really drawn to how welcoming everyone was even though I was so new and had no idea what I was doing. Everybody wants to play with everybody, and people are just so nice and awesome.”
Revuelta entered her first pro tournament mere months into her pickleball journey.
“After a couple months, I just threw myself in a tournament,” she said. “In that tournament, I played No. 1 in the world and I lost, but it was pretty close in each game. It was 11-8, 11-9, I believe, so after that I was like, ‘You know what? This was my first pro tournament, maybe I can hang and I can actually do this.’”
For more information about Armed Forces Entertainment tours, visit their website.
