If you’re at all familiar with professional pickleball, names like Ben Johns, Anna Bright, Tyson McGuffin, and Kate Fahey likely ring a bell. They’re elite athletes, JOOLA signature pros, and proven winners. But what about a name you may not know as well — someone just as accomplished, just as dominant, and a JOOLA signature athlete?

Meet Josh Cooperman, PPA Senior Tour singles No. 1, a Triple Crown winner, and the current top-ranked player in singles, doubles, and mixed doubles. His rise to one of the senior tour’s all-time greats didn’t happen overnight. But it did take a near-tragic event to get the wheels in motion:

“I came from pro coaching and facility management in tennis and really had no interest in pickleball. Everyone around me in the industry was resistant to embracing it. Then, three years ago, my dogs were attacked at a park by an off-leash dog, and my arm got shredded. I had several puncture wounds, three broken bones in my hand, and an infection from protecting my dogs.” 

“After the incident, my employer sold my contract and gave me no parachute after 13 years. My girlfriend left me. My truck broke down — it sounds like a country music hit. I had taught a handful of pro pickleball players tennis years before, so I decided to give it a try and told everyone, through the doubt and laughter, that I was going to play pro pickleball.”

“I worked hard to get to this place two and a half years later, and I’m completely in love with the sport, the community, and the environment. Honestly, I can’t imagine my life without pickleball.”

From Tennis Skeptic to Senior Tour Standout

Before pickleball became the fastest-growing sport in America, Cooperman saw it the way a lot of tennis lifers did: as something strange happening on courts that used to belong to them.

He had spent years in high-performance tennis, surrounded by pro coaches, elite juniors, and athletes who understood how long it takes to climb to the top of a sport. Pickleball, by comparison, looked almost unserious from the outside.

“We used to make fun of pickleball. We’d watch them dinking in the kitchen and think, ‘This can’t be real.’”

That skepticism was not just about the game itself. Cooperman believes much of the early resistance from tennis players came from fighting for court space and from the jarring contrast between tennis and pickleball development timelines.

“Pro tennis people work for 20 years to get to that point,” he said. “Then someone plays pickleball for six months and is at the top of the world. It doesn’t make sense.”

Built by Tennis

Long before pickleball, Cooperman found his competitive identity through tennis. He grew up playing multiple sports and was a strong baseball player, but tennis offered something baseball could not: immediacy.

In baseball, a mistake could leave you waiting half an hour for another chance. On a tennis court, the next ball was already coming.

“I loved it because if you made a mistake, you got the ball right back.”

That constant feedback loop shaped the way he saw competition. Even before he had the technique, he loved the strategy — the feeling that every point was a puzzle. Years later, that same mindset became one of his biggest advantages in pickleball singles.

A New Game, a New Goal

After the dog attack, losing his job, and watching life unravel all at once, Cooperman needed something to chase. Pickleball became that target. At first, not everyone took it seriously — or took him seriously.

“I gave myself something to chase. It was probably silly, but I said, ‘I’m going to be a pro pickleball player.’ I told people, and they laughed at me. But I manifested it. I worked hard.”

When nobody would hit with him, he bought a ball machine. He went to the parks. He played against the wall. Eventually, he found players willing to give him a look, including singles players ranked near the top 50.

The breakthrough came quickly. One player who was around No. 40 in the world agreed to play him. Cooperman beat him six out of eight games. It was an early sign that his tennis instincts — pressure, timing, pattern recognition, and the willingness to take openings — translated.

“When a tennis player sees a hole, they go for it.”

The Singles Rise

Within three years of picking up the sport — and roughly two and a half years into competing — Cooperman had become one of the defining players on the PPA Senior Tour. By his count, he was approaching 75 pro medals, including 35 golds, with multiple Triple Crowns along the way.

His first major senior pro test came at the Masters, where he knocked off several top players before falling in a tight bronze medal match while playing through a quad injury. His next major stop was Desert Ridge. He won it — and from there, the singles wins started stacking up.

The results were not accidental. Cooperman credits his tennis background, his coaching eye, and his ability to manage difficult matches. Early in his pickleball career, Matthias Johansson gave him a warning that stuck.

“You’re going to be really good. You’re going to give people a lot of problems. But can you do it all day long? Can you do it for six matches?”

Learning the Other Half of the Game

As natural as singles felt, doubles required a different kind of education. The transition zone, the kitchen, and the cat-and-mouse elements of the game were uncomfortable at first. Cooperman had the tools; he just had to become comfortable using them in a new rhythm.

He has since leaned into that process, spending more time training doubles, using the machine, playing matches, studying strategy, and learning from players who treat the sport with the same detail he once saw in elite tennis environments.

“Doubles is such a beautiful game. It’s almost like we’re at the symphony now. It’s more orchestral. It’s such a harmony.”

That appreciation has changed how he plays. Instead of trying to end every point, he talks about feeling the ball, finding space, absorbing pace, and extending rallies. For a player built on instinct and aggression, that evolution has become part of the challenge.

“That’s something that makes the sport beautiful — the little adjustments.”

The Game Is Changing

Cooperman has also watched the sport evolve in real time. The careful, conservative style that once defined high-level doubles is being challenged by athletes from tennis and other backgrounds who bring speed, power, and instinct.

“These cross-hybrid athletes come in with pure will, passion, and athleticism. They play hard and fast, and it disrupts more seasoned players who are careful, conservative, and measured.”

That evolution forced him to adapt too. Early on, people told him he was playing the wrong way. Then he learned the traditional patterns — only to see the top of the game move back toward speed, pressure, and aggressive decision-making.

“People were telling me I was playing the wrong way. Now I’ve learned how to play the way they wanted, and everybody is playing the other way.”

Teaching the Whole Picture

Now, in addition to competing, Cooperman is coaching pickleball. His approach reflects the same full-spectrum thinking he developed in tennis — part technical, part tactical, part physical, and part emotional.

Before a lesson, he asks players for three things they want to work on. Those answers tell him what is bothering them. From there, he adds what he sees: one or two critical pieces that can make the biggest difference.

“It’s holistic. You’re putting everything together, putting pieces together to make a bigger picture.”

He encourages players to visualize, take notes, and give the game more attention without turning it into a job. The goal is not just a better stroke or a cleaner pattern. It is helping players find a pathway into the sport and a reason to keep improving.

That perspective carries over to how he views Scottsdale’s pickleball scene, where outdoor parks, private courts, and indoor clubs have created a deep, growing community. For Cooperman, the sport feels more open and expansive than the tennis world he came from.

More Than Medals

Away from the court, Cooperman is still every bit as layered as his game. He loves his dogs, music, art, performance, theater, writing, piano, guitar, drawing, and painting. That creative side shows up in how he talks about pickleball — less as a checklist of shots and more as a living, moving thing.

Still, when asked why he loves pickleball, his answer comes back to one word: community.

“It’s got to be community.”

Tennis gave him partnership, practice partners, and rivalries that pushed him. Pickleball gave him all of that, but bigger, friendlier, and wider reaching. It introduced him to people he says he never would have met otherwise and created a world that now feels impossible to separate from his life.

What's Next

For all the medals, wins, and rankings, Cooperman does not talk like someone chasing validation. He has already done more, faster, than he expected. The next chapter is less about proving himself and more about staying connected to the sport that reshaped his life.

“I’ve already achieved so much more than I thought I would in such a short time that I don’t feel like I need to prove anything anymore.”

He still loves competing. He still wants to improve. But he also wants to share the sport, help players find their place in it, and keep learning from the people around him — including players he believes are every bit as good, or better, than he is.

“I’m lucky to have the success I’ve had, lucky to have the friends and community I have, and lucky to have this sport.”

That gratitude may be what makes Cooperman’s story resonate beyond the results. He came to pickleball reluctantly, through pain, loss, and skepticism. He stayed because he found competition, creativity, friendship, and a future. Somewhere along the way, the sport he once laughed at became the one he cannot imagine living without.

“Even when you’re having a bad day, pickleball makes you feel better.”

For Josh Cooperman, pickleball did more than offer a second act. It gave him a new community, a new challenge, and a reason to keep chasing the next ball.