Opening Day has arrived, and the top of JOOLA’s order is stepping up to the plate. Wait—who’s that in the three-hole? No way… it’s four-time World Series Champion Tino Martinez. As baseball season kicks-off, JOOLA continues to build its own roster of MLB talent finding their new competitive groove in pickleball. Martinez, a former champion and All-Star joins World Series champions, and All-Stars, Brad Penny and J.D. Martinez, who’ve already made the move from the diamond to the court.

With access to JOOLA’s top-tier equipment and hands-on training from JOOLA legend Eric White, these athletes are tapping back into the routines and intensity that defined their careers. In this exclusive interview, Tino Martinez shares what drew him to pickleball, what keeps him coming back, and why JOOLA was the only choice for his next chapter:

JB: Why do you love it? What is it about pickleball? Why is it so addictive? 

TM: “You know, it’s an addiction, and everybody has it that plays it [pickleball]. It's just the competitive nature of the game and the speed of play. When you're playing doubles, and you're at the net, in a back-and-forth rally, and it's fast, and you must be technically perfect to win the points. It's not just smash the ball and win a point; there’s more nuance, moving the players left and right, working together as a team.”

JB: Tell me about your backhand. Why is that special? 

TM: “I'm a right-handed pickleball player, but I'm a left-handed hitter in baseball. So, as a left-handed hitter in baseball, my right hand, or my bottom hand, pulls through the bat to generate power on my swing. In pickleball, I play right-handed, and every time I get a ball on my left side, to my backhand, I just smash it. I hit it hard. And people could never figure out why I have such a strong backhand. Until one day, this guy said I figured it out. You're a left-handed baseball hitter, and that's why you have such a great backhand. And I said, it's true. Yeah, it's all here that comes from my baseball swing being left-handed. And it carries over here into pickleball.”

JB: What surprised you the most about pickleball when you first started playing it? 

TM: “When I first heard about [pickleball], I thought it was boring. I thought, that's a boring sport. You know, it's almost like, you know, tennis is a great sport, but after you hit the ball back and forth a couple of times, and you score a point. And then when I played it, and I saw how fast it was and how much smaller the court is and how quick the game is, it was shocking to me and made me realize, wow, this is a really fun sport that I can play every day and get great exercise and be outside and meet some people and just have some good competition.”

JB: At what point did you start getting hooked? 

TM: “About a year or two into it, I was getting decent, and then I started playing better players. Then I started spending money on more paddles and getting hooked on it. I started watching videos on Instagram and just started to learn the technical parts of the game, the angles. There are a lot of angles and working with it with your teammate, uh, moving players around. Uh, I just love that part of it, the strategy that goes along with it. Like I said, it's not just power, its strategic, and it's gratifying after a while, when you get your 11 points, you win the game, and the other team played hard, and you find a way to win.”

JB: What has your experience been thus far getting to use the Pro V for the first time? Tell me about that whole story you just started, and like, what do you think of it? What's your favorite? 

TM: "Eric decided he's going to send me seven paddles. I got the Agassi, the Graf, all the paddles, and I started using them. He said, break them all in. And when I pulled out the five with that beautiful wrapping, I started playing with it, and the ball felt so good coming off the paddle. This sweet spot was big, where I could power the ball. And then when I dink the ball, I play soft. It's very soft, and the ball responds very well to the racket.” I used the Pro IV for so long, that when I did get the Pro V, I felt an immediate difference, and I didn't really know what it was. It just felt great. And then Eric explained to me how it has a little bit of a bend in it. So, kind of like you really can't see it when you hit the ball, but like the golf club kind of bends when you hit it. The baseball bat kind of bends a little. When you swing it, there is little bend in it. I think that's what makes it so, so good and so powerful. That's awesome.” 

JB: What is it that you like most about the Perseus Pro V?

TM:“I used the 14mm and the 16mm. Now, Eric got me on the 16 because he said I hit the ball well enough in the sweet spot to use the 16mm. And it helps you with the softness of the game, too. So, when I use the IV, the four beforehand, uh, the 14mm, it was more for power, and the ball just jumped off my paddle. But it wasn't dinking like the V does. And when I started using the five, it was like, okay, this is a good paddle. Now I know the difference. I never knew the difference in other paddles.” 

JB: Is there something about baseball that carries over into pickleball that drew you in? 

TM: “When hitting the ball in baseball, hand-eye coordination is very important. A lot of baseball players could be pretty good at pickleball because of the hand-eye coordination and, you know, being a left-handed hitter. When you're at the plate, and the ball is on the outside corner, you wait longer, and you hit the ball to the opposite field in the inner half of the plate. It’s the same in pickleball. If I want to hit a ball to the left side, that’s because somebody's cheating on the other side. I can hold my paddle back a little further, as I would on an outside pitch in baseball, and just hit it towards that side and catch them off guard.”

“Same thing when I played defense in baseball, playing first base, I would read the bat on the right-handed batter. I could read the bat when it came into the zone, there in the balls, in the zone to see where my catcher is setting up at, where the ball may come to my left or right. So, the same thing happens in pickleball. When I watch the guys paddle where their eyes are looking, where their paddle is aiming, I know exactly where they're going to go, and I can cheat a little bit and return their ball.” 

JOOLA is proud to add Tino Martinez to its growing roster of elite competitors and can’t wait to see how his game evolves. With best-in-class equipment and dedicated training at his disposal, everything is in place for him to make his mark, the rest of the pickleball world is now within reach.