Best Pickleball Paddle for Racquetball and Squash Players

If you are coming to pickleball from racquetball or squash, start with a 16mm paddle built for control rather than pop, and the ARTI State Collection is the one we would hand you: a raw carbon fiber face over a 16mm honeycomb polymer core, edgeless, 16.34 inches long, 7.5 inches wide and 7.8 to 8.0 ounces. You already arrive with pace, hand speed and the ability to read a ball off a face; what you need from a first paddle is a softer touch for the dinks, drops and resets your old sport never asked of you, and that is the 16mm side of the thickness choice. When the soft game is reliable, the 14mm Mastery Elite is the natural second paddle for a player who wants some pop back.

What carries over from racquetball and squash

Most people who switch from a wall sport are surprised by how much of their game shows up on a pickleball court in the first hour. A pickleball court is 20 feet wide and 44 feet long, close to the footprint of a racquetball court, so the space itself will feel familiar. Four things you spent years building transfer almost untouched.

• Hand speed. Exchanges at the net are fast and short. Your wrist and forearm already know how to react inside a tiny window, and that is the hardest thing for a brand-new player to learn.
• Reading angles. Years of judging a ball off a front wall and two side walls means you see where a shot is going before it arrives. On a court this narrow, that pays off every rally.
• Face control under pressure. You know how to square a racquet face when the ball is on top of you. Volleying with a solid paddle is a shorter version of the same skill.
• Footwork. Split step, move, recover, split step. Racquetball and squash footwork maps onto the middle of a pickleball court more cleanly than most sports do.

None of that makes you a strong player on day one, but your starting point is higher than you think. What it does not cover is the soft game, where points are won and lost at every level past beginner.

What you have to unlearn

Every habit below was a strength in your old sport. Each one is fixable with a few weeks of reps, and the right paddle makes the retraining less punishing.

There is no back wall

In racquetball the ball always comes back to you, and in squash a ball off the back wall is still live. In pickleball a ball headed past the baseline is a rally you have already won, as long as you let it go. New converts drift behind the baseline chasing balls they should watch sail out. Training yourself to track the full flight and let it go is one of the first habits worth building.

The kitchen and the two bounces

Two rules reshape everything. The non-volley zone, the kitchen, extends seven feet from the net on each side, and you cannot hit a volley while standing in it. The two-bounce rule means the serve must bounce before it is returned and the return must bounce before the serving team hits again. Together they take away the thing a wall sport trains hardest, taking the ball early and ending the rally with pace. Instead, both teams work their way to the kitchen line and play a patient game of soft shots until somebody leaves a ball high enough to attack. Our kitchen rule explainer covers the details.

Big swings turn into pop-ups

In racquetball and squash, pace is a weapon by itself, and a half-mishit still wins the point. In pickleball, pace is a tool you reach for at specific moments: a put-away on a high ball, a counter in a hands battle, a speed-up off a floating dink. Players who try to drive everything end up stranded in the middle of the court feeding easy volleys to opponents who are already at the kitchen line. The fix feels like underperforming at first: a shorter swing, a slower start, and a target that is often someone's feet rather than the baseline.

Wrist flicks spray

Both wall sports reward a loose, snapping wrist. A pickleball paddle has a shorter handle than a racquet, it has no strings to absorb a late swing, and the ball is a hard plastic shell with holes in it, so a flick that worked for a decade now sends the ball long or into the net. The move is to let your shoulder and torso do more of the work with the wrist quiet, especially on resets and third-shot drops.

The ball does not behave like a rubber ball

A pickleball is hard plastic, not rubber. It bounces lower than a racquetball, it slows quickly in the air, and it does not grab a cut or slice the way a rubber ball does. Your cuts and slices still work, but the effect is smaller than you are used to. Plan on a few sessions of mistimed contact while your eyes recalibrate.

Why a 16mm paddle makes sense first

Thickness is the number on the spec line: 14mm or 16mm is the depth of the honeycomb polymer core between the two faces. A 14mm core gives more pop and a faster response; a 16mm core gives more control and a softer touch for dinks and resets. A racquet-sport convert already brings the pop and is missing the touch, which is the 16mm side of that choice. For the long version, read our 16mm versus 14mm guide.

What the raw carbon face does for you

Every ARTI carbon paddle, the four State paddles included, uses a 100 percent raw carbon fiber face over its honeycomb polymer core. A raw carbon face holds its texture over time versus a painted-grit face, which matters to a player who already brushes the ball on contact. The cut you learned in squash or the slice you learned in racquetball still works; the motion carries over even though the effect on a plastic ball is smaller.

Weight and shape

Every ARTI paddle is 16.34 inches long, 7.5 inches wide and 7.8 to 8.0 ounces, so moving from a State paddle to the Mastery Elite later changes the core thickness and the artwork, not the length, width or weight you have learned. Racquetball and squash frames are very light, so a paddle in this weight range feels more substantial in the hand for the first few sessions, and then it feels normal. Resist the urge to change the weight until you have twenty or so hours on court; if you still want more mass after that, our guide to adding lead tape walks through it.

Which ARTI paddle to pick

ARTI is an independent, design-led pickleball brand based in Dallas, Texas. Its carbon paddles come in two 16mm lines with the same build, the State Collection and Kristen & Kristy, plus one 14mm paddle, the Mastery Elite, so the decision is short.

The State Collection: one build, four faces

All four State paddles share the same construction: 16mm honeycomb polymer core, raw carbon fiber face, edgeless, meaning no edge guard around the rim. Only the artwork differs, so choose the one you want to pull out of your bag.

• Texas: burnt orange with western artwork, cattle skulls, cowboy hats, boots, horses and lassos.
• New York: pink, with pizza slices, yellow taxis, apples, pretzels and the Statue of Liberty.
• Florida: baby blue, with alligators, flamingos, palm trees and oranges.
• California: cool mint green, with surfboards, vintage red cars, sailboats and palm trees.

Every ARTI paddle model is on the USA Pickleball approved paddle list, so there is nothing to replace if you decide to enter a tournament later on.

Kristen & Kristy: the same build with pop-art faces

If state artwork is not your thing, the Kristen & Kristy paddles are built exactly like the State paddles, 16mm core, raw carbon face, edgeless, and carry ARTI-drawn pop-art characters instead. There are five designs. WOW is the classic pop-art portrait with wide blue eyes, puckered pink lips, one raised hand and yellow hair, and Howdy tips a brown cowboy hat with a red neckerchief against a turquoise ground. This is purely a question of which face you like.

The Mastery Elite: the 14mm step

The Mastery Elite 1.0 is ARTI's 14mm paddle: raw carbon fiber face, honeycomb polymer core, edgeless, with a triple-throat handle. It is a control-forward all-around paddle for a demanding player who wants one paddle for everything, not a power specialist, and the thinner core gives it more pop and a faster response than the 16mm paddles. It comes in Olive Green, Grey and Brown, each with a large printed ARTI wordmark, an MES 1.0 mark and a halftone band. For a convert, this is the second paddle, not the first.

If you are bringing a partner across with you

Racquetball and squash are mostly singles sports; pickleball is mostly doubles, and plenty of converts arrive in pairs. The State Carbon Doubles Duo puts two State paddles in one order and lets you pick each state, and the K&K Carbon Doubles Duo does the same with the Kristen & Kristy designs. If the second person is curious but not yet committed, a fiberglass Gift Set is the simpler call: two fiberglass paddles over a 16mm honeycomb polymer core, four outdoor balls and a navy drawstring ARTI carry bag in one box. For your own hand, stay with the raw carbon face.

Who this is for

• Racquetball or squash players heading into their first pickleball season who want a paddle they will not outgrow in a month.
• Players who already have pace and hand speed and need the softer, more controlled side of the thickness choice to learn dinks, drops and resets.
• Anyone who wants a raw carbon face from the start, so the spin they already know how to generate has a surface that keeps its texture.
• Converts who will play indoors on converted racquetball courts and gym floors as often as outdoors; the paddle choice is the same either way, and only the ball changes.

Who should look at a different ARTI paddle

• Players who are already comfortable at the kitchen line, or who want the 14mm side of the choice from day one: the Mastery Elite, a control-forward all-around paddle rather than a power specialist.
• Someone outfitting a casual partner or a whole group: the Gift Sets, or Court Crew 4, which combines any two Gift Sets you pick into a four-player kit of four fiberglass paddles, eight outdoor balls and two carry bags.

Your first month on court

Serve and return

The serve is underhand, and its job is to start the point rather than win it. When you are returning, the serve has to bounce before you hit it, so let it come to you, send it deep and walk forward. Racquetball players who lived on a drive serve need to retire the idea: the serving team is the one at a disadvantage early in the rally, which is the reverse of what you are used to.

The third shot

After the return, the serving team's third shot is where converts spend their most frustrating hours. The choice is a drop, a soft shot that lands in the kitchen and buys you time to move up, or a drive, which your old sport makes easy and a good returner will block back at your feet. Learn the drop first. Our third shot drop guide and our piece on when to dink and when to drive cover both sides.

Hands battles

Once all four players are at the kitchen line, somebody eventually speeds a ball up and a quick exchange follows. This is the part of pickleball you will be good at immediately. Keep the paddle up and out in front, keep the swing compact, and aim at the opponent's paddle-side hip or shoulder. Then read our reset shot how-to next; the reset is the shot that turns a losing hands battle back into a neutral rally.

Indoor courts and the right ball

Many converts play their first pickleball indoors, sometimes on the very racquetball courts that were converted, and indoor and outdoor balls are not the same. Indoor balls are softer with larger holes and play slower on a gym floor; outdoor balls are harder with smaller holes and hold up in wind and on rough surfaces. ARTI makes both: the ARTI-26 Indoor is a TPE ball in bright yellow built for gym floors and indoor courts, and the ARTI-40 Outdoor is an LLDPE ball in a high-visibility color.

Gloves and grips

Almost nobody wears a glove in pickleball. Rallies are short, the handle is shorter than a racquet handle, and an overgrip does most of the moisture work. Try it bare-handed first; a thin overgrip plus a towel between games covers nearly every case. Our glove guide and overgrip guide go deeper.

Questions people ask

Should a racquetball or squash player start with a 14mm or a 16mm paddle?

Start with 16mm. You already have pace; a 16mm core gives you the softer, more controlled touch that dinks and resets need, and the ARTI State Collection is a 16mm raw carbon paddle on that side of the choice. Move to the 14mm Mastery Elite once your soft game is reliable.

Does the spin I use in squash carry over to pickleball?

The motion carries over; the effect is smaller. A pickleball is hard plastic, so it does not grab a cut the way a rubber ball does. A raw carbon face holds its texture over time versus a painted-grit face.

Do I need a glove like I wore for racquetball?

Almost certainly not. Pickleball rallies are shorter, handles are shorter, and an overgrip handles sweat for most players. Try it without a glove for a few sessions before deciding.

Is a Gift Set a good first paddle for a racquet-sport convert?

For the convert, a State paddle is the better fit: one paddle for your own hand, with a raw carbon fiber face over a 16mm honeycomb polymer core, on the softer, more controlled side of the thickness choice that dinks and resets ask for. A fiberglass Gift Set is the simpler choice for a partner who is curious but not yet committed, since it includes two paddles, four outdoor balls and a carry bag.

When should I move up to the Mastery Elite?

When your third-shot drops and kitchen resets land on purpose more often than not, usually a few months in. Try the 14mm paddle in a rec session; if the faster response rewards you rather than sending your off-center hits long, it is time.