5 things to know about pro pickleball player Andrei Daescu

Alex Lantz

Director of Content

Last Edited

Apr 09 2025

1. Daescu is from Romania originally

Daescu grew up in Bucharest, Romania, which is the capital and largest city in Romania with more than 2.3 million residents. He started playing tennis when he was 6 years old and eventually moved to the U.S. in 2007 to play tennis at the University of Oklahoma.

2. Daescu reached No. 120 in the world in tennis

After college, Daescu pursued a professional tennis career, ultimately playing mostly on the ATP Challenger Tour and qualifying for some main ATP Tour events. He competed all over the world, played in the Davis Cup for Romania and played in the 2015 U.S. Open.

His tennis career was cut short by a shoulder injury shortly after that, though, and he wasn't able to get back on tour following the injury.

3. Daescu was one of the original Florida pickleball pros

Daescu discovered pickleball in 2017 -- he was teaching tennis in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, at the time -- and started playing tournaments in 2018. In the early days of pro pickleball, players were scattered among several "hot spots" throughout the country -- southeast Florida (where Daescu was), west Florida, Utah, Arizona, Austin, Texas, Wichita, Kansas and more.

But in the past couple years a lot of the talent has moved to Daescu's area -- not necessarily because he was there, but he said he's certainly not complaining that it worked out that way.

Because of that, he gets a lot of training in with several other top pros.

4. Daescu was one of the first Proton players

While playing a 2023 Major League Pickleball event in San Clemente, Daescu met Proton Sports founder Charles Darling. They discussed plans for Proton -- which had established itself as a leading brand in the softball world -- to get involved in the pickleball paddle industry.

They started collaborating after that event and ultimately worked together to develop the original Series One paddle (buy it here), which Daescu used for almost all of 2024.

Late last year he switched to the Series Three (buy it here), then early this year started using the updated Series Three - Project Flamingo model (check out our review here and buy it here).

Daescu said being able to stay up to date in terms of paddle technology has allowed him to be at the top of the game for an extended period of time.

"You either use the latest technology or you're going to be behind," Daescu says. "It's a must have, and I'm glad my paddle sponsor is giving me a great chance to compete at the highest level."

5. When he's not playing pickleball, Daescu is spending time with his family

Daescu is married with two girls ages 6 and 4. He said they play pickleball sometimes as a family, but it remains to be seen if that's something the kids will play as they get older. He said he doesn't plan to push them toward either tennis or pickleball, but wants to expose them to a lot of different activities and see what they enjoy doing.

"I think they should play a sport, but I'll leave that up to them to pick what sport they want to play," he said.

While pickleball keeps him pretty busy, Daescu said he likes to get out to the beach when he can and also does some go-karting in his free time -- he's been an F1 racing fan since he was a kid.

He also enjoys watching the NBA (he used to play basketball quite a bit in his college days, which isn't hard to imagine with his 6-foot-4 frame).

"I think those guys are ridiculous athletes, so I just enjoy watching the game," he said.

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