Pickleballers Season 2, Episode 8: Lucy Kovalova on rivalries and the evolution of women's pickleball
Last Edited
Dec 16 2025
Category
News
Lucy Kovalova is one of the OG queens of pickleball — a former world number one, multiple-time triple crown winner and one of the most feared right-side players of all time.
From a tiny village in Slovakia to Wichita State with no English, to “accidentally” becoming the best in the world, Lucy has lived every chapter of pickleball’s rise. In this episode, she sits down with Roscoe and Jared to share the full story: chasing pro tennis across Europe, landing in Kansas without knowing what D1 even was, discovering pickleball through a made-up paddle game … and then quietly becoming one of the best players on the planet.
She opens up about the first U.S. Open in Naples, forming superteams with Irina Tereschenko and Simone Jardim, the golden era of grindy dinking, dominating women’s doubles with Simone, the rivalry years as new talent flooded in, what really separates the top women’s teams today, how the PPA Tour turned pickleball into a real career, and why her relationship with the sport has evolved from pure love of the game to business, purpose, and legacy.
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