Pickleball is so annoying. And it’s taking over tennis courts.

I got serious about tennis during COVID-19, after my gym abruptly closed. It got me out of the darkness of my basement workout space and into the sunshine. I’ve made a lot of new friends playing. I’ve also invested a considerable amount in lessons, camps, and gear. I still play several times a week.

But lately, something has been diminishing my enjoyment of this sport I love: It’s getting taken over by pickleball.

Pickleball is the country’s fastest-growing sport. A new $4 million facility dedicated solely to pickleball has opened in Malvern, and there’s also a new one in Egg Harbor Township, N.J. I’m sure there are many more to come. You don’t even need to take a break when you go on vacation, as there are now plenty of pickleball courts along the Jersey Shore, and some towns host booming tournaments.

I have no doubt that pickleball is fun, and can see the appeal. “You can play a game after an hour of instruction,” Braden Keith, who runs the Philadelphia Pickleball Facebook page, told me. “It’s not like tennis where you have to drill for 42 hours until you can play a game.” In Philly, there’s a “huge demand” for more pickleball courts, he said.

Here’s my issue with this newfangled sport: The millions of paddle-wielding fans this game attracts have been crowding tennis enthusiasts off of our own courts. There aren’t enough public tennis courts in many areas as it is. The ones that exist were designed for playing tennis — not pickleball. But if pickleball players can’t find a smaller court designed specifically for pickleball, they’ll just use a tennis court. (And it doesn’t go both ways: Since tennis needs a full court, tennis players can’t simply commandeer pickleball courts, which are way too small.)

Recently, my husband and I went to visit his aunt in the Washington, D.C., area and brought our tennis gear so we could play at the courts in her residential facility. We discovered both of the tennis courts had been converted to pickleball.

A tennis buddy told me recently she told some pickleball players they could temporarily use a tennis court she was reserving at the Johnson Elementary Courts in Cherry Hill, as long as they gave it back when her game was scheduled to start. But when the time came for them to move on, the “picklers” — as they are called — refused to relinquish the court. She was outraged.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no tennis snob. For generations, it was a sport of privilege, mostly reserved for wealthy, white people. I understand that tennis is no more important than any other sport, including pickleball. But the encroachment of picklers on tennis courts has made it harder for tennis players to do what they love in peace.

Speaking of peace: Pickleball is played by hitting wooden or graphite paddles against plastic Wiffle-type balls, and it can be noisy. Just ask residents who live near pickleball courts in Chestnut Hill and have been complaining about the ruckus it causes ever since the city spent nearly $100,000 to convert three tennis courts into a half-dozen pickleball courts in 2016.

To ease tensions between residents and pickleball players, Councilmember Cindy Bass told me she’s looking into other areas to create new pickleball courts. “I didn’t see this coming,” Bass said, “but just the popularity of the sport, that really says something.”

Other popular spots for pickleball include the hockey rink at the Fishtown Recreation Center, the handball courts at the Towey Recreation Center, the tennis courts at FDR Park, and various blacktop spaces where people have painted lines and created their own courts, according to Keith. And sometimes, tensions between picklers and tennis players can run high. “We had some altercations at FDR that almost got physical,” Keith said.

Meanwhile, I have no intention of giving up all that I’ve worked for and switching over to pickleball any time soon.

However, I know that the day will come when my body won’t be able to chase after tennis balls anymore. There will come a time when I will relish — see what I did there? — being able to compete in a less taxing sport.

But until that day arrives, I will continue doing everything I can to improve at tennis — and avoid pickleball.