Recently, I was playing with a woman named Maggie, and we were getting absolutely run off the court by a pair of former tennis players. We had a few solid defensive points here and there, but for the most part, it wasn’t particularly close. They were the best duo in the league.

Or at least, they looked like it.

Because it wasn’t just their drives or consistency that stood out. There were a few moments where their line calls raised some eyebrows. They kept calling Maggie’s serves short, something I hadn’t seen once in the three games I’d played with her prior. The best team in the league? Maybe. The most generous with their own calls? Also maybe.

At 1-9, we’d reached the point where simply avoiding the pickle felt like a win. Then came another one of those in-between balls—right on the line, impossible to judge in real time. Maggie and I looked at each other and just shrugged. Neither of us had a clean read.

“It looked in,” one of our opponents called out from across the net.

From my angle, it looked out. But Maggie and I didn’t argue, we just gave them the point.

On the very next point, our opponent dumped a serve straight into the net, handing it right back to us. From there, things started to unravel on their side. They began swinging with so much aggression it felt more like baseball than pickleball. No debate on those balls, they weren’t just out, they were out of the park.

You could feel the shift. Net cords started falling our way. Their drives kept sailing long. Momentum had completely flipped. Even routine shots like a return suddenly became errors for them. They looked rattled, almost like beginners, while Maggie and I settled in with confidence.

We closed it out to complete one of the cleanest comebacks I’ve ever been part of.

Now, I don’t know if the pickleball gods were rewarding our generosity, or if it was just one of those random swings in a game. Either way, pickleball karma was firmly on our side.

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