HAWAII HOME GROWN PRO: Bobbi oshiro
HOMEGROWN PRO
Even if you don’t follow pro pickleball and have zero desire to compete, it’s still nice to know that there are local PB friends competing and dominating in pro pickleball. Just a few months ago, local girl Bobbi Oshiro made her mark in pro pickleball by winning gold medals in both singles and doubles at the 2024 Nationals. Bobbi grew up in Waipahu, not too far from Waikele Shopping Center, and is a proud graduate of Iolani School. She was a standout athlete from a young age, and played tennis in all four years at Iolani. Her talent on the court took her to Boise State University, where she competed at the Division 1 collegiate level from 2012 to 2016.
going from the raiderS to the broncoS
Life after College
After earning her degree in 2016, Bobbi wanted to stay on the West Coast—”somewhere in Oregon, Idaho, Washington, or California,” she explained. For six months, she returned home to Hawaii, coaching tennis and reconnecting with family and friends. Her boyfriend (now fiancé), a fellow tennis player and Punahou graduate, encouraged her to explore opportunities in South Florida. Later that year, she moved to Fort Lauderdale, where she’s lived for the past eight years.
TURNING PRO
Bobbi’s journey to becoming a pickleball pro started pretty casually in late 2020. She jumped into a few moneyball tournaments, did well, and even won some cash. "I was like, oh, this is really cool," she says. Because she lived in a pickleball hotspot, she got to meet top-level players and see the professional side of the sport up close. That’s when it clicked—pickleball could be a serious career. And just like that, her pro journey began.
Pickleball’s Glow-Up
When Bobbi started playing pickleball, her tennis friends were not impressed. "They thought it was the most ridiculous thing ever," she says.
Most of her old teammates haven’t made the switch, but Bobbi feels lucky to have landed in places like Florida and Hawaii, both places where pickleball is booming.
Fast forward just a few years---she describes how pickleball has leveled up in a big way. Now, players are competing for serious prize money and fans are tuning in to watch matches like crazy.
"It’s so different now. A couple of years ago, it was kind of a joke. Now, people are like, 'Wow, pickleball? That’s amazing!'"
Bobbi’s work with DUPR (Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating) gives her a front-row seat to pickleball’s explosive growth. She said the numbers show that the biggest jump are in players aged 18 to 32----a major shift from the stereotype of pickleball being an old person’s sport.
"It’s been crazy to see how much it’s changed—and I’m just so excited for what’s next."
Photos: Em Jeanson + USA Pickleball
scooping UP medals
2024
Gold medal in Women's Singles at the USA Pickleball National Championships
Gold medal in Mixed Doubles at the USA Pickleball National Championships (with Will Howells)
Gold medal in Women's Doubles at the APP Chicago Open (with Susannah Barr)
Gold medal in Mixed Pro Doubles at the Zimmer Biomet APP New York City Open (with Will Howells)
Gold medal in Women's Pro Doubles at the APP Punta Gorda Open (with Milan Rane)
2023
Bronze medal in Women's Doubles at the APP Daytona Beach Open (with Lee Whitwell)
Gold medal in Mixed Doubles at the APP Daytona Beach Open (with Brendan Long)
As of September 2024, Bobbi had won seven APP Tour medals in 2024 alone.ne
Q&A with Bobbi
What paddle do you play with? What do you like about it? JOOLA Perseus 3s 16mm - it has a great combination of feel and power. The 16mm gives me a sense of touch at the NVZ in addition to feeling confident in my countering and speed ups.
What’s your best advice for preparing for a tournament? Everyone is different - but I like to get in more playing reps to get into match mode. My drilling consists of refining certain shots as I do not want to be working on something new before a tournament. My off-court workouts are more tailored to body weight movements to make sure I continue to stay flexible and pain free.
Can you expand on how you work on your mental game? Something that has helped me with my mental game that I've been focused on recently is my breathing. Simple breathing techniques help me slow down my heart rate so I’m relaxed and not anxious or jumpy before and during a match. It has also helped me focus on what I can control, rather than external factors like the score, expectations to medal, weather, and so on.
How do you recover from a bad game/loss? I give myself time away from everyone and everything after the match---it's like a 30 minute timeout. It helps me to refocus my mindset on why I continue to be grateful for playing this sport: the community, the fans, being part of its growth, the energy, the highs.
Fast hands--how do you train for that? Fast hands are developed through technique and anticipation. It’s about having shorter, compact swings, but anticipation is just as important. You need to recognize patterns in your opponent’s shots and position yourself to cover the areas where they’re most likely to hit.
Did the strategy aspect of pickleball surprise you when you started playing? When I first started pickleball, I thought it was the easiest thing ever. But the more I played, the more I realized how much thought goes into it—strategies, patterns, technique. At higher levels, players rarely guess; it’s about anticipating certain shot selections, based on where your opponent is and where they're hitting the ball from.
What’s one thing players can do to level up their game? I think the biggest thing if someone were to improve is the transition zone. In tennis, it’s no man's land and a big no-no. But in pickleball, it’s totally different. At first, I didn’t even know drilling was a thing in pickleball. So when I actually started drilling, transition zone was all I did for 3 hours at a time. I just worked on a lot of transitions and resets because you don't really see that in tennis as much. Hitting from the baseline, hitting groundstrokes from the baseline in pickleball is very similar to tennis, but being able to transition up is very different.
If you want to be able to jump to that next level, it’s about taking your time and moving through the transition zone consistently to get up to the kitchen, and also court positioning and shot selection. It's not a zone where you're rushing through, it’s where you want to be able to make a lot of balls until you have that ability to give yourself time to get up to the kitchen.
