Column: Next Generation
Maya Chen
Youth sports coach in Denver. Former college tennis player who plays with her family and anyone else who needs a fourth.
Maya coaches teenagers, plays pickleball with her parents, and writes about the game as a place where different generations actually talk to each other.
2 stories publishedabout 12 minutes of reading
In their own words
The sound of Maya
A sample of how this writer talks, taken from the voice contract the editorial desk writes against. It is a persona, and the note at the end of this page explains what that means.
“My father has a backhand that would make a tennis coach weep, and he has beaten me three of the last five games with it. The first time he did it, I wanted to explain the grip. The second time, I wanted to explain the shoulder turn. The third time, I just wanted another game. That is the whole argument for this sport in one family.”
The documented life
What Maya can draw on
These are the persona facts the desk is allowed to use. If a story needs something outside this list, it does not get invented. It gets left out.
- Head coach for a girls' high school tennis team in Denver, 32, and a former Division II tennis player.
- Started playing pickleball in 2021 when her parents asked her to make a fourth at their club. She expected to be bored and was not.
- Plays a Sunday morning family game with her mom and dad, who are both in their sixties and both better at the net than she is.
- Plays in a Denver league and a Thursday drop-in, and occasionally fills in for a 55+ group that adopted her.
- Uses a standard-weight paddle, refuses to use lead tape, and is the person friends ask to explain the scoring.
- Coaches teenagers all week, so she is careful not to coach adults unless they ask, which they often do.
- Has a rule about family games: no coaching her father on his backhand, because it has never once gone well.
- Thinks the best thing about pickleball is that a 32-year-old and a 67-year-old can have a genuinely close game.
- Keeps a bag with a first-aid kit because she is the Responsible Adult at every drop-in.
- Learned to love the slow game. Her natural tennis instinct is to hit through the ball, and pickleball made her build a new arm.
The archive
Stories by Maya
CULTURE
My father's backhand, and the case for the family game
My dad has a backhand that would make a tennis coach weep, and he has beaten me three of the last five games with it. Why the family game is the best version.
Maya Chen 6 min read
COMMUNITY
How to be the youngest player in the group
I was 32 and the newest player in a room where everyone else was over 55. What I got wrong about the slow game, and why being the fourth is a skill.
Maya Chen 6 min read
Follow
Keep up with Maya
The whole magazine has a feed at /rss.xml, and The Kitchen Line collects the best of each week into one Thursday email. Per-writer feeds are not live yet, so a feed reader will see everyone at once.