Interview with salome devidze

We were fortunate enough to sit down with Salome Davidze, to chat about her history on the tennis pro circuit, and her journey to where she is today - the #2 women's singles player in the world. 

We met last Tuesday, when Salome passed by Seravalli Playground with her pickleball paddles in tow, and decided to casually hop onto the court with us. We played three games of doubles with her, during which she showed off her devastating two handed backhand drive and power serve. It was a surreal moment to accidentally share the court with a pro, but it won’t be the last time! She spends half her time in the city, and says she’s looking forward to the next time she can join us.

Be sure to watch the whole video to see her top tips for a devastating two handed backhand, as well as her keys to success during long tournament days. 

Transcript of some higlights, edited for clarity.

NYC Pickleball: It sounds like you have some New York City roots, so can you tell us a little bit about that?

SD: When I started playing tennis, my home base was out in Long Island every summer.

We’d be out in the Hamptons where I would go for practice, then go play 10 tournaments elsewhere, and come back to the Hamptons - all since I was 11 years old. I took a break in the middle of my tennis career and I also went and studied at NYU and made a lot of friends. Currently, I do spend a lot of my off time in New York now and it’s amazing. 

NYC Pickleball: Can you give us a brief bio about yourself - where you grew up, your pro tennis career, and how you transitioned into pickleball?

SD: I started playing tennis when I was four and I have two older brothers who played

tennis so I kind of grew up on the courts. I started traveling for tennis tournaments when I was seven years old and we moved to Florida when I was 10. We lived in Florida and I trained at Chris Evert tennis academy for eight years. So we were based basically half a year out of Boca and the other half in New York. I played the Junior Tour and then went on to play WTA - I've been to 42 countries around the world, speak five languages, played everybody. It's been an incredible experience.

At the end of my career my body was a little bit like, “this is enough” - my lower back especially on my serve was very painful, so I had to stop playing tennis and that was incredibly hard.

In the summer of 2021, I was visiting my brother who lives in Columbus, Indiana with his family and he was like “come on, we're gonna play pickleball with me and my friends!” They're good players, they're like 4.5/5.0 and I went to play doubles and they were all like “oh you're so great, you know if you play, in a year you might even be like top 20 or top 30 you're gonna have a great time and I was like “come on guys, you're like tough American grown-up men playing this weird sport,” so I kind of like ignored the whole thing initially. In the beginning of January 2022, my brother called me and said “I entered us into the U.S open without asking your permission and we got in, and it's in April so you need to start practicing” and I was like “are you being serious?” So I just went to Jupiter, FL and found local rec games and I started playing - that's how I picked it up. A few weeks later I said I'm gonna enter a 5.0 tournament and see what happens so that was my first singles tournament and I went out and won it and I was like okay I'm gonna enter a pro tournament see what happens and that's how I got into pickleball.

NYC Pickleball: What's something that you'd like fans to know about yourself?

SD: I love animals, so caring for animals is really huge for me. I studied alternative nutrition a little bit and I am raw vegan (not eating any animal products) and that's something I'm very passionate about and I wish more people around the world did that. The other thing is, anytime I do anything in my life I really fall in love with it. I really, really love pickleball. I hope that it grows and becomes huge and I feel like whatever we're doing right now, it's not so much about us - we're putting like layers and layers and layers for the future generation so I just want whoever watches me to know, the one thing for sure is if I'm still playing pickleball it's because I completely love it.

NYC Pickleball: Thought on eventually representing your country of Georgia in the Olympics?

SD: Dream come true. I'd be so happy. I think for me to represent Georgia in the Olympics, especially at the first pickleball Olympic event would be incredible. I really think this the sport is heading that way and I can't wait till it's an Olympic sport. Also I can't wait till it's a real college sport. I think when it's a real college sport, parents will start their kids at a young age especially if they can get scholarships and pay their own way in college. That is a huge next step for pickleball and for generations to come. I recently emailed somebody inquiring what I need to do to bring pickleball to Georgia and I got a whole like list of things I need to do and with my time off coming up, I'm gonna focus on that. I want to email somebody in Georgia and be like hey I'm Georgian, I'm the number two singles player in the world, tell me what do you need me to do, I want to get it going.

Another fun fact about Salome:

SD: I started building RVs out of the blue. When COVID hit and travel basically stopped, I bought a small RV and one day I was in this RV and I'm looking around thinking to myself, “I can do a better job than this.” I literally went to Home Depot, bought myself a sprinter van and just build an RV in there. That's how I got into it. I had a few that I bought and I sold and I have one right now that I was actually working on yesterday. I walked in and I was like “I need to change this” I was like tearing stuff down. 

Catch her this Sunday facing Anna Leigh Waters in the Women’s Singles Finals at the Hertz PPA Orlando!