Bruno Faletto joins Chris Beaumont on the World Pickleball Podcast to explain how he went from one of Chile’s leading junior tennis players to a corporate career in New York, before leaving the security of full-time employment for another attempt at professional sport.

Faletto was Chile’s No. 1 player in his age group and reached No. 8 in South America before a serious back injury interrupted his route towards professional tennis. He recovered to earn an ATP ranking, moved to the United States on a college scholarship and became a four-time NCAA Division II All-American at Saint Leo University.

After graduation, Faletto stopped competing and built a successful sales career in Manhattan. Pickleball was initially supposed to fill the sporting gap. It gradually became something he could no longer treat as a hobby.

In this episode, Faletto discusses:

• The back injury that changed his tennis career

• The financial reality of playing lower-level professional tennis

• Why he walked away from tennis while playing some of his best matches

• Discovering pickleball in New York in 2022

• Learning that power alone would not make him a professional player

• Combining APP tournaments and moneyball events with a full-time sales job

• Building a coaching business before leaving corporate employment

• How five or six hours on court each day changed his consistency and confidence

• Earning a PPA contract after his breakthrough 2026 season

• His technical weaknesses and the jump from Challenger events to established PPA opposition

• Representing the Grand River Rapids in the CNPL

• His ambition to represent Chile in international pickleball

• Preparing for fatherhood while building a professional sporting career

Faletto also explains the mental change that told him he was ready for the next level. Previously, at 9-9 in a deciding game, he found himself hoping the opponent would miss. Now he believes he will win the point himself.

Listen to the complete Bruno Faletto interview on the World Pickleball Podcast, hosted by World Pickleball Magazine’s Chris Beaumont.

A fuller Players’ Voice feature with Bruno Faletto will appear in the September edition of WPM.

What does it really take to earn a living as a professional pickleball player?

Chris Beaumont is joined by Shane Dunn, founder and CEO of Peak Pickleball Agency, to examine the business behind the professional game.

Dunn explains how paddle contracts, tour agreements, sponsorships and appearance opportunities fit together, why prize money tells only part of the story, and how players outside the world’s leading names can build sustainable careers.

They also discuss what brands are looking for, why personality and storytelling matter alongside results, how local coaches and facilities influence recreational players, and Peak’s expansion beyond traditional athlete representation.

With professional pickleball creating talented players faster than it is creating commercial security, this is a revealing look at who can make a living from the sport, how they do it and what still needs to change.

You can spend hundreds on a paddle and hours working on technique. None of it helps much if the paddle starts moving in your hand.

In this episode of the World Pickleball Podcast, Chris Beaumont is joined by Rob McEvoy, CEO of Thailand-based sports technology company Sahara Dry, to look at one of the less discussed performance problems in pickleball: sweat, grip and what actually happens between your hand and the paddle.

Sahara Dry takes a different approach from traditional chalk and magnesium-based grip products. Rather than absorbing moisture, McEvoy explains how its modified silica technology is designed to repel it, allowing sweat to bead and move away from the hand.

The conversation goes well beyond the product. McEvoy grew up in Rossendale in North West England, worked around professional rugby with Sale Sharks, Cornish Pirates and London Welsh, then moved to Thailand, where a university scientist who had spent more than a decade working with the material approached him about turning the technology into a consumer product.

They discuss why pole dancing unexpectedly became crucial to Sahara Dry's early development, what gymnastics and shooting taught the company about grip, why Thailand provides an ideal testing ground for sweat management, and why pickleball, particularly the huge recreational market in the United States, has become an important target.

Topics include:

• Why sweat changes paddle control
• Absorbing moisture versus repelling it
• The science behind Sahara Dry
• How long grip products need to last
• Testing sports technology in Thailand
• What pole dancing taught Sahara Dry about grip
• Moving technology between different sports
• Why pickleball has become an important market
• The challenge of getting players to try an unfamiliar product
• Building a sports technology company from Thailand

A conversation about something most players notice only when it starts going wrong: the connection between hand, grip and paddle.