Sports
Major League Pickleball Tournament Comes to Illinois. Meet Chicago’s Pro Team
Chicago is known for its sports teams — the Cubs, Bears, Sky, White Sox, Bulls, Blackhawks and Fire. But did you know the city also has a professional pickleball team?
If you think pickleball is slow, players say you’ve probably never seen the game in person.
“It’s really hard, and you can’t tell how hard it is until you can see it live and in person,” said Joe Saslow, one of the owners of the Chicago Slice, the city’s professional pickleball team. “When you see these guys out here playing, they’re incredible — their reflexes, their speed, their athleticism.”
The paddle sport, often described as a mix of ping-pong and tennis, has exploded in popularity in recent years. The Chicago Slice is among several teams competing this week in a four-day Major League Pickleball tournament in suburban Northbrook.
“I’ve been playing since 2013, hardly anybody was playing,” said Chicago Slice player Zane Navratil, a former world No. 1 in men’s singles. “At that point it was all old people. Now, you’ve got plenty of younger people coming in. The new generation is loving it, so many more people playing.”
Navratil, who won three Wisconsin state tennis championships in high school, has become one of the sport’s most recognizable faces. He said a new generation of players is changing the game.
“It used to be a lot of tennis players coming in and playing it like tennis,” Navratil said. “Now the younger kids are bringing their own style, their own enthusiasm to it.”
Among them is 13-year-old Elsie Hendershot, one of the Chicago Slice’s youngest players. The Utah native went pro in 2025 after getting her start playing with relatives.
“I started with my family, then I kind of moved on to junior pro,” Hendershot said. “I started doing really well in those, kind of moving up a level. And I was able to get signed, and then I got drafted, so now I’m here.”
It’s also one of the few professional sports leagues where men and women compete side by side in doubles and mixed doubles matches. Ahead of the tournament, the Chicago Slice hosted an exhibition at Gallagher Way outside Wrigley Field on Tuesday, giving fans a preview of the fast-paced action they’ll see in Northbrook.
“The goal for us is to win a championship in a couple years,” Navratil said.
The tournament features Major League Pickleball teams, with the Chicago Slice hoping home-court advantage will help them make a statement.
“It’s like any other pro sport,” Saslow said. “We’re trading for players, signing them, free agency, waivers, anything you can think of in other sports, we’re doing the same thing here.”
Chicago has long been a sports town. Now, the Chicago Slice is hoping to carve out a place of its own one paddle at a time.
For more information, visit majorleaguepickleball.co.
