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Pickleball Prodigy: Liz Truluck ’22 Levels Up on a New Kind of Court

Pickleball Prodigy: Liz Truluck ’22 Levels Up on a New Kind of Court

December 5, 2025

Author: Jay Pfeifer

a young woman swings at a pickleball on a court — Highly ranked Liz Truluck moved from tennis to pickleball with relative ease.

Liz Truluck ’22 started playing pickleball three years ago. Today, she’s one of the 20 best players in the world.

Truluck’s life changed with a bee sting.

The four-year starter for the women’s tennis team was working as a tennis pro at a Charlotte country club shortly after she graduated from Davidson.

When her boss had a bad reaction to a bee sting and needed her to fill in at a pickleball clinic, Truluck, who had never really played pickleball, rolled with it.

“I was kinda like, ‘What is this?’” she said, picking up the sport’s stubby paddle. But she made it through the clinic. And even more surprising, she had fun.

Pickleball only recently exploded in popularity, but it’s been around since the mid-1960s when, legend has it, three friends returned from a golf game to find their children bored and invented the sport to keep them occupied. The first rule book was published in 1984, and the pandemic gave the sport a major visibility boost as people young and old looked for accessible, fun things to do outdoors.

Truluck started playing socially and her game rapidly evolved. Soon, she was playing with the best pickleballers in town.

“I lucked out in Charlotte. There’s a little bit of a pro hotbed,” she said. “I started playing with that group and I would get destroyed at first. I don’t think I won a point for a while.”

That gave way to victories in local tournaments and in January 2023, just months after picking up a paddle for the first time, she decided to get serious. She set her sights on a pro tournament in May.

“I was like, ‘Okay, I’m going to train for six months,’” she said, “‘just practice as much as I can and then play
this tournament.’”

In her pro debut, Truluck won her first match before losing the next, a squeaker against a top 10 player.

a young woman wearing a pickleball outfit and holding a paddle

I became addicted to it. I love this.

Liz Truluck ’22

Since then, she’s steadily ascended.

At press time, she was ranked 12th in women’s singles pickleball in the Carvana Pro Pickleball Association Tour, the premier pickleball circuit. She’s also in the top 30 in women’s and mixed doubles.

After the PPA season winds down in the spring, she plays in Major League Pickleball, a team-based tour with a model that resembles other American pro sports leagues. Truluck is one of eight players on the Carolina Hogs, the Raleigh-based pickleball team.

The sport has taken Truluck around the world. She logged two trips to Australia, and shortly after this interview hopped on a 27-hour flight to Malaysia and Vietnam to play in tournaments.

a young woman sits on a pickleball court smiling and holding a paddle

Wildcats Women’s tennis head coach Susanne Depka isn’t surprised. Depka saw tremendous potential in Truluck when she recruited her out of the Myrtle Beach area.

“Liz was one of those players we weren’t sure was going to come to Davidson—she had some other options,” Depka said. “We were thrilled when she called to tell us she would be a Wildcat.”

Truluck’s athleticism and ground strokes were—and continue to be—huge assets. Her backhand, in particular, helps her take control of points.

“She’d hit a backhand they couldn’t get back,” Depka said. “She would just overpower them.”

Dillon Segur, general manager of the Hogs, said Truluck’s backhand is one of the top 10 in the world.

Truluck, the third of eight kids, served as captain of the Wildcats squad in 2022.

“Liz always has a smile on her face,” Segur said. “She brings positivity and energy.” Depka’s not surprised at Truluck’s rapid rise in a sport known for engendering a sense of community.

“I always knew that she would be part of a team easily,” Depka said. “She was easy to work with. You could just give her something to do and she could do it.”

This article was originally published in the Fall/Winter 2025 print issue of the Davidson Journal Magazine; for more, please see the Davidson Journal section of our website.