Hannah Blatt

About Hannah Blatt

Hannah’s athletic journey didn’t begin on the noisy courts of the professional pickleball circuit. It started in the cold air of Winnipeg, rooted in a different racquet sport altogether. “I played tennis, and then obviously, when I was 12, I kind of transferred over to squash,” she recalls. With guidance from her father and grandfather, she climbed the junior ranks in Canada, earned a scholarship to Jefferson University, and launched a professional squash career.
Her shift to pickleball was, like many second acts, almost accidental. After moving to the Delray Beach area of Florida to train with a squash coach, she found herself wanting more community off the court. “When you get older, it’s tough to find new friends in a new area that you move to,” she explains. Near the end of 2023, she picked up a paddle just for fun. Her racquet instincts kicked in immediately, catching the attention of local players who urged her to go pro. “I was like, ‘Oh, I can’t right now, like, I’m playing pro squash. I’m pretty busy.’”
But pickleball kept pulling. “I was like, you know, I’m just gonna throw myself in there and see how I do,” she says. “And basically, my first tournament was a pro tournament.”
She hasn’t stepped onto a squash court in a year and a half, though traces of the sport still shape her pickleball game, mostly to her opponents’ disadvantage. Asked about her greatest strength, she doesn’t hesitat “I would honestly say my speed.” But it’s the squash background, she says, that give her an edge at the non‑volley zone. “I think one other thing that stands out in my mind is my one‑handed backhand flick” she notes, adding that she can “poke a lot” with it because many players lack the forearm strength.
The transition hasn’t been perfectly smooth. Her fiancé, Grayson, helps her refine her singles groundstrokes (which she admits are “not a supernatural motion coming from squash”), while she works carefully on her “kitchen stuff,” learning to read speed‑ups and deciding “whether I should be sitting forehand, just so I don’t kind of get caught.”
Even as a regular on the PPA Tour, Hannah stays connected to her northern roots. As the sport grows worldwide, bringing the tour back to Canada means something to her. “Obviously, being Canadian and being able to represent my country in the U.S. is amazing,” she says. “To be able to come and compete on the PPA Tour in Canada, I mean, it’s amazing for the growth of the sport. And just being able to be home and compete.”