It is apparent from talking to pickleball facility managers across Canada over the last few months that there is a lot of confusion about the new Fuse and the old Pure 2 balls made by Onix ™ Pickleball.
Everybody loves the old Pure 2 because it is durable. Everybody hates the new Fuse ball because it breaks too easily. What, people want to know, is going on with these balls?
Here are some answers …
Two years ago, the meddlesome USA Pickleball Association decided to start messing around with ball standards, just as they have been messing around with paddle standards for the past 20 years.
The end result of this process was the de-sanctioning of the highly popular and extremely durable Pure 2 pickleball ball. In other words, players could still play with it and clubs could still use it, but the Pure 2 could not be used in USAPA sanctioned events.
Of course, this put Onix in the uncomfortable position of having to create a new ball that met the USAPA’s new standards.
The end result of that process was two new balls. The Fuse Indoor ball and the Fuse Outdoor ball. Both launched in 2017 to much fanfare. The Fuse indoor ball was a hit, but the Fuse outdoor ball was a dud. It met the new standards, but it broke too soon and was quickly the least popular ball on the block.
No worries. Onix went back to the drawing board and quickly released a new version of the ball. This time it was called the Fuse G2 (meaning Generation Two) outdoor ball.
There is no question that the Fuse G2 was a better ball than the first Fuse. It broke less often and it still met the USAPA’s standards. So it checked two important boxes. Unfortunately, it was still not good enough for clubs that had come to love the durability of the Pure 2 ball.
So what was Onix to do? The answer was deceptively simple. Keep producing the Pure 2 and keep selling it to players and clubs who don’t care about USAPA standards.
The fact is, most clubs and most recreational pickleball players could care less about the USAPA or its meddling board members. They just want to play with a ball that lasts, and as long as the Pure 2 keeps doing exactly that, Onix will keep making it.