Woman vies for national pickleball title

EL PASO, Texas (KVIA) -- Yuki Goto is a state pickleball champion, training to compete for a national title. Even more impressive than that? She just picked up the sport this past February. That's about 7 months of experience.

She and her partner, Andrew Person won the 2024 New Mexico State Games mixed doubles title. Quite the feat, when you add in the fact that she just moved to the U.S. a year and a half ago from Japan. She came with her husband, who has a job here. Not only is she learning a new lifestyle and sport, she's also learning a new language.

Yuki first saw pickleball played at a local rec center. She noticed how much fun everyone seemed to be having, regardless of age, and wanted in.

Yuki does have some experience - she played "soft tennis" in Japan for 10 years from junior high school to college, and credits that experience to helping her improve quickly.
She says pickleball helped her fall in love with playing again.

"I stopped playing soft tennis and other sports 20 years ago because I was tired of a very competitive world. I hated the sport I loved so much. I felt like I had lost a great friend and that feeling still haunted me from time to time, even though I was over 40 years old, Yuki says.

"Now my heart is healed with the feeling that I have made up with my best friend, sports. I want to continue to have fun and stay healthy in body and mind," she adds.

Yuki is training four hours a day, five days a week and couldn't be happier. Good luck in November at nationals, Yuki! And by the way, when she returns to Japan, she wants to teach her friends how to play the sport she picked up right here in El Paso, Texas...pickleball.

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