Inside the pickleball revolution taking Britain by storm

Pickleball is one of the fastest-growing sports across England – and it’s easy to see why.

Combining elements of badminton, tennis, and table tennis – and accessible for indoor and outdoor play – the sport has huge appeal for all ages and is taking the racket sports world by storm.

The sport has been adopted by 37 million loyal players in the US, and while England has not quite hit that comparative scale yet, the growth is evident.

At the end of 2019, there were 94 official Pickleball England venues and an estimated 2,000 people playing nationally; that has now increased to 587 venues, and approximately 30,000 players.

It is not just socially that the sport has taken off, with the professional game exploding.

Stateside, former doubles Grand Slam champion Jack Sock and 2014 Wimbledon finalist Eugenie Bouchard are pursuing the sport professionally.

Among those leading England’s growth of the sport is Thaddea Lock, once a former tennis player herself – but now the No 1 female pickleball player in the country.

Lock has won countless titles within the sport but admits that less than six years ago, she had little knowledge of it.

It was only while on holiday, visiting the family of British tennis star Katie Swan in Kansas, that she first tried the sport – and immediately found herself hooked.

“When I started at the backend of 2018, Pickleball England had done a really good job at that point of kind of building back up a club structure within the UK. There were a lot of different clubs,” she said.

“I actually got glandular fever at the start of 2019, so I had a few months when I didn’t play, but when I started to feel a little better in May of 2019, Louis [Laville, another leading British player] said to me: ‘do you want to play a tournament?’

“I played my tournament, which was the Scottish Open, and for the time, it was a really big event – but if we compare it now to the English Open and other tournaments we have, we’ve come so far in the growth of the game.

“I’ve also seen the level of the game in the UK increase massively since I first started. I was lucky I came in having good skills from tennis, which allowed me to come in at a higher level, but I’ve had to keep really working hard and improving over the last six years as there are constantly new players coming into the game, whether it be ex-tennis players or from other racket sports.

“It’s really great as these better players that keep coming in, they keep pushing the level.”

The sport has continued to attract attention in America, with tennis icons Steffi Graf , Andre Agassi , John McEnroe , and Maria Sharapova playing a highly-publicised ‘Pickleball Slam’.

Lock was recently joined by two former British No 1’s, Johanna Konta and Greg Rusdeski , at a special pop-up ‘Pickleball Slam’ event in Kingston-upon-Thames, where a new pickleball facility – set to become the Frankin Pickleball Club, the largest centre in England – is being built.

Former world No 4 Konta has started playing pickleball socially alongside her husband, after learning more about the sport while in America for the US Open last year.

She said: “I think I maybe heard about the sport around a year ago. My husband was quite keen to start playing.

“I think he started playing a little bit, and obviously it’s massive in the US, so when I was in New York last year commentating, I remember just seeing a lot about it on TV and actually seeing it played on TV, which is quite funny.

“The more you can have these sorts of facilities, the more people will find out about it and therefore hopefully more people will start playing.”

Former US Open finalist Rusedski discovered the sport through the exploits of players like Sock, alongside watching the US ‘Pickleball Slam’ – and is now also a regular player.

“I was intrigued by it because I’ve tried the other sports, and what I like about Pickleball is just the age group – you can go from about eight to 88.

“We’re just in the early stages in the UK of getting it going and we need more indoor venues for pickleball. Hopefully, this [in Kingston] becomes a new ten-court venue so people can pick it up and play it throughout the year.”

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The centre in Kingston – in southwest London – is within reach of millions within London, and the wider southeast area.

And it is hoped that the launch of the facility will keep the pickleball boom going.

“Over the next six to twelve months we will see a lot more centres like this one,” adds Lock.

“I talk to a lot of my friends and they really want to play pickleball, but when I tell them they have to travel an hour to find a court, they’re not so keen.

“I think this venue and this location is unbelievable and once it’s opened, it’s going to be filled with people. I think we’re going to see such a massive influx of new faces as well – which is great for the sport.

“I think the sky’s the limit. Once people try it, they’re hooked, so we just need to get more places in place – and the sport’s going to boom massively.”