How pickleball is changing our lives

With enough registered players to fill the 20,000-seat O2 Arena, pickleball is thought to be one of England's fastest-growing sports.

Clubs are springing up across the country, with groups highly concentrated in big cities such as London and Manchester.

But the sport is taking hold in rural areas too, and players say it is changing their lives.

It is 19:30 on a Tuesday evening and as one pickleball session is wrapping up in Huntingdon, Cambridgeshire, another is about to begin.

Pickleball combines elements of badminton, tennis and table tennis, and can be played either indoors or outdoors.

Four pickleball courts can fit into the same space as one tennis court, meaning up to 16 players can share the same space during doubles games.

The sport was created in the US in 1965, but it did not find its way to the UK until the 2010s, according to Pickleball England, which describes it as one of the country's fastest-growing sports.

It is played in hundreds of venues across the country, including 21 in Cambridgeshire alone.

In England, 20,000 players are registered with the national association – with the actual number of people taking part likely to be far higher.

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Among the 16 players taking part in the evening group at Huntingdon Pickleball is Sarah Grady, a former Paralympic wheelchair basketball player.

The 42-year-old, from nearby Sutton, retired in 2016 and had not taken part in any sport until she discovered pickleball about a year ago.

"Basketball was my first love and then as soon as I started playing [pickleball] I just fell in love," she says.

She says she has enjoyed how inclusive the sport is and being able to play with her husband, who used to play wheelchair basketball with her, despite not being a wheelchair user himself.

"It means that I'm not isolated. I didn't have to try and find a club that had other wheelchair players, I could just come and join in with everybody."

Dan Smith, 37, who works night shifts as a baker, stumbled across the club on his way home from work one morning.

He had never taken part in sport but says he was instantly taken by how social pickleball is and soon started volunteering for the club, becoming a qualified coach.

When he first joined as a player, there was just one 60-minute session a week in Huntingdon.

Now, under Smith's leadership as head pickleball coach, the club hosts 22 hours of weekly sessions.

"I've got too many friends now," he laughs. "I'm staying fit and having fun."

Nina Fernandez, a nurse from Hinchingbrooke, says the sport is popular in her native Philippines but she had not played until this year.

She started playing pickleball socially with her friends six months ago and found the club in Huntingdon more recently.

Fernandez is one of several members of the local Filipino community to have joined. She says she enjoys the social aspect but also the competitiveness.

"It's just so fun," she says. "I used to play volleyball and I used to play badminton but that's stopped now because most of us play pickleball now."

The group is based at Huntingdon Tennis Club and uses a once disused tennis court, which has been reconfigured into four pickleball courts.

Head tennis coach Jasmine Smith says the sport has been a welcome addition to the club and is not seen as a threat to tennis.

"Bringing four pickleball courts has brought a massive influx of people playing, but also there's been a lot of money coming in from it which helps support every other activity that's going on within the tennis club," she says.

"If you have lots of different racquet sports at a venue then people are more likely to join as members."

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