Former world squash champion Peter Nicol MBE is opening a first-of-its-kind indoor squash, padel and pickleball centre in New Jersey.
The facility is thought to be the world’s first newly-built club to combine the two new kids on the block in the racket sports industry with squash.
The club will have four pickleball courts, three squash courts and two state-of-the-art indoor padel courts. Two additional outdoor courts for padel and pickleball will be added in early 2025. Importantly, it will be a public club, combining membership with pay-and-play. There will be a Spear Fitness suite, bar, snacks and large events space.
Nicol won one world title, three Commonwealth Games gold medals, was world no.1 for 60 months and caused controversy in 2001 by switching nationality from Scotland to England for funding reasons.
The Inverurie-born player now lives in New York with Canadian wife Jess Winstanley and having opened a four-court public squash centre in downtown New York, they are now on the verge of opening the ground-breaking multi-racket sport facility in a 20,000 sq ft centre in the Fort Monmouth area of New Jersey.
Pickleball has rapidly become a genuine threat to tennis since its post-pandemic explosion in the US, with reports last week that 10% of tennis courts in America have now been re-purposed for pickleball. Padel has now well and truly arrived Stateside with over 100 clubs and huge demand for more. Just last week, the first ever US Open Padel Championships were held at Padel Haus in New York.
Nicol New Jersey, as the new facility will be known, will help squash ride the racket sports wave and capitalise on the sport’s first ever inclusion in the Olympic Games at Los Angeles 2028.
If the club is successful, it could start to change the perception of squash’s viability and help it become part of the increasing number of commercial conversations around combined tennis, pickleball and padel venues.
Nicol, a three-time Commonwealth Games gold medallist, told squashplayer.com: “The three sports together tie in beautifully. You can cross over and play one one day and another the next. You can go up or down in standard and complexity, depending on how you feel physically. We offer both a hard 45 minutes of squash and an hour of gentle pickleball and social. That’s where it’s really interesting. We’re very excited about exploring that.
“It’s going to be like the rackets part of a country club but without the country club – accessible, affordable and fun.”
Winstanley added: “Poeple have combined these three sports in country clubs, but those clubs are private so they’re inaccessible to most people. We are doing it in the public environment in a for-profit business. We believe it’s going to work. It will open squash up to a much larger demographic and become part of a much larger racket sports conversation.
“We are looking to make squash more accessible and get more people playing. It’s the perfect time to do so because we just got into the Olympics. We’re very aware of how squash is set up in this country. It’s niche anyway, but this country has made it even more niche with private clubs and inaccessibility.”
