The bid for control of pickleball between the Lawn Tennis Association and incumbent body Pickleball England will move closer to a resolution next week.
The LTA, which became the official UK governing body of padel in 2019, is bidding to take control of another burgeoning racket sport in pickleball, but is meeting stiff resistance from the sport’s tight-knit community and Pickleball England, which has governed the sport (albeit without ‘official’ NGB status) for the last five years. An online petition against the LTA’s bid has surpassed 3,000 signatures.
Sport England will adjudicate in this emotive custody battle and they are scheduled to discuss Pickleball England’s application on 25 June.
Ahead of the meeting, Pickleball England staged an uncoincidentally-timed show of defiance and solidarity at last week’s Pickleball Slam event in London. Former US Open tennis finalist Greg Rusedski and GB no.1 Johanna Konta played exhibition matches with England’s top pickleball players in front of a packed crowd.
There, Rusedski told our sister title, Pickleball52: “This game is growing really rapidly – it’s on the crest of a wave. It has a strong social aspect and you can play it straight away whether you’re aged eight or 88.
“Tennis has its own federation, squash and badminton have theirs and pickleball has its own here already in Pickleball England. I feel like tennis and pickleball are two separate sports. I think pickleball should have its own federation. Both are racket sports but they are very, very different – you can’t compare them.”
Pickleball England organises the hugely popular English Open and English Nationals each year, has launched bespoke coaching qualifications and policies and forged many partnerships and sponsorship deals.
Sport England figures released last month showed that 27,000 adults (over-16s) played the sport at least once last year, with 20,000 playing at least twice a month. (Padel’s equivalent figures were 50,400 and 27,000.)
Since the LTA’s rival bid for future governance has emerged, Pickleball England has been meeting key padel stakeholders in private to discuss their experiences of the LTA’s leadership and organisation of the sport.
Pickleball England’s Strategy and Development Advisor (and English singles champion) James Chaudry said the organisation would remain the leading body in pickleball, regardless of Sport England’s decision on official NGB status.
He said: “Everyone at Pickleball England, county reps, players, communities, the leisure centres and other venues, they all put in countless volunteer hours to drive the sport – and that’s not going to go away any time soon.
“I don’t see a world in which Pickleball England isn’t the national governing body of the sport because I don’t feel like the community is suddenly going to leave our side and give their volunteer hours to the LTA.
“It’s a shame that it has come down to something like this. Pickleball England needs and deserves support but is now being assessed against a body of another sport. It doesn’t seem fair but we can only respond to the situation in front of us. It’s now about how we put our best foot forward and look after all the stakeholders who play pickleball in England, so we’ll continue to do that.”
In a statement in February, the LTA said: “Pickleball is an exciting sport with a large potential cross-over audience amongst tennis players. We believe that the LTA’s relationship with over 15,000 registered venues, 1.5m tennis fans on our database and an existing infrastructure around coaching, safeguarding, facility investment and workforce could be hugely beneficial to pickleball and help it to grow and flourish.”
In response to this concept of “crossover”, Chaudry said: “The LTA are tasked with looking after tennis and they should be 100% focused on tennis. If they believe having pickleball under their belt will help convert people from pickleball to tennis, well, those are their thoughts. Although there may be some crossover, I think everyone in this community will tell you they are quite happy staying in pickleball.”
Sport England have advised us on more than one occasion that their recognition process is to identify who they will work with relative to a particular sport. They do not anoint the National Governing Body, the players and clubs do. Therefore, PickleballENGLAND is the defacto NGB since we have helped focus the growth of pickleball to around 30,000 players and over 600 places to play.