LTA makes a play for pickleball

The Lawn Tennis Association (LTA) has launched a bid to become the official UK governing body of pickleball – but the sport’s current administrators in England are putting up determined resistance.

The LTA has been the official governing body of padel since 2019 and is now launching a similar attempt to annex another burgeoning racket sport in pickleball. Also bidding for control is Pickleball England, which has been the de facto governing body of the sport for the last five years.

Pickleball, like padel, is often referred to as the “world’s fastest growing sport.” Played with rectangular paddles across a net on courts the same size as a badminton court, it has a reported 36 million players in America. Growth has been slower elsewhere, but the pace of development in places like India, Australia and the UK is rapidly accelerating.

There are an estimated 15,000 pickleball players in England – including 6251 players registered with Pickleball England. The body, led by Chair Karen Mitchell, organises the hugely successful English Open and English Nationals each year and is shortly set to launch its own certified coaching qualifications.

But Pickleball England’s governance is now being challenged by the LTA. Both bodies have submitted bids to Sport England to officially recognise the sport and become its UK custodians. Pickleball England submitted its full application in April last year. Sport England then asked Pickleball England officials to meet with the LTA, which happened on two occasions in June and October.

At the second meeting, the LTA made three proposals about future governance. All options resulted in pickleball being under the LTA and proposed pickleball to be part of its ‘Tennis Opened Up’ initiative. Pickleball England rejected this plan, stating that they did not want pickleball to be a subcategory of tennis.

The LTA instead submitted their own separate bid to become pickleball’s governing body – and both bids are set to be reviewed by Sport England’s Board in late March.

These undertakings have so far occurred behind closed doors – until Monday February 26 when James Chaudry (pictured above), English singles champion and Pickleball England’s Strategy and Development Advisor, gave an interview to the Daily Telegraph to bring the battle to wider public attention.

Pickleball is now set to pick the brains of leading figures in UK padel about the LTA’s impact on the sport in its five years of governance.

Pickleball England Chair Karen Mitchell (pictured above) told our sister site, Pickleball52.com: “I am hopeful that Sport England understands the importance of allowing a nascent sport to be developed by a dedicated body that has demonstrated that it can drive growth of the sport. Forcing a sport under a governing body that has multiple sports already, means that it will be competing internally for resources and exposure.”

In a statement, an LTA spokesperson 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. 

“We were open to collaborating with Pickleball England on any application to Sport England for NGB status and approached them to explore this, but ultimately they chose to put in a separate application.”