It’s 8 months since anything has been posted here so now is a good time to get things moving again and update what has been happening with Heaton Pickleball. Over the next couple of weeks there will be a series of posts on how the pickleball community and the game has developed here and the opportunities and obstacles that we have experienced as a new sport in a well established tennis and squash club in a rapidly changing pickleball business environment. We will also report on our experience with the Titan pickleball machine that our players funded and purchased, and how we are coping with increasing numbers of players as we approach our current capacity to expand pickleball at the club.

But, in brief. We now have 8 pickleball courts marked out on our indoor tennis courts. Initially we played on 4 badminton courts with correctly positioned non volley zone lines taped. The main problem with these courts is that they are laid out across the tennis court so pickleball and badminton players look directly into the lights that are either side of the tennis court. About a year ago we had 4 more pickleball courts marked out on anther indoor tennis court but this time along the length of the tennis court so the lighting is OK. Over this summer the badminton/pickleball courts will be relayed and reoriented to solve the lighting problem. When this is done we will have 8 courts. The club is also happy for us to tape up to 4 temporary courts on the third of the 3 indoor tennis courts so we could have 12 courts for larger scale pickleball events.