American duo Chris Powers and Kristin Hickman set the standard at the Skechers English Open with a dominant performance in the final of the women’s open 55+ doubles.
Powers and Hickman are Masters pros on the Professional Pickleball Players tour and proved too hot to handle for England’s Liz Batten and USA’s Ann Trunko as they swept to gold with a 11-4 11-2 victory at the Telford International Centre.
The duo both hail from South Carolina, with Powers, 66, living in Aiken and Hickman, 60, in Columbia and have become firm friends through playing pickleball together over the last five years.
They admitted it was a step into the unknown in heading over the Atlantic for their first English Open, which ended in triumph on their opening day on the show court at Telford.
Powers said: “You want to do your very best and sometimes when they get a couple of points you may think ‘uh-oh, they might go on a roll,’ so you just have to really keep your head, be smart, keep your composure.
“We love playing with each other, we practise a lot together, she’s my best friend.
“She plays with a whole lot of different players and then she plays with David Spearman, who’s her mixed partner consistently, so I feel really lucky to have played with her today and I’ll never forget it.”
The 2024 English Open was the largest pickleball event to take place outside of North America, with a record number of almost 2,000 players from 42 countries set to participate.
On her experience in Telford, Hickman said: “The event has been wonderful, we’ve really enjoyed it. The size of the event is awesome.
“We knew nothing about our opponents today and they were all great players and really nice people.”
Powers, who has coached in locations such as the Turks and Caicos islands and the Bahamas alongside Hickman, added: “We definitely plan to come back next year. We’re really impressed with the level play here in England.
“We didn’t know anyone, but you can pretty much figure out somebody’s game and the thing you want to do the most is not hit to their great shots – if they’ve got a weak backhand, you just have to go there.
“Sometimes one player might be a little bit weaker, but here everybody was really even. We just kept mixing it up, that’s what we had to do.”
Pickleball England announced a record number of players competing at this year’s English OPEN from the 8th-14th August at the Telford International Centre in the largest pickleball event ever to take place outside of the USA – visit pickleballengland.org
