Former world number two squash star Liz Irving has always been passionate about growing racquet sports – and she is now a keen advocate of pickleball.
“It changed my life,” she told Pickleball 52. “I had a lot of injuries at the end of my career, and I coached for years and years and years, and my body was just shot. I can’t run around the squash court anymore. I actually stopped hitting a ball, playing racquet sport, because it hurts to run.
“So then I stopped hitting a ball, and probably after about six months to a year, I thought, ‘Gee, I miss hitting a ball. I really miss it.’
“I just fell into pickleball. I love it. It gives me my my hitting fix. It’s fun, it’s social, and it’s such a great entry level racquet sport for every age, every level.”
This community feel is part of what drives her in her new venture – a booking platform, Pivot Sports. Coming from squash, she felt there was a need for a user-friendly process for players of all levels, giving venues a space to promote their offering, and generally building something meaningful and useful for racquet sports.
All the way along, the platform has been shaped by user feedback. It has already enjoyed great success in her native Australia, offering venues a way to get bookings for their facilities, and clubs and individuals to find courts and sessions near them.
“It’s not something I ever thought would be something I would do,” she says. “But the more I have started this journey, the more I see how important it is to create something that can really engage people easily without them realising it, and breaking down the barriers to entry into these sports.
“When someone has [the Pivot Sports app] on their phone, they’ll see what’s in their area, up to 50km. You can certainly find more, but you’ll always get a direct feed of what’s what’s around you now. So you might see that you’ve got [a venue] maybe 15 miles down the road, and has come on board, there might be something in your area, and then it starts to grow in that way.”
Pivot Sports are now launching in the UK, ready to test and trial a seamless experience for players, clubs and venues across racquet sports.
