Less than a year since first picking up a paddle, Mollie Kubrick-Finney has already had a transformative impact on pickleball in the UK.
The 26-year-old was instrumental in the project to build four permanent outdoor pickleball courts last year at Sawbridgeworth Tennis Club, from where she now runs the Spicy Pickleball Academy.
This coming weekend, she makes her first foray into events as she co-manages the Hampshire Pickleball Festival with Sam Basford Pickleball. The event is running simultaneously with round five of the Premier Pickleball League which, by the way, Mollie co-founded.
For Mollie’s next venture, she will soon be launching a campaign using pickleball as a vehicle to get women and girls (back) into sport. The project, which has the working title Femme Pickleball, will see Mollie host female-only coaching camps, competitions and festivals.
That’s all without mentioning that Mollie is just about to finish a degree in Psychology, after which she’ll do a Masters.
Mollie has also made a stunning impact on the top level of English competitive pickleball, which is where we’ll begin her story.
After an upbringing in tennis in her home town of Sawbridgeworth in Hertfordshire, Mollie had played in Wimbledon qualifying and had several scholarship offers from US colleges on the table, until disaster struck in 2015, aged 18.
She tore a bicep muscle which required an operation and took her out of the game for two years. The scholarship offers were swiftly withdrawn.
She threw herself into coaching back home and has happily been coaching there ever since. But just over a year ago, whilst playing tennis with friends on holiday in America, she noticed a neighbouring court where people were playing this weird thing called pickleball. She gave it a try.
“When I came back home I really wanted to give it a go, so I went to Roehampton,” she tells Pickleball 52. “I met Louis [Laville] and Thaddea [Lock] and they invited me to the European Championships in Spain a couple of weeks later, and I came third. I seem to have adapted pretty well!
“The main difference [to tennis] was serving and staying back. I had always had a tennis mentality of ‘serve then attack’. At that first pickleball event, I found it a very different mentality and it was strange initially not being able to win points on the return. But pickleball has been a fresh start where I can compete again. I have loved it.”
Since that explosive bronze medal-winning debut at the European Championships, Mollie has won titles in Belgium and France as well as gold alongside Thaddea Lock in the women’s doubles and bronze in the singles at October’s English Nationals in Bolton.
Her passion for pickleball took hold quickly and she spearheaded the project to build four permanent outdoor courts at Sawbridgeworth which opened last August. There, Mollie runs individual and group coaching sessions for juniors and adults (open to club members and non-members). She says most participants are first-time visitors to the club, who outnumbers pre-existing tennis members diversifying into pickleball.
“The club was considering padel courts but, after going to the European Championships, I persuaded them to add pickleball courts instead as they were a fraction of the price,” Mollie explains.
“It’s really rare to have permanent outdoor pickleball courts outside of London. It has added another element to the club, bringing in new people all having fun. Tennis is a really difficult sport to pick up, whereas pickleball is so easy that it attracts absolutely everyone. It’s one of the best things sports clubs can do, in my opinion.”
Having founded the Spicy Pickleball Academy last year and now planning a host of events and projects for 2024, Mollie has barely had time to take stock of the speed with which she’s established herself as a leading figure in a sport she only picked up just under a year ago.
“After so long in tennis, it’s really exciting to be part of another sport and make it all part of my mission,” she states. “At the top of the game, everyone is obviously competitive but the sport is very much community-based and everyone is so lovely.
“As soon as I came into it, I had so many opportunities presented to me straight away. Everyone wants to help pickleball grow, so we support each other in whatever we’re trying to achieve.”
Pickleball 52 wishes Mollie the best of luck in this coming weekend’s Hampshire Pickleball Festival, co-organised with SB Pickleball, and with all her upcoming coaching ventures and competitions.
