Ollie Grantham and Harry Hamilton were the show-stoppers at last weekend’s fifth UK Young Persons’ Pickleball Championships at the National Badminton Centre in Milton Keynes.
Held alongside the UK’s Original Pickleball Festival, the event founded by London Pickleball’s Louise Stephens was the biggest yet. It attracted over 40 young players from the age of 10 upwards who travelled from across England, Scotland and Ireland.
Many of the players had never met prior to the tournament and over half had not attended these Championships in the past. A lot of the players therefore needed pairing up by the organisers, including two of the youngest competitors, Harry from Northern Ireland and Oliver from Essex, England, who are both 14 (pictured above).
Practising together for a couple of hours at the Friday Evening Festival proved to be a benefit to not only their playing partnership but also as the start of a budding friendship. Their talent was admired by so many of the watching adults, one even remarking that she thought they had played together for years. Even more remarkably, Ollie has only been playing for a matter of months, adding to his racquet sport repertoire, which includes both padel and tennis. He has even quit school to focus on training and competitions.
Although the event was won by Loren Varndell and Anakin Owen, the former also being awarded, it was the young scratch pair that won the hearts of the crowd. “I couldn’t believe the level of maturity shown in their play, given their ages and inexperience as a pair. They read the game so well and demonstrated a real example of pickleball at its finest,” said one onlooker.
Ollie is being coached by Molly Kubrick-Finney, who told us: “Ollie’s natural ability blew me away. He’s a pleasure to work with because of his attitude and love of the game. He’s able to learn very quickly and he showcased his ability to apply what I taught him as he reached the semi finals in his first competition. The plan is to coach Ollie all the way to the very top and for him to spearhead a new generation of pickleball talent in the UK.”
Ollie said: “It was an amazing event, my first ever as I only got my bat for Christmas! There were lots of great matches and everybody was really nice and friendly. Having the festival on at the same time made the atmosphere extra special.”
The tournament was split into four categories: Up to DUPR rating 3.5 junior open age, Up to 4.0 Girls, 4.0+ Girls, 4.0+ Boys
It was clear that this event was about more than pickleball. New friendships were forged, talent was spotted and encouraged and new partnerships for future events were formed. Players from the North and South of Ireland spent a weekend of fun together, the young players mixed in with the adults at the Festival and in fact, two of the youngsters joined in the evening’s karaoke, with young Danny Hajnal being the star of the show singing his own rendition of ‘Barbie Girl.’
The girls’ events were won by Karen Crawford from Scotland and Thaila Rodrigues from Ireland and the junior event by Tully Lyth of England.
The event was kindly supported by Franklin Pickleball and UK Pickleball Shop and was efficiently run by the crew from London Pickleball.
“If this year was anything to go by, 2025 will be bigger and better,’ said founder Louise. “It’s scary how much emerging talent there is out there and how many young people are taking up the sport!”
