The 2024 Pickleball English Open will take place from 8-14 August and has been extended to a week to allow more players to take part.
This year’s Skechers Pickleball English Open was the biggest pickleball event ever staged outside of the the USA, with 1063 entrants from 36 countries playing across 40 courts in 94 brackets at the Telford International Centre (TIC).
For next year, Pickleball England faced the conundrum of needing to raise capacity to fit in an anticipated 1500-2000 players, but could not find a venue which held the appeal of Telford.
Organisers felt the atmosphere offered by TIC – confirmed by overwhelmingly positive feedback from players and sponsors – meant they had to look at options which allowed them to remain at the venue.
Their solution was to make the event a week-long pickleball extravaganza. The US Open and US Nationals are week-long events so this is a proven model to increase capacity.
Karen Mitchell told Pickleball 52: “We looked at various ways to manage the event but concluded that to enable players to minimise the number of days they needed to stay, we would split the event by age.
“That is not to say that players can’t attend the event on the days they are not playing to meet up with their pickleball friends – far from it. We will have lots of great games to spectate, lots of stands to visit, lots of fun things happening and lots of recreational play in the evening to ensure plenty of opportunity to mix.”
Pickleball England’s board has also increased the number of age brackets, adding a 45+ and a 75+, as well as adding skinny singles for the 70+ and 75+ age brackets.
Further details are still being ironed out, but Karen added: “It is our aim to try to recreate the alchemy that made the 2023 English Open so fantastic.”
The large electronic screens they had at the English Nationals were really good and very helpful.