Val Vladea is at the vanguard of pickleball’s growth in the UK in her roles for Wilson Sporting Goods and Pickleball England.
In her role as North East Regional Director for Pickleball England, Val has been around the pickleball scene for some time, and is full of optimism about the future of the sport in the UK.
“I think it has huge potential,” she told us. “What Pickleball England has done, putting together the English Open and Nationals, the fact they can do that without any funding from Sport England, without the sport even being recognised, I think it’s fantastic.
“And just imagine once the sport is recognised, how many more people will know about it and hear about it. I think it’s got huge potential to grow”.
In her time as Regional Director, the number of players in the North East has increased dramatically, jumping from 56 players to over 300 and from five clubs to more than 40.
“I just love to see people playing, I want to grow pickleball as much as possible”, said Val.
“People are more committed to playing and we’ve got bigger tournaments. When I started, nobody from clubs wanted to play, whereas now they’re playing amongst themselves and competing at the English Open and Nationals.
“They’re getting out there which is what you want, you want the North East to be represented.”
Val has competed herself, winning silver medals at the 2021 and 2022 English Nationals women’s singles.
She first picked up the sport through her work at Wilson, when they began to sell pickleball equipment.
She explained: “I knew about it because I work for Wilson. We were starting to sell the ranges a bit and it was being talked about a lot from our global team in Chicago.
“My thought was, if I had to learn how to sell the products and get people to understand the differences between paddles and everything, I need to play the sport!”
As an integral part of the Wilson Sporting Goods team, Val has been working on the launch of a brand-new range of pickleball equipment at the end of January 2024, and she gave us some insight into what we can expect.
The company are targeting the emerging UK market with the products. Val explains: “We will be focusing on the UK because it’s the biggest country for pickleball outside of the US and Canada.
“We’re going to have a brand-new range and it’s going to be much more in line with the top brands. We’re very excited about that.
“It’s a brand-new range, we’re going to have different widths, racquets, paddles, a variety of different opportunities for people. For us, 2024 is when we’re going to see Wilson properly coming into the market.”
As the launch date draws closer there will be a call for players to test out the products, so players keen to get their hands on some brand-new pickleball equipment should keep their eyes out for an opportunity to help shape the future of Wilson’s pickleball offering.
