A leading deaf pickleball pioneer has hailed the English OPEN as “an amazing experience”.
James Townsend has released a video with an interpreter voiceover describing the event in Telford as “beautiful”, praising “the tournament directors, the tournament organisers, the effort that was put in, and the amount of volunteers taking responsibility to support the tournament and to guide people through it, the referees.”
He also noted that the increased number of fans watching matches led to more people approaching him directly and wanting to communicate with him – as well as the other deaf players competing in different categories across the five days.
That’s not to say things were perfect – but when there were problems around communication, there was the opportunity to make suggestions and improve the process, so that by the end of the weekend, it was all running much more smoothly.
“Everyone was included, deaf and hearing players alike,” he says. “There wasn’t just focus on deaf people, there was focus on all players, which was lovely, and this started to spread out. It started to influence other players and spectators. People saw this adaptation taking place.
“Everybody was watching this adaptive way of communicating, and they were all willing to try signing the scores.”
He points to watching a match and the scores being signed for the benefit of deaf spectators.
“As a deaf spectator, most of our experiences are that we can’t follow the games – we can’t follow the scores because they’re being called out,” he says.
“They were aware that there was other deaf people in the sports hall.
“They were watching, we were watching, and so we felt truly included and it really was an emotional and a beautiful experience, and this is what pickleball is about.
“This is the future of pickleball, where everyone is included.”
