Whenever Rob Nunnery steps on to a pickleball court – as he will this weekend at the English OPEN in Telford, playing men’s doubles with Ryler Deheart and mixed with Mollie Knaggs – he’ll relish every moment of playing the sport he loves.
Calling Rob’s 2025 a dramatic year would be an understatement. In February, the 19-time pro title winner had a colostomy – a surgical procedure that creates an opening in the abdominal wall, bringing a portion of the large intestine to the surface, allowing waste to leave the body.
“I was living in Hawaii and going through a difficult, public separation when I first felt a strange, deep aching pain in the middle of the night,” he explains. I’d flown to Utah for a tournament, then back to Hawaii, and the pain kept coming back. I didn’t know it yet, but it was the beginning of a perianal abscess. I went through urgent care visits, scans, general surgeons, draining procedures. Nothing gave more than a few days of relief.
“That cycle, brief relief followed by excruciating pain, lasted for months. I got my first colorectal surgery in Austin in June 2022. The recovery was brutal, and I still had my torn meniscus from a tournament in New York, so I ended up having both surgeries back to back. Even after the colorectal surgery, the pain came back. I had seton drains [to drain away infection] placed to try to help, and I’ve had them ever since.
“In 2023, I was officially diagnosed with perianal Crohn’s disease. It’s a severe form, and the quality-of-life impact is massive. I went through multiple rounds of biologic medications. Each one required months of trial just to see if it might work. None of them gave meaningful relief.”
With this level of pain, he took a big decision.
“By the time I reached the end of 2024, I was surviving. That’s it. I wasn’t living anymore. The pain was constant and deep. I was playing tournaments without practicing because even standing for too long was too much. I’d get to an event, put on a smile, and try to compete. That was my life for two years – white-knuckling everything.
“Eventually, I reached a point where I had no other option. I decided to get a colostomy in February 2025, and while it’s not something anyone ever wants, it gave me back my life. The pain didn’t vanish completely, but it became manageable. For the first time in years, I wasn’t waking up in agony. I could sleep. I could move. I could laugh.”
And he says that relief was a surprise to him: “I didn’t realise how much pain I was in until it stopped. When something becomes your everyday baseline, you forget what feeling good even is. It wasn’t until after the surgery that I realised how bad it had actually gotten.”
A former tennis player and coach, Rob began pickleball at the end of 2019, introduced to it by Adam Franklin of Franklin Sports.
“I took a lesson in Austin, Texas, and later that same day, I went home, created an Instagram account, and posted a video saying I was going to go pro in a year. That was the start.
“I didn’t do it to build a platform or a career. I had just left my advertising business in 2018 and was in a stretch of life where I didn’t know what was next. I started a podcast called FailOn, where I interviewed high performers about what they had to overcome. But I still didn’t feel clear on my own direction. I’d coached college tennis up until 2009, but I hadn’t picked up a racquet in a decade. So pickleball wasn’t a natural next step. It just made sense once I hit a few balls.
“It felt like the game matched my skill set: quick hands, doubles instincts, strategy, discipline. I wasn’t the cleanest tennis player, but I was good at finding ways to win. Pickleball rewards that. I started writing weekly blogs on Pickleball Portal, documenting the whole journey: what I was working on, what I was learning. It was just a personal challenge at first, but I stuck with it. Since the end of 2019, I’ve done pickleball full-time.”
Returning to the court after his surgery has required some adjustment. Because the stoma affects how his body absorbs fluids and nutrients, he monitors his blood work, and he still has those seton drains and fistulas.
“But,” he adds, “I have energy now. I can practise again. I’ve started to enjoy the grind of training. I can work on things, get sharper. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I’m actually improving.
“Coming back to compete hasn’t been easy. My first tournament post-surgery was in Dubai, just six weeks after the operation. That was too soon, but I was eager. Now I’m building back more carefully. I just played in Asia, and this will be my third time at the English Open. It’s good to be back.”
He now writes a daily newsletter via his own website, and has some advice for others in comparable situations.
“For anyone going through their own health struggles, especially those facing Crohn’s, IBD, or a potential surgery, it’s hard to see the other side when you’re in it. People say, ‘This too shall pass,’ and you want to believe them, but you can’t always feel it. I didn’t. I thought pain was just my new normal.
“But relief is possible. It may not look like what you hoped for. It may mean making a decision you never thought you’d consider. But I’m here, still doing what I love. I have a bag on my stomach now, but I also have energy, and presence, and something to give. That’s not something I could say for a long time.
“I’m not fully out of the woods. I still have tough days. Mental health is part of it, too. But I’m no longer just surviving. I’m living again – and that matters.”
Congratulations on fighting adversity- That took fortitude and courage. A lesson for us all and glad Pickleball played a part.
Thank you so much for coming back to the English OPEN Rob. You might not have got the results you wanted but you are inspiring so many people, including myself, with your daily newsletter.