Southampton Sharks are the English Pickleball League champions.
Finishing as runners-up last year, they beat Pickleball People in the final, with the gold medal decided on a thrilling dream-breaker.
More than 300 teams across the country entered the competition at the start of the season, leading up to the showcase weekend at Courtside Pickleball.
And one of the victorious team, Alice McCormack, told Pickleball 52: “The tournament and the competition was fantastic. It’s been great all season, really well run by Pickleball England. and a really high level – I think that you can really see the level getting better and better each year.
“This is the second season that Southampton Sharks have partaken in [the tournament], and we were very much motivated by last year, [when] we came second; however, two of our six players were unavailable, on holiday, so we only had four of us and we really felt the effects of not having the full team last year.
“We really made sure that this year there was all six of us available, which was fantastic; we could all take part as a team and just level the load in terms of playing, making sure we were fuelled, and it was just great fun because I think we are a strong team when there’s all six of us.”
Alice describes the facilities at Courtside as “amazing”, with “a great atmosphere” throughout. The vibes were also boosted by lots of familiar faces, with other luminaries from the South West Pickleball League taking part – including bronze medallists Bristol Blues.
“It’s lovely to share a court with them, but it’s nice to see how well that the South West League is doing and showing that we are pushing the pickleball level up in our area,” she says.
However, it looks like it will be the Sharks’ last tournament in their current guise as representatives of local establishment David Lloyd Southampton. Refurbishment of the club’s courts has meant there has been no space for playing pickleball there in recent weeks, leading pickleball players to look elsewhere for space.
Alice admits it’s a shame.
“We had a ever increasing popular pickleball programme,” she says. “We were averaging 30 people in a session and that was getting larger and larger every week, from beginner to intermediate. We really pushed for an advanced session in the programme 18 months ago, and that had some fantastic advanced players; people would definitely travel from other David Lloyd’s to attend this advanced session at Southampton. We had people that had national titles and played a very high level in PPL, in the Prem teams.”
A spokesperson from David Lloyd Clubs told Pickleball52 in a statement: “For operational reasons, David Lloyd Southampton recently moved a number of its racquets courts, and this has resulted the Club being unable to offer pickleball for a number of weeks. We apologise for the inconvenience, but the new courts are scheduled to open in early August, bringing the total numbers available to eight.”
