A record number of 1,350 pickleball players are set to head to Bolton at the end of the month, as Pickleball England hosts the 5th English Nationals.
Taking place from Thursday 30th October to Sunday 2nd November at Bolton Arena, the English Nationals will comprise four days of high-level competition, with a record number of 1,350 pickleball players set to compete in the North West.
As the sport’s popularity continues to soar, the event will be a doubles-only tournament for the second year in a row – a decision made by organisers before registration opened to allow as many players as possible to compete. Indeed, Pickleball England has seen over 200 additional players register for this year’s English Nationals and the total number of players would have been over 2,000 if capacity had allowed.
Mixed Doubles, men’s & women’s doubles, junior and wheelchair doubles events are all scheduled to take place across the four days of competition, with ages 8 to 78 set to take to the court. A total of 57 age/skill events will take place over the course of the tournament.
The 2025 English Nationals is the second largest national pickleball event, and will be sponsored by Knotty’s, with supporting sponsorship from The Pickleball Store, HEAD, Franklin, Elite Island Resorts, Antigua & Barbuda Tourist Authority and Bolton based SCAN.
With an estimated 55,000 active players and over 1,000 places to play in the UK, pickleball has seen exponential growth in the past year.
A hybrid of badminton, table tennis & tennis, pickleball is easy to learn and fun to play, making it an ideal sport for all ages and abilities.
Speaking about the forthcoming English Nationals event, Karen Mitchell, Chair and Co-Founding Director of Pickleball England said:
‘Once again, we have a record number of players heading to Bolton to compete in the English Nationals. Our sport is growing day by day and the number of registrations in this year’s event is demonstrative of that. We have some of the top players from a number of different age categories competing on court, so it’s set to be an exciting few days. We’re hoping the English Nationals will inspire more people to try the sport we all love and we’d encourage anyone to come down and watch if they’ve never seen pickleball played before. We want to showcase the best of our sport in the North West.’
Play during the English Nationals will commence from 8am each day. Head to www.pickelballengland.org to find out more about the tournament schedule or head to the ‘Club Locator’ to find your nearest place to play.
