Pickleball at Cromer Tennis Club

We were pleased to have two Community Connectors from NNDC join our Tuesday session this week to find out more about Pickleball.

Louise is the Community Connector for Cromer and Coralie for villages surrounding Sheringham and North Walsham.  

Their role is to meet with community groups to help with governance, grants/funding etc and with the wider community to assist in finding hobby groups (such as pickleball), support groups and to provide other help by NNDC.

After a brief introduction to the game, Louise and Coralie were soon on court having fun playing pickleball!

Front Row: Coralie Martin is 2nd from the right, and Louise Cox is 3rd from the right.

Cromer hosted its first inter-club competition  today (Sunday) at Stalham Sports Centre.

10 teams took part, including 3 from Cromer, competing in a MLP format tournament.

In a tough half of the draw, 2 teams from Cromer competed really well finishing 3rd and 4th in the group, just missing out on a semi-final spot.

In the other half of the draw Cromer finished 2nd in their group qualifying for the semi-final. In a tense match Cromer lost in the dream breaker decider after the match finished 2-2. In another tense 3rd place play off, the match went to another dream breaker after the match finished 2-2. Holding their nerve Cromer managed to get overall 3rd place finally winning the decider 16-14.

Congratulations to runner-up Norwich Pickleball Club and to the Actonians from London (captained by Rhodri Oliver) who won the tournament.

A big thank you to all the teams who took part (especially those who travelled from London, Surrey and Hampshire), and to Anakin Owen and Judy Oliver who took the lead in arranging the event.

Also a big thank you to EveryoneActive allowing us to use their facilities and for being such a huge supporter of Cromer in more ways than one - including our bespoke t-shirts!

https://www.everyoneactive.com/centre/cromer-academy-gym/

We are lucky to have Will Taylor as a qualified coach in our midst to help individual Club members and members of the local community develop their Pickleball game.

Will Taylor:  Email: willjtaylor@gmail.com  Mob:  07375 510 326

Anakin Owen from our own Cromer Pickleball Club and his partner for the mixed doubles, Jessica Wilson, became the 4.0 Pickleball European Champions 2023.

2023 European Pickleball Open in Rota, Spain 23-26 Feb 2023

An incredible achievement for both athletes. Congratulations to both and a proud day for Norfolk.

Anakin trains at our own club and has shown from an early start exceptional talent and ability. This is only the start of his rise in the sport.

Lets just remind ourselves that Pickleball only started at Cromer Tennis & Squash club 16 months ago. To have European champions and potential champions champing at the bit in the background is testament to their incredible talent and perseverance but, at times like these, to acknowledge the organisational skills of the Pickleball committee, Jean, Judy and many others, and our partners from Everyone Active who host the indoor courts under the guidance of James Hudson.

The Club's second Annual Pickleball Tournament took place on Saturday Feb 4th with 24 players participating in an all-day event involving 60 matches.

Thank you to Anakin Owen for organising the event.

The Ladies winner was Judy Oliver with runner-up Jean Spruce.

The Mens winner was Anakin Owen and runner-up Rhodri Oliver.

The standard of play was very high and there were a good number of spectators. Amazing hand-made trophies - Rosie Cornish creations - were presented by Vice-Chairman, Icarus Hines, in the Clubhouse.  

It is hoped a match report with pictures will appear in the week's North Norfolk News (out on Thursday).

Will Taylor has arrived back from the US with a unique Pickleball coaching certificate and has been sponsored by Dropshot, a major sports equipment provider, as an embassador for the sport in the UK.

He recently won Gold in a major US competition and is hoping to acheive similar success in the UK moving forward. Local to Norfolk he will enable you to acheive sporting success!!

He will be training our huge class of Pickleball club members this year to further their goals and achieve future success and he is open to paid training sessions for personal achievement.

Young or more mature, be part of this exciting sport which is one of the fastest growing sports in the UK at the moment and you may even be an Olympic sport success in the future.

For more details contact the club on 01263 513741 or view our website for further details below.