Blacktown Leisure Centre to host National Pickleball Championships

The 2023 Australian Pickleball Championships will be hosted by Blacktown City at the Blacktown Leisure Centre, Stanhope from 29th September to 2nd October 2023.

The Championships will serve up a massive range of events over four days, with contestants of all abilities and age groups from under 18 through to over 75 years old.

It’s expected to be the biggest pickleball tournament ever held in Australia, with 700 competitors already registered to play from all over Australia.

For the past two years the event has been held in Queensland.

The Mayor of Blacktown City, Tony Bleasdale said, it’s a major sporting first for Blacktown City and enthused “we are excited to host such a major event. Blacktown is a proud sporting city and we are very much looking forward to welcoming Pickleball players and their families from across our great continent to do battle in the National Championships.”

Since Pickleball was introduced to Australia in 2015, membership in Australia has surged to an estimated 15,000 people playing pickleball at 70 clubs and associations.

Pickleball started in 1965, and the game has enjoyed a meteoric rise in recent years - the fastest growing sport in the USA for three years running.

Dozens of sports stars and celebrities have caught the buzz including Nick Kyrgios, LeBron James and Heidi Klum, and all have invested in professional pickleball teams in the United States.

Its popularity and rapid growth as a game has been put down to it being low-impact, easy to play, appealing to a wide range of ages and fitness levels and it has a short learning curve.

The game is described as resembling a mix of tennis and badminton and is played on a court about 1/3 the size of a tennis court.