Wednesdays, indoors 4:30-6 PM
Fridays, indoors 4:30-6 PM
Saturdays, indoors, 3:30-5:30 PM
Sundays, indoors 4-6 PM

Please call/txt if you are uncertain. Our outdoor schedule is kept using playtimescheduler.com. When you register on that free website, hopefully use either postal code 1971 or 1081 to enable notifications about games on Waiheke.

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Since May 2019, we’ve been playing indoor pickleball at the Waiheke Recreational Centre (aka High School Gym), 9 Donald Bruce Rd, Surfdale, Auckland 1081 We also play on the old tennis courts behind the High School where we’ve painted two courts on so-so old asphalt and have two nets & balls secured nearby.

Come join us when you visit Waiheke.

Waiheke Community Radio Pickleball interview

We’ll be staying at Motu Villas for 8 nights in July. I’m bringing along pickleball gear for 8 players. I hope to enlist interest among some Rarotangans in learning/playing the game.

This will happen Tuesday, 13 July at the Rarotongan tennis courts @ 3:30 PM

Another session will take place Friday 16 July, 4 PM at the Edgewater tennis courts.

If you’d want to be notified via email, click here

If you want to know more about pickleball, check out Resources and History

4 Feb 2021, Pickleball and Bagels, Epicurian: Waiheke Weekender, pp 22-24 (free online subscription)

14 Jan 2021, RNZ interview “Pickleball taking off in Tamaki Makaurau“

14 Jan 2021, “Get Yourself in a Pickle and Have a Ball“, Gulf News, pp 49 (subscription required)

July/August 2019 USAPA Pickleball Magazine article “Pickleball Fever in New Zealand“

13 July 2019 TVNZ 1News video: “Pickleball is making a racket in NZ” https://www.tvnz.co.nz/one-news/new-zealand/pickleball-making-racket-in-nz

10 July 2019 RNZ piece: “Ping Pong on Steriods” . https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/394047/ping-pong-on-steroids-pickleball-gaining-popularity-in-new-zealand

30 June 2019 Stuff.co.nz article: “We tried pickleball” https://www.stuff.co.nz/life-style/well-good/inspire-me/113793064/we-tried-pickleball

A number of sub-60 year old local players came along to help out. How cool was that! During breaks they put on some informal exhibition matches that had many of us remembering when we could move around so fast and hit so hard.

Results:

Women’s Doubles:

Mixed Doubles:

Men’s Doubles:

Comment: If it looks like the women winners worked harder than the men, not just looking that way! Some of these men’s finalists only played in that category. Also, many of these medal winners showed up as winners at the previous Rotorua Tournament. These are evolving as the NZ seniors to beat.

The tournament had a few other winners, from the raffle draws held at the end:

Finally, we had the most photographed tournament I’ve yet witnessed. Goretti Sua and Sara Aly filled the Pickleball Auckland Central Facebook page with scads of live action photos. Sara Aly gets credit for all the photos above on this page. Men’s gold winner Chris Traill is also a professional photographer who gifted us with 100 spectacular photos that truly capture the essence of the tournament. They can be seen see here https://pac.org.nz/chris-traill-photographs/

Yours truly had a few shots that demonstrate you can still go airborne in your later years, and show some of the skills and talents we had at this wonderful tournament.

Regards, Jeff Parke, Tournament Director

Copies of the change document for 2021 and two different versions of the rules can be downloaded from here.

In the mid through late 1960’s, former Washington US representative and Lt. Governor Joel Pritchard and some neighbors invented the game to play with their kids and family on some ununsed badminton courts where they lived on Bainbridge Island, a short ferry trip from Seattle in Puget Sound. While a popular fiction was the family dog named Pickles kept chasing the balls, it seems the truth was a wife of one of the game’s inventors commented one day they looked like the crew of the “pickle boat”, a collection of rowers thrown together from those not quite making the crews of other boats in a race. In the 70’s, the game slowly grew and found most players being folks who hung out in Washington state legislative circles;  there still are quite a few homes with courts put in during that time in the Olympia area (Washington’s capital). The sport grew very slowly through the 80’s and 90’s; much of that in Washington State where many schools and community centers had play. But something happened to propel it into national prominence in the last 20 years. That being retirement communities in Florida, Texas and Arizona discovered this is a sport for all ages and very suitable for older adults. Hundreds of courts were built at retirement complexes, and national news channels started carrying stories of it.

Pickleball now is  America’s fastest growing sport, with cities everywhere having made outside tennis courts multipurpose and purpose-built outdoor and indoor pickleball courts springing up like hotcakes everywhere. National championships are held for all age groups and in recent years, professional pickleball tournaments have emerged, with very high levels of competition among intense atheletes in their late teens through thirties. In 2020, well over 3 million Americans were playing pickleball. Find all sorts of other information about the game at Pickleball history.

History of Pickleball in New Zealand

Around June of 2015, pickleball started to be played in NZ for the first time in a Rotorua badminton facility. Two uniquely qualified Kiwis who also gained American citizenship made this happen. Claire Spackman was already well known as a leading NZ badminton player. Husband David McNamara, also a badminton player, had written an app for scoring badminton. Some pickleball player friends in N. Carolina asked if he could do the same for scoring pickleball. While doing so, David and Claire started playing the game. They brought equipment with them back to Rotorua and got the badminton hall going with the sport. David and Claire did such a bang up job, that the Rotorua center is still the most active site for pickleball in New Zealand, despite them having moved back to the states in 2017. Later in 2015 & early 2016, pickleball began spreading, at first to Whakatane, Kumeu, Browns Bay, and Nelson. Now pickleball is being played regularly at a number of venues in New Zealand: “Where to Play” or scroll around this map “Places to Play“

History of Play in Auckland

What is Auckland? It is where a third of New Zealand’s population live. Unlike something like LA or NYC or Seattle, Auckland is really a term (and political entity) meaning a much larger area than the central city. Nearly all of Auckland is subdivided into districts that call themselves suburbs, regardless of how close or far they may be to the central business district (CBD).  Places like Ponsonby, Remuera, Mt. Roskill, Mt. Eden, etc. are suburbs even though they are  neighbourhoods quite inseparably part of the central urban area of Auckland.  More distant areas like Kumeu or Waiheke Island truly resemble what many people think of as “the ‘burbs”.

Starting in 2016, regularly scheduled pickleball in Auckland was played in Kumeu and Browns Bay, both northern suburbs.

In central urban Auckland, pickleball play began April 2018 at Mt Albert community centre (YMCA).  This is PAC’s most popular location with 30+ players often showing up for Friday morning sessions.  As of 2021, pickleball venues in central Auckland have greatly expanded.  See our “Where to Play” page for central Auckland locations and schedule.

It really helps if you want to organise games there to use this website: https://playtimescheduler.com

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USA Pickleball Association – a ton of info here

Pickleball Channel – lots of videos, instructional material

Nice collection of training videos from Dayton Pickleball

And, just google “pickleball videos” or “pickleball tutorials” to find much more on YouTube, Facebook or other sites

New Zealand Pickleball Instructors
Paul Cubitt 021 085 78676  email Paul Cubitt
Len Rust  021 660 571   email Len Rust

Paul and Len are IPTPA Level II Certified Teaching Professionals

Equipment suppliers in New Zealand

Pickleball Essentials (NZ supplier)

Pickleball Stuff NZ, phone 027 363 3733 or email pickleballstuffnz@gmail.com

Pickleball New Zealand official website