Pickleball Haarlem is looking for new members: “It doesn’t matter how old you are, even an 85-year-old can win”

Pickleball Haarlem can still use new members for the new season. To recruit these new athletes, the association is holding a number of trial lessons tonight and Friday afternoon April 21 in the TV Kontakt tennis hall, but according to treasurer Dick Schotanus people can still sign up. afterwards. “Sometimes hardly anyone shows up during clinics, and we get two members a day during the season,” he says.

Accessible

Pickleball is an accessible sport played on a badminton or tennis court with a low net and large surface paddles. The object is to hit the ball over the net and bounce it to the ground within the opponent’s court. Play continues until one team has 11 points and is at least two points ahead of the opponent. You only score a point if you serve and are not allowed to stand in the “kitchen”, which is the area in front of the net. The serving team must serve the ball diagonally across the net and it must bounce before the opponent is allowed to return it. The ball must then bounce once more before the ball can be played again, after which the bounce no longer matters.

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According to Bernadette Snijders Blok, founder of Pickleball Netherlands, the sport is easy to learn. “You don’t need a lot of strength to play this game, like tennis does,” she says. “Holes in the ball slow it down, so the trick is to play tactically and not just hit hard.”

“It doesn’t matter how old you are, even an 85-year-old can beat a 15-year-old boy”

Roger Copper, pickleball player

According to pickleball player Roger Koper, the sport is suitable for everyone. “I’m missing my anterior cruciate ligament, but that doesn’t matter,” he says. “With a corset, this sport is painless.” This also applies to older people, he says. “It doesn’t matter how old you are, even an 85-year-old man can beat a 15-year-old boy,” he says. “There is of course a difference, because at that age, you don’t chase such a young boy so easily. This, on the other hand, does not matter, because there is a victory.

‘Pride’

Ineke Klapwijk is also present during the clinic last Monday. She played pickleball for the first time. “I’ve been playing for fifteen minutes, I think,” she told a journalist from Haarlem105. “Right now I’m playing with three very good pickleball players and that makes me a little uncertain. On the other hand, I’m starting to have more and more control over the game and I’m scoring more and more points. It makes me very proud.