Eleven weeks later, there is nothing left to prepare for

Back in May, we chose 12 ordinary pickleball players and asked what would happen if we followed them all the way to the English Open.

The answer turned out to have rather less to do with drilling and tournament preparation than we expected. There have been injuries, changing partners, missed sessions, medals, work, families, new friendships and lives that simply refused to organise themselves around a pickleball tournament.

This week also brought devastating news from Kath Knowles, whose partner died on Thursday after a desperately short battle with pancreatic cancer. There is no honest way to turn that into a sporting lesson, and we do not try.

The group that reaches Birmingham is not quite the group that started. Neither are the people within it. On Tuesday, the road ends and the NEC doors finally open.

Pickleball has a culture problem. Ron Shell thinks you have to build one.

NPL Australia CEO Ron Shell joins us for a conversation that goes well beyond league tables and tournament results.

How do you create sporting culture before there is much history? How do you persuade people who do not already play pickleball to care about the professional game? How do rivalries become real rather than manufactured?

And perhaps most interestingly, has pickleball even discovered the version of itself that people will eventually want to watch?

Japan is building pickleball through companies, not just courts

More than 800 players, 24 courts and more than ¥10 million in cash and prizes will make October's Burger King Cup one of the biggest pickleball events Japan has staged.

But Fabrizio Lavezzari argues that the more interesting development is happening around the tournament. Sansan, Mitsui Fudosan, ASICS, TBS and other companies are moving beyond straightforward sponsorship and becoming part of the structure through which Japanese pickleball is being built.

Corporate-owned teams, player development programmes, workplace networks and new places to play may be giving Japan a model of growth that looks quite different from the one created in the United States.

Next stop: Birmingham

The English Open begins on Tuesday at the NEC, and a large part of WPM's attention moves to Birmingham with it.

We have spent months following the road there. Next week we finally get the tournament itself. The next time you hear from the Road to the English Open group, all of the preparation, compromises and anxiety will have met the scoreboard.

The new-look WPM is out now

Yesterday we released the August edition of World Pickleball Magazine and introduced the new direction of WPM.

The daily website and World Pickleball Report remain focused on the news, tournaments and decisions shaping the sport. The monthly magazine now gets closer to the people, culture, behaviour and ideas around the game.

Know someone heading to the English Open?

Forward them today's edition. They can follow our coverage from Birmingham and join the World Pickleball Report for the next briefing.