How a Canadian Oxford Student is Building the UK’s First Collegiate Pickleball System

Like many before him, Theo Young’s initiation into pickleball was equal parts humbling and eye-opening. Shortly after picking up a paddle, the former tennis and table tennis player found himself staring down a pair of septuagenarians armed with “boomsticks.” Despite their limited mobility, the result was a swift 11–2 defeat.

“It’s an equaliser,” Young admits. “They looked like they could barely get around the court, but you know when the game started it was clear that it was over”.

Key Takeaways

Theo Young, a Canadian Oxford student, is building the UK’s first structured collegiate pickleball system from scratch
The initiative aims to rebrand pickleball as a young, dynamic sport rather than a retirees’ pastime
The May 30 British Collegiate Pickleball National Championship at Stourbridge will be the first event of its kind in the UK

This article features in the May 2026 issue of World Pickleball Magazine. For the full collection of features, interviews, coaching insights and global coverage, download the complete magazine here.

But while the sport’s older demographic has formed the bedrock of its global explosion, Young—a Canadian master’s student currently studying education research at the University of Oxford—is on a mission to reshape its image. He believes that “pickleball can be young and stylish,” and he’s setting out to prove it by launching the first unified collegiate pickleball ecosystem in the United Kingdom.

On May 30th at Courtside in Stourbridge, Young’s vision will become reality when he hosts the DUPR UK University Pickleball Championships, powered by JOOLA.

Spotting the Gap in the Market

When Young arrived in the UK in September 2025, he noticed a glaring disconnect. While individual university pickleball clubs were popping up and playing in local leagues in places like Newcastle and Aberdeen, there was no central inter-university competition.

“I was kind of like, it’s kind of wild that there are these organisations that are having trainings and sessions weekly and there’s no uniting competition at all,” Young says. Drawing on his background as a sports team captain and organiser, he set out to build one.

His blueprint was the United States collegiate pickleball scene, a well-established system where top teams—like Florida Atlantic University, boasting an average DUPR of 5.6—compete in super-regional qualifiers culminating in massive national championships.

To bring this level of legitimacy to the UK, Young went straight to the source. He booked a call with Jacob Smith, DUPR’s Head of High School and Collegiate Pickleball. While DUPR’s collegiate focus is primarily domestic, they granted Young the crucial sanctioning to operate as the official DUPR collegiate championship of the UK.

He didn’t stop there. He partnered with Dylan Stevens of London’s Lemon Pickleball after meticulously combing through the DUPR database to find and recruit active 18-to-23-year-old players within a 100-mile radius. Securing the backing of equipment giant JOOLA—who sponsors the US college tour and is eager to replicate that success in Europe—and official sanctioning from Pickleball England provided the final layer of credibility.

The Blueprint for May 30th

The upcoming inaugural tournament is designed to balance elite competition with mass accessibility. Expecting between 15 and 20 universities to descend on Stourbridge’s purpose-built acrylic courts, the format will feature four doubles games per matchup, culminating in a “DreamBreaker”. However, reflecting the UK’s preference for doubles play, the tiebreaker will be a doubles DreamBreaker rather than a singles format.

To ensure competitive balance, the event is split into two divisions: “Improver” (generally for players under a 3.5 DUPR) and “Open” (3.5 and above). The demographics of the entrants suggest Young is successfully reaching a new group of players.

“In the improver category, I’d say around 80% of players will be entering their first tournament, which I think is really cool because I think it is definitely a new demographic,” Young explains. The “Open” division promises its own intrigue, serving as a coming-out party for international students and recent UK arrivals who are highly skilled but haven’t yet made their mark on the established tournament circuit.

Crucially, Young is fiercely committed to keeping the sport accessible for students. At just £15 for entry, it is billed as the cheapest pickleball tournament on purpose-built courts in England in 2026. Young’s ultimate goal is to use any excess revenue from livestream advertising to subsidize travel costs for distant teams, such as Aberdeen, ensuring geographical distance doesn’t price students out of the competition.

If you’re following how the global game is shifting week by week, the World Pickleball Report breaks this down every Wednesday.

Rebranding the Sport: “Sexy, Young Pickleball”

Beyond the logistics of brackets and court surfaces, Young is intensely focused on media and aesthetics. He recognises that for collegiate pickleball to thrive, it needs to shed the “old person” stigma and embrace a more dynamic, athletic identity.

“I definitely feel myself cushioning me talking about pickleball to my non-pickleball friends,” Young admits. “I don’t want to sound like… there’s just a connotation around it”.

To combat this, Young is collaborating with Alex Heyman of Alikos Sports to produce high-quality, “glitzy” media for the event. Instead of relying solely on an 8-hour livestream—which will be broadcast on Pickleball England’s YouTube channel—the focus will heavily incorporate stylised graphics and bite-sized social media clips designed for Instagram to make the tournament look like a premium, professional event.

This emphasis on youthful branding extends to Young’s next venture: New Wave Pickleball Club. Operating as a PPL (Premier Pickleball League) Challenger team, New Wave will exclusively feature players under the age of 25. It’s a calculated move to inject what Young calls “sexy, young pickleball” into the European scene, complete with the kind of slick media days and social media storytelling seen in major American sports.

The Future of University Pickleball

While Young’s Oxford squad—which he jokingly guarantees will be “the best-looking team there”—prepares to face stiff competition from combined London universities and traditional sporting powerhouses like Loughborough, Young’s eyes are already looking past May 30th.

The long-term vision includes integrating pickleball into BUCS (British Universities & Colleges Sport), the governing body for higher education sport in the UK. The British Universities and Colleges Sport (BUCS) framework offers the structure that collegiate pickleball needs to scale. Furthermore, driven by enthusiasm from JOOLA, Young is highly optimistic about expanding the collegiate model into continental Europe, creating cross-border rivalries and relationships.

For now, though, all roads lead to Courtzside. By taking the framework of the American collegiate system, securing the backing of major players like DUPR and JOOLA, and injecting a fresh dose of youthful branding, Theo Young isn’t just organising a tournament.

He’s putting a structure in place for the next generation of UK pickleball.

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