What Happens When the Game You Built Your Life Around Is Taken Away

“I just remember thinking to myself, just don’t miss a ball. You know how to play pickleball. Just play.”

Forced out of tennis by chronic illness, Molly O’Donoghue made her mark in Europe and India in less than a year.

The athletic trajectory of Molly O’Donoghue doesn’t follow a normal path.

At 15 years old, a promising regional junior tennis career in the UK was abruptly derailed by an invisible opponent. What started as symptoms of extreme fatigue quickly deteriorated to the point where the teenager found herself entirely unable to walk up a flight of stairs. A gruelling six-month hospital stint followed, culminating in a life-altering diagnosis: ulcerative colitis.

Key Takeaways

Forced out of tennis by chronic illness, Domenika Turkovic rebuilt her competitive career through pickleball
Her journey from the UK to Australia to the World Pickleball League in India demonstrates the sport’s growing international pathway
Turkovic’s story highlights how pickleball provides a second chance for athletes displaced from other racket sports

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.

For a competitor who had wielded a tennis racket since the age of four, the physical demands of elite court sports were suddenly off the table.

“I just couldn’t go back,” O’Donoghue admits. “I couldn’t get that level of fitness back, especially being so newly diagnosed. I was still trying different medication… I just needed a couple of years to get better.”

Yet today, O’Donoghue is a European Pickleball Championship gold medalist, an English Nationals titleholder, and a sought-after draft pick in India’s World Pickleball League. Her transformation from a medically retired junior to a global pickleball professional took a matter of months.

This is the story of how a random Instagram ad, a 5:30 a.m. Melbourne tram ride, and a stubborn competitive instinct combined to shape one of pickleball’s fastest-rising players.

The Australian Awakening

To understand O’Donoghue’s rise, you have to understand the physical resilience required just to get her onto the court. The medical turning point came when her treatment shifted to a subcutaneous EpiPen-style injection taken every two weeks, replacing the six-week hospital IV trips that had previously tethered her home. The medication gave O’Donoghue her life back, allowing her to resume solo travel and eventually head to Melbourne, Australia, for a study abroad program during her time at Edinburgh University.

It was there, in early 2024, that the algorithm intervened.

An advertisement for a local pickleball club called “The Jar” popped up on her Instagram feed. Looking to make some Australian friends, she decided to give it a try. The hook was immediate.

“At first it was the community that it gave me, and then it very quickly went from the community to ‘I want to win,'” O’Donoghue says. The timeline for that competitive shift? “A week.”

Armed with her latent tennis instincts, O’Donoghue became obsessed. Living in Brunswick, an hour away from the purpose-built courts, her routine became a reflection of that shift. She would wake up at 5:30 a.m., ride the tram down to the courts just as they opened, and drill for two hours with a local woman before heading back to her university classes.

Returning to the UK: The Unknown Wildcard

When O’Donoghue returned to the UK three months later to finish her university dissertation, the transition was a culture shock. Gone were the sun-drenched, purpose-built courts of Australia, replaced by taped lines in local leisure centres.

She assumed her brief pickleball career was over. However, a quick Google search led her to the UK Premier Pickleball League (PPL) draft. She entered her name without a DUPR rating—an unknown entity in a rapidly growing community. But Thaddea Lock, spotting the raw potential, took a flyer and drafted O’Donoghue for her Premier team.

Just eight months after picking up a paddle in Melbourne, O’Donoghue entered the English Nationals. Paired with Sara Tsukamoto, a friend she had met and trained with early on, the duo approached the tournament with zero expectations.

“We spoke about it the night before and we’re like, ‘Let’s just go have fun. Our matching outfits had arrived. We were like, we’re going to look great either way,'” O’Donoghue recalls.

They didn’t just show up; they won. O’Donoghue and Tsukamoto captured the Women’s Doubles Gold, defeating heavy favourites Mollie Knaggs and Mercedes Baxter Chinery in the final. The next day, O’Donoghue added a Mixed Doubles Silver alongside Tom Turney. She followed this up with a “double crown” run with Louis Laville, pulling off a comeback from 8–2 down in the second set of the final.

By the end of 2024, the player who didn’t know what pickleball was in January was representing Team England at the inaugural European Championships in Southampton, helping her country take the overall crown.

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

The Global Stage: India and America

Success in Europe was just the beginning. The global nature of modern pickleball soon came calling in the form of World Pickleball League (WPBL) in India. Drafted to Pune United for the league’s inaugural season, O’Donoghue found herself playing in front of large, vocal crowds, with matches broadcast to millions of households on Sony TV.

Pune United mounted a late-season surge to reach the final against Bengaluru. Though they fell short, O’Donoghue had shown she could compete on that stage. Her performance caught the attention of the champions, and Bengaluru recruited her for Season 2, where she played under head coach Ollie Straker alongside US Open singles champion Dusty Boyer.

“When you asked about the turning point… I thought, this is something that you could probably do full-time,” she says.

Recognising the need to keep improving, O’Donoghue spent nearly two months training in the United States, hitting with players such as Simone Jardim and Tina Pisnik. The exposure to the American game highlighted a key area for development.

“My dinking… the level of dinking in America is just above anywhere else I would say right now,” she explains. “I’m definitely too impatient. I definitely pull the trigger way too quickly.”

It is something she is now working to change.

Back in the UK, at the Hurlands courts, she drills those situations repeatedly, knowing that what works in Europe will not always hold up elsewhere.

The Road Ahead

As the 2026 season begins, the schedule stretches across Portugal, Germany, and the Paris Open.

Her goals are clear: qualify for the RTA Finals, continue improving in both mixed and women’s doubles, and return to the United States for further development. But the way she measures progress has shifted.

“I think this year I probably won’t measure in results, but I want to measure in how I feel I’ve improved,” she says.

From a hospital bed in Southport to courts in Mumbai and across Europe, the trajectory doesn’t quite make sense on paper.

But it doesn’t need to.

She’s back competing, travelling, and building something on her own terms.

For a clearer view of where the sport is heading each week, you can join the World Pickleball Report here.