Road to the English Open: The Tournament Hasn’t Changed. The Players Have

Four weeks before Birmingham, the final stage of the journey is revealing something none of the players expected. Preparation has never simply been about becoming better on court. It has been about learning how to handle everything that happens away from it.

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“I’m still just a spectator”

For an athlete preparing for a major tournament, there are few more difficult places to be than on the outside looking in.

“I’m still just a spectator.”

Kath’s words this week were not the words she expected to be saying when the Road to the English Open began.

The plan had been straightforward.

Train. Improve. Arrive in Birmingham ready.

Instead, a hamstring injury has forced her into a different kind of preparation, one built around patience, recovery and accepting that progress cannot always be measured in matches played.

“The game seems to have speeded up so much in the past four months,” she admitted. “It’s actually scary.”

There is no attempt to disguise the frustration. The closer Birmingham gets, the harder it becomes to ignore the distance between where Kath hoped to be and where she currently stands.

Yet the most revealing moment of her week came away from competition.

Unable to fully return to the court, Kath spent 20 minutes in a hospital gymnasium teaching her physiotherapist, someone who had never held a pickleball paddle before, how to dink.

“He loved it probably more than me,” she joked.

It was a small moment, but it captured something important about this journey. Even when the players have struggled to control their own preparation, pickleball has continued to create moments of connection.

For Kath, the ultimate goal has become beautifully simple.

“I made it.”

Not a medal.

Not a result.

Just the chance to stand on court in Birmingham and know she got there.

The preparation nobody planned for

Nobody reaches a tournament like the English Open with a perfect route.

That has become one of the clearest themes of this journey.

When the twelve players started, preparation was about improvement. More practice. Better shots. Greater confidence.

The final weeks have revealed something different.

Real life does not pause because a tournament is approaching.

Karen discovered that this week.

She had planned four practice sessions. Then she tripped over a doorway and aggravated a long-standing back problem.

Suddenly, the carefully organised preparation had to change.

There was no choice but to adapt.

“I’m accepting that I might not be a medal winner,” she said.

For some athletes, that sentence might sound like lowering expectations. For Karen, it represents something much healthier.

The pressure has shifted.

The English Open still matters. She still wants to compete. She still wants to play well.

But she also understands that sharing the experience with the people she has met along the way is part of the achievement.

That change in perspective was reinforced by a conversation with her coach Jane Portnall, who told Karen she was excited to play with her and did not want to let her down.

For someone who has spent years worrying about disappointing others, it was a powerful moment.

The player who once questioned whether she belonged had become someone another player wanted beside them.

Becoming better by doing less

One of the unexpected themes of the final weeks has been that improvement has often come through restraint.

The players have not necessarily become different athletes.

They have become more comfortable understanding who they already are.

Hari’s journey is the clearest example.

His biggest shift has been learning to stop measuring himself by the scoreboard.

“Eight weeks ago I’d judge a session by whether I won the recreational games,” he said.

Now he looks for something else.

Did he read the game well?

Did he make better decisions?

Did he trust himself enough to try things he is still learning?

“Now I’m trying to understand why points are won and lost.”

For a player only around 15 months into pickleball, that is a significant change.

The game is becoming less about individual shots and more about patterns, patience and decisions.

His biggest challenge remains waiting.

Like many developing players, he still feels the temptation to finish points too early. But he is beginning to understand that better pickleball often comes from allowing the rally to develop.

Learning what type of player you are

Zoe has been learning a similar lesson at the kitchen line.

Her dinking has become one of the clearest areas of progress during the journey.

Earlier in the process, the net created uncertainty.

“I would low level panic at the net,” she admitted.

Now the conversation in her head has changed.

She trusts the shot.

She trusts the rally.

She trusts that she belongs there.

The improvement is technical, but the confidence behind it is the bigger story.

Her next challenge is something many players struggle with: shot tolerance.

Knowing when not to attack.

Knowing when one more ball is the right decision.

“Most of my best points come when I’m patient enough to let the game unfold,” she said.

That patience will be tested away from the court as much as on it.

Zoe and her husband are entering a new stage in their fostering journey, which means she expects to have little or no court time during the final two weeks before Birmingham.

It would have been easy to view that as a setback.

Instead, Zoe has accepted that pickleball is one part of a bigger life.

“My life doesn’t revolve around pickleball,” she said.

The game remains important.

It just has to share space with everything else.

Finding enjoyment again

Laura’s biggest breakthrough has also come through acceptance.

Her challenge was never simply improving.

It was finding enjoyment again.

After stepping away from the game because of burnout, there was a genuine question over whether she would rediscover the pleasure that originally brought her to pickleball.

“Wondering whether I’m going to love it or hate it,” she admitted.

Thankfully, the answer has been much more positive.

“The enjoyment is back.”

That may be the most important improvement she could have made.

Laura has also discovered something important about her game. The player she imagined becoming, an aggressive attacker who constantly drives the ball, may not actually be the player she is best suited to be.

“The game I want to be able to play is not the game that suits me best.”

Her defensive game is stronger.

Her patience is valuable.

Her role within a partnership is clearer.

Sometimes progress comes from adding new weapons.

Sometimes it comes from accepting the strengths you already have.

Emily: trusting the person behind the player

Emily’s journey has always carried more than just pickleball.

The six stone weight loss.

Rebuilding her fitness.

Returning to competitive sport.

Balancing work, university, club commitments and family.

Her biggest improvement has been learning to trust herself.

“Not just on court, but mentally,” she said.

She is calmer now. She thinks more. She builds points rather than simply reacting.

“They’d see someone who’s thinking, not scrambling,” she explained.

That is a significant change from the beginning of the journey.

But perhaps her most important lesson came from coaching.

“I don’t need to reinvent myself before Birmingham; I just need to keep showing up and refining.”

It is a simple idea, but one that many athletes struggle with in the final stages of preparation.

The temptation is always to search for a dramatic improvement.

A new shot.

A sudden transformation.

Emily has realised that the answer is usually quieter.

Keep working.

Keep learning.

Trust what has already been built.

More than a tournament

For some of the players, the biggest changes have happened away from their own performances.

Julie’s story has always been about community.

Her own game has improved. Her serve, once a major source of frustration, is now something she trusts more.

But the moment that stayed with her this week came from coaching.

After running a drill session, one player approached her afterwards.

“I really learned something,” they told her.

That meant more than any personal improvement.

Julie started her pickleball club in January 2024. Now she is seeing people who came through that environment begin passing the game on to others.

Manda, one of the club’s newer activators, recently introduced pickleball to a U3A group in Ripon.

For Julie, that was the reward.

The game had moved beyond her.

She had created something that could continue without her.

Simon: preparing to compete

Simon’s journey has always been about adaptation.

A wheelchair athlete who has been playing for only 15 months, he has spent this process learning a version of pickleball that requires different movement, different tactical decisions and different preparation.

His chair movement has improved.

His volleying has improved.

But the biggest change has been his understanding of competition.

“You will not get better in the next four weeks,” he said. “But you will become more match tight if you work on the right things.”

It was perhaps the most experienced assessment of the week.

The final stage is not about becoming a completely different player.

It is about arriving ready.

Even the way other people see him has changed.

After a stranger saw him leaving a garage shop and told him, “You’re doing fantastic,” Simon’s response was typically straightforward.

“I have little choice,” he replied.

That exchange says a lot.

Others may see inspiration.

Simon sees preparation.

He is not trying to be a symbol.

He is trying to compete.

The final approach to Birmingham

When the first ball is served at the English Open, none of these players will have had the perfect preparation they imagined.

Kath will still be wondering what her body allows.

Karen will still be managing injury concerns.

Sarah will still feel the absence of the partner she expected beside her.

Zoe will be balancing a new chapter of life.

Emily will be carrying the weight of everything happening away from court.

Hari will still be learning.

Laura will still be protecting the enjoyment she fought to rediscover.

Julie will still be thinking about the people she has helped.

Simon will still be adapting.

That is the reality of amateur sport.

The tournament arrives at a fixed point on the calendar.

Life does not.

But perhaps that is what has made this journey so compelling.

Over nine weeks, these players have learned patience. They have learned perspective. They have learned that progress is not always visible in a result.

They have discovered that preparation is not just about becoming a better player.

It is about becoming more comfortable with the person who walks onto court.

Birmingham will still bring nerves, mistakes and difficult moments.

The scoreboard will still decide winners and losers.

But the twelve people who arrive there will not be the same people who started this journey.

The tournament hasn’t changed.
The players have.