The USA Pickleball National Championships will be played at San Diego’s Barnes Tennis Center Nov. 15-23, bringing the nation’s best pickleball players to the city after the venue hosted a qualifying event for USA Pickleball in January.
It’ll be the second USA Pickleball event hosted at the Barnes Tennis Center and the first national championship. The Barnes Tennis Center also hosts national tennis and padel events.
USA Pickleball announced San Diego as the host for the national championships on March 28.
The Barnes Tennis Center, which is operated by nonprofit organization Youth Tennis San Diego (YTSD), was the leading candidate for the nation’s biggest pickleball tournament because of its central location to beaches and close proximity to many tourist attractions, YTSD COO Jesse Steinberg said.
It’s also one of just a few facilities in the U.S. that is capable of hosting a major event that needs at least 40 pickleball courts.
About half of the venue’s 24 tennis courts will be converted to pickleball courts in order to make room for approximately 50 total pickleball courts, Steinberg said. One full-sized tennis court can fit four regulation pickleball courts.
The USA Pickleball Golden Ticket tournament hosted at the Barnes Tennis Center in January brought over 500 competitors and more than 1,000 spectators to San Diego in its first associated pickleball event.
YTSD was founded in the 1950s and started the Barnes Tennis Center in the early-1990s. They’re more busy than ever since they began bringing in national tournaments with one of the nation’s premier racquet-sport facilities.
It’ll also host Major League Pickleball and the USTA Billie Jean King Girls’ 16s and 18s National Championships in August. The profits from each tournament goes toward providing free access to tennis, pickleball and padel for underserved youth in San Diego.
The Barnes Tennis Center has about 8,000 people who visit and 800 kids in tennis clinics each week.
Steinberg hopes that the nine-day national championships will bring more than 3,000 competitors and 20,000 spectators to the venue and bring more eyes to all three sports it supports.