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  • 3 months ago
Let's head to the courts in St. Clair and focus on a different sport.

This as the Queen's Park Cricket Club held its ribbon cutting ceremony on Friday to open four pickleball courts and one tennis court.

Former tennis player/turned coach Jerome Ward says the aim is to create more awareness about pickleball in T&T.
Transcript
00:00Another step in the right direction for the Queen's Park Cricket Club.
00:05This as new pickleball and lawn tennis courts were opened on Friday afternoon
00:09at the St. Clair based venue.
00:11Doing the honours during the ribbon cutting ceremony was QPCC Secretary Kishore Williams.
00:18We started this project last year around October I gather.
00:23And the weather patterns did not permit the work order to fall into sequence.
00:32As a result we had some obstacles and issues as we went along.
00:38But we persisted with the team that we had in order to get it done.
00:43Williams says QPCC plays a major role when it comes to sport.
00:47As such there are many sports programmes at the club to benefit youngsters.
00:52The Queen's Park Cricket Club has a drive for grassroots programmes
00:58and every discipline that we have.
01:00These courts, squash courts, table tennis, hockey, football and cricket.
01:07According to Williams, the management at QPCC played a big part in pushing for it
01:12and making sure it was accomplished.
01:14So the question is, who can have access to the courts?
01:18Our first part in terms of these courts, it will be open to members only.
01:25As we go along, we look at the demographics and look at the ages
01:30and see what programme we will fit in after.
01:34We are already in discussions with some coaches for academies.
01:39Speaking of which, former national tennis player turned coach Jerome Ward says
01:45the scoring system in pickleball is similar to that of volleyball.
01:48Added to that, the sport has been around for decades,
01:52but it started catching on during the pandemic.
01:55During COVID day, you could only be outside.
01:57There was social distancing and these kind of things.
01:59So only specific sports were allowed to play.
02:01Tennis, golf and pickleball was one of them by nature.
02:04It's outside and it's well spaced.
02:07During this period, a lot of people picked up on pickleball in the US.
02:11And I was able to get to the US during the shutdown.
02:14I got an exemption to go to the States when it was on lockdown.
02:18And when I got there, I opened a club.
02:2095% of the membership in the club each quarter was from pickleball.
02:23So I saw that, you know, it was a sport that was growing.
02:27Ward is hoping to introduce the sport to schools in time to come.
02:31At the moment, there are not many children playing,
02:34plus there's no structure for kids pickleball in TNT.
02:37Just like tennis, you'd have pickleball coming with the young community.
02:43A lot of kids are asking for it right now.
02:45So I guess there must be some kind of way we could formalize the pickleball
02:49because it's becoming worldwide for children now.
02:51It's mainly adult, but it is reaching out to the younger ages.
02:56So we'd have to get on board with that as well.
02:58Ward was involved in the construction of the pickleball
03:01and tennis courts at the Queensborough Oval.
03:04He expects pickleball to grow and also do as well as tennis in the Twin Island country.
03:10We know now our native export.
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