When Tom Corfield was first told about pickleball, he thought someone had made it up, but it has since allowed him to travel around Europe.

The 29-year-old, who works as an account manager, has made his second appearance at the Skechers English OPEN, held at the Telford International Centre, and his first taking on the professionals of the rapidly growing sport.

This coming two years after it was first brought to his attention during a pub quiz at his tennis club, since when he has become hooked on a different racket sport.

Corfield is now one of 30,000 registered pickleball players around the UK, which has seen an exponential growth in recent years, in line with many other countries around the world.

Croydon’s Corfield said: “I was told it was a mixture of badminton, table tennis and tennis and I thought my hand-eye coordination is not too bad, they had a free taster session on Friday nights, and I wasn’t doing much with my Friday nights.

“So, I brought a mate along, played for a couple of hours and the rest is history.

“I fell in love with it, became addicted, worked my way up through the ranks and now I’m here.

“I’ve also gone to the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Portugal and Spain a couple of times, so I’m really fortunate to be in a position where I’m playing well enough that I feel like I can justify going to these different countries and just enjoy the experience.”

Corfield’s first experience of playing in the men’s open singles tournament at the English Open ended at the group stage in what was another big step in his development as a pickleball player.

He was participating in what has developed into the largest pickleball event outside of North America, the heartland of the sport, with almost 2,000 players competing across seven days of singles, doubles, junior, senior and wheelchair events taking place between August 8-14.

The fact players ranging from the age of seven to 70-plus took part reflects the incredible growth of the sport in recent years, something Corfield is keen to help accelerate further.

“I think the fact that anyone can play it is great,” he said.

“If you’re in your 20s, 30s or 40s and you want to try and take up a different sport, it can be a lot trickier to do so, whereas in pickleball the great thing is anyone can play it.

“I dabble in a bit of coaching outside of my day job and I just love introducing pickleball to people.

“I see people play it for the first time and they just become addicted and they want to know where their local clubs are and where they can play outdoors or indoors. In the two years I’ve been playing, I’ve seen so many people take it up, and people just love it.”

Pickleball England has announced a record number of players competing at this year’s English OPEN from the 8th-14th August at the Telford International Centre in the largest pickleball event taking place outside of the USA EVER – visit pickleballengland.org