The Gainesville Sports Commission hosted the sixth annual Gainesville Indoor Pickleball Showcase this weekend to support ElderCare of Alachua County. Though the event drew a record number of participants, the packed tournament brackets represented only a fraction of the sport’s popularity. 

The charity event, a partnership with Touching Hearts at Home, brought together 410 pickleball players from Gainesville, as well as many out-of-towners. Men’s and women’s singles played on Friday, men’s and women’s doubles played Saturday, and Sunday will close the weekend with mixed doubles. 

Angela Dorset and Delana Sandy said last year in Gainesville was their first tournament playing as partners, so they wanted to come back this year, though they live three hours away, in Clearwater. 

“It’s the one sport that I’m actually pretty good at, and [I enjoy] the people you get to know,” Sandy said. Dorset agreed that the people make the sport, saying their team rallied around her when she went through a personal crisis. 

This year’s pickleball showcase was Gainesville’s largest yet. While it has been held at the Legacy Park Recreation Complex in Alachua in the past, this year the Sports Commission was able to upgrade to the new Alachua County Sports & Events Center at Celebration Pointe, where there was more room, and the courts did not have to be marked out with tape. 

The hundreds of pickleball players used all 21 of the Sports & Events Center’s courts over the weekend. In past years, the event has attracted over 200 players, but after adding a singles category this year the registration numbers soared, according to committee member Mary Rossow, who said over 100 players came out to play singles on Friday. 

Pickleball is the fastest-growing sport in the nation, according to the Sports & Fitness Industry Association, now with about 8.9 million players over the age of six. 

Gainesville alone has hundreds of players who use various spaces to enjoy the sport. 

Though this is the Gainesville Sports Commission’s sixth year hosting the event, it is only the third time the pickleball showcase has been hosted as a charity event with $10 of every registration went to ElderCare of Alachua County, a nonprofit provider of direct support services for seniors. ElderCare provides Meals on Wheels, services to Alachua County’s Senior Center, an Alzheimer’s daycare, in-home services and more, all funded by grants and donations. 

“There’s just such a great need for every single one of those areas for the seniors in this community,” Kacy Ealy, ElderCare’s executive director, said, “and events like this help us bring services to those in need, so we’re just so grateful for this opportunity.”