Latest news with #American-invented
IOL News
16-07-2025
- Entertainment
- IOL News
Forget the tennis finals. At Wimbledon this July, it's pickleball.
Here. Of all places. It took a while, but even at Wimbledon, Britain's fortress of tennis traditionalism, pickleball is at the gates. On Day 6, it was louder. More than 100 people showed up to try a new court sport as Emma Navarro and Barbora Krejcikova prepared to face off on Wimbledon's Court No. 1, a few hundred yards away. Pickleball. On Day 4 of Wimbledon, some of the fans who queued up outside the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club to see Novak Djokovic take on Dan Evans might have heard a distinctive thwock thwock thwock coming from the public park next door. It wasn't lawn tennis, or croquet, and it wasn't there a year ago. The American-invented hybrid of tennis, ping pong and badminton was officially recognized as a sport in December by the top sporting councils in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, and is gaining footholds. The upstart racket sport, which has upended court culture in the United States, Canada and Australia, is taking off across the United Kingdom. After being slowed by the coronavirus pandemic, membership in the country's national pickleball organization grew by 73 percent last year and is on pace to jump by 114 percent in 2025. 'It's getting bigger all the time,' said Emma Wells, who runs tennis programs in Wimbledon Park. Wells introduced pickleball last year and is reconfiguring more of the courts each season. 'You respond to demand, and the demand is definitely here.' More like foot faults, aghast tennis purists say. As it booms here, pickleball is bringing the same frictions with tennis players (jealous of court space, sniffy of the skill needed), and complaints from neighbors (annoyed at the noise) that has marked its explosive spread in the United States. There was controversy at the highest levels - court intrigue, as it were - when the top governing body of English tennis in 2024 attempted unsuccessfully to wrest control of the new, suddenly everywhere sport from Pickleball England, the grassroots organization that has nurtured its growth since 2018. Critics said the motives of the Lawn Tennis Association were as much to keep pickleball in its place as a 'poor relation' as to promote it. The association denied being up to anything nefarious. 'We just felt that we could play a role by growing tennis and pickleball in a complementary way,' said Olly Scadgell, the association's managing director of tennis development. Perhaps nowhere is the juxtaposition of the ancient 'sport of kings' and the newcomer recreation of the masses as acute as in Wimbledon, the leafy London suburb where tennis is a religion and the first fortnight of July are holy weeks. At the venerable All England Club, the players wear white, the fans wear ties and, this weekend, the top pros will vie for trophies in the 'Gentlemen's' and 'Ladies'' divisions. Asked about pickleball, many were not amused. 'My job is to maintain decorum and protocol,' said the honorary marshal dressed in a straw boater hat, a smart blue blazer and a flawless Windsor tie as he scanned the crowd around Centre Court last week. 'It would not be appropriate for me to say what I think of - ' the honorary marshal paused in apparent pain, 'pickleball.' He declined to be quoted by name. 'It's a fun game,' Dean Goldfine, an American coach waiting to watch Djokovic, said with a shrug. 'I mean, you can't compare it to tennis.' 'Could they please call it something else?' wondered Wimbledon resident Nina Ruiz, still in tennis whites from her morning game and watching a doubles match on a jumbo screen set up at nearby Roehampton Club, the site of some of Wimbledon's practice courts. 'I've played it, and I like it,' Ruiz said, 'but that name.' Roehampton is one of dozens of clubs where pickleball is breaking through, but with growing pains. Responding to requests, club management allows one of its indoor tennis courts to be taped over into four pickleball courts for one day each week. Pickleball players want more. Many tennis players don't. Paul Lindsay, who oversees the club's nascent pickleball program, said the sport is gaining traction, but is still 'stifled' by the trad-tennis resistance. The club's tennis committee is split between those who think pickleball should get more space and those who warn 'it will devour tennis,' said committee member Emily Monson, who was also watching Wimbledon on the outdoor screen. One possible solution: reconfigure a few tennis courts for pickleball each day between 1 and 5 p.m., when even retiree tennis players tend to retreat from the heat or, this being London, the rain. 'That's a lot of retaping,' Ruiz said. 'It's certainly treating them like second-class citizens,' Monson said. Carolyn Laville grew up in Wimbledon, lives less than 500 yards from Centre Court and loves the grass-court pageantry that consumes her neighborhood each summer. She also wears her love of the new sport as loud as her pink-and-blue T-shirts that say 'Wimbledon Pickleball,' the group she co-founded with her son, pro pickleball player Louis Laville. The family discovered the game in Florida a few years ago and went crazy for it. Louis introduced the sport at Roehampton, played in national tournaments and helped start a nationwide Premier Pickleball League. He's now playing the pro circuit in Australia. Carolyn Laville, a business owner, plays at a growing number of courts around Wimbledon and recruits more and more players. 'Oh, well done!' she shouted, breathless, during a recent women's drill at Roehampton after failing to reach a wicked crosscourt backhand. Coming off the court, she unzipped her prized paddle, a JOOLA Agassi Pro signed by Andre Agassi. (Agassi is one Wimbledon vet who has embraced pickleball; as have Steffi Graf and Andy Roddick. John McEnroe has said 'compared to tennis, I think pickleball does suck, honestly.') The keen new players are phlegmatic about the resistance from tennis die-hards. 'It's a cultural thing,' said Serena Norgen, who says she joined the pickleball 'cult' after retiring. 'This club prides itself on being at the center of tennis. There's a lot of anxiety about that. But pickleball is here to stay.' It may be that no one ever orders a Pimm's Cup or strawberries and cream at a pickleball grand slam. And demand is still nowhere near the tidal wave washing through U.S. parks and tennis clubs. By some estimates, almost 50 million Americans have tried the sport, which fans hail as more accessible than tennis, and scolds deride as akin to riding an e-bike in the Tour de France. But popularity is building in the U.K. The number of venues climbed tenfold in the last six years, and the estimated number of players jumped from 2,000 to 45,000. 'A lot of clubs have embraced it, and a lot of them are now at full capacity,' said Karen Mitchell, a retired American Express executive who runs Pickleball England. 'We're always running out of space.' Four dedicated pickleball courts debuted in June at Park Sports, a pay-to-play tennis complex on the grounds of Chiswick House, an 18th-Century neo-Palladian villa just across the Thames from Wimbledon. It was their second run at the sport; eight courts launched last year were popular but sparked noise complaints. 'We learned some things,' said Luke Brosse, the marketing manager for Park Sports. 'With two tennis courts you have four players and two balls. With eight pickleball courts, you have 32 players and eight balls; it does make a bit more noise.' The new courts, farther from nearby houses and showcased by the club entrance, have drawn double the bookings - 'I've never seen a sport grow so fast,' Brosse said - and has inspired eye rolls from tennis-firsters. 'I think it's a little silly compared to tennis, to be honest,' said Benjamin Borger, 19, a university student playing tennis at Chiswick last week. 'My biggest issue is that it takes courts away.' But Park Sports wants to expand pickleball. It is eyeing courts it manages in Hyde Park, Regent's Park and other billboard London locales. But in those 'Royal Parks,' owned by the Crown, pickleball has been a tougher sell. 'They have been a bit more hesitant about a new sport,' Brosse said. Maybe, in the House of Windsor, pickleball has met its match.
Yomiuri Shimbun
13-07-2025
- Sport
- Yomiuri Shimbun
Forget the Tennis Finals. At Wimbledon This July, It's Pickleball.
WIMBLEDON, England – On Day 4 of Wimbledon, some of the fans who queued up outside the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club to see Novak Djokovic take on Dan Evans might have heard a distinctive thwock thwock thwock coming from the public park next door. It wasn't lawn tennis, or croquet, and it wasn't there a year ago. On Day 6, it was louder. More than 100 people showed up to try a new court sport as Emma Navarro and Barbora Krejcikova prepared to face off on Wimbledon's Court No. 1, a few hundred yards away. Pickleball. Here. Of all places. It took a while, but even at Wimbledon, Britain's fortress of tennis traditionalism, pickleball is at the gates. 'It's getting bigger all the time,' said Emma Wells, who runs tennis programs in Wimbledon Park. Wells introduced pickleball last year and is reconfiguring more of the courts each season. 'You respond to demand, and the demand is definitely here.' The upstart racket sport, which has upended court culture in the United States, Canada and Australia, is taking off across the United Kingdom. After being slowed by the coronavirus pandemic, membership in the country's national pickleball organization grew by 73 percent last year and is on pace to jump by 114 percent in 2025. The American-invented hybrid of tennis, ping pong and badminton was officially recognized as a sport in December by the top sporting councils in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland, and is gaining footholds. More like foot faults, aghast tennis purists say. As it booms here, pickleball is bringing the same frictions with tennis players (jealous of court space, sniffy of the skill needed), and complaints from neighbors (annoyed at the noise) that has marked its explosive spread in the United States. There was controversy at the highest levels – court intrigue, as it were – when the top governing body of English tennis in 2024 attempted unsuccessfully to wrest control of the new, suddenly everywhere sport from Pickleball England, the grassroots organization that has nurtured its growth since 2018. Critics said the motives of the Lawn Tennis Association were as much to keep pickleball in its place as a 'poor relation' as to promote it. The association denied being up to anything nefarious. 'We just felt that we could play a role by growing tennis and pickleball in a complementary way,' said Olly Scadgell, the association's managing director of tennis development. Perhaps nowhere is the juxtaposition of the ancient 'sport of kings' and the newcomer recreation of the masses as acute as in Wimbledon, the leafy London suburb where tennis is a religion and the first fortnight of July are holy weeks. At the venerable All England Club, the players wear white, the fans wear ties and, this weekend, the top pros will vie for trophies in the 'Gentlemen's' and 'Ladies'' divisions. Asked about pickleball, many were not amused. 'My job is to maintain decorum and protocol,' said the honorary marshal dressed in a straw boater hat, a smart blue blazer and a flawless Windsor tie as he scanned the crowd around Centre Court last week. 'It would not be appropriate for me to say what I think of – ' the honorary marshal paused in apparent pain, 'pickleball.' He declined to be quoted by name. 'It's a fun game,' Dean Goldfine, an American coach waiting to watch Djokovic, said with a shrug. 'I mean, you can't compare it to tennis.' 'Could they please call it something else?' wondered Wimbledon resident Nina Ruiz, still in tennis whites from her morning game and watching a doubles match on a jumbo screen set up at nearby Roehampton Club, the site of some of Wimbledon's practice courts. 'I've played it, and I like it,' Ruiz said, 'but that name.' Roehampton is one of dozens of clubs where pickleball is breaking through, but with growing pains. Responding to requests, club management allows one of its indoor tennis courts to be taped over into four pickleball courts for one day each week. Pickleball players want more. Many tennis players don't. Paul Lindsay, who oversees the club's nascent pickleball program, said the sport is gaining traction, but is still 'stifled' by the trad-tennis resistance. The club's tennis committee is split between those who think pickleball should get more space and those who warn 'it will devour tennis,' said committee member Emily Monson, who was also watching Wimbledon on the outdoor screen. One possible solution: reconfigure a few tennis courts for pickleball each day between 1 and 5 p.m., when even retiree tennis players tend to retreat from the heat or, this being London, the rain. 'That's a lot of retaping,' Ruiz said. 'It's certainly treating them like second-class citizens,' Monson said. Carolyn Laville grew up in Wimbledon, lives less than 500 yards from Centre Court and loves the grass-court pageantry that consumes her neighborhood each summer. She also wears her love of the new sport as loud as her pink-and-blue T-shirts that say 'Wimbledon Pickleball,' the group she co-founded with her son, pro pickleball player Louis Laville. The family discovered the game in Florida a few years ago and went crazy for it. Louis introduced the sport at Roehampton, played in national tournaments and helped start a nationwide Premier Pickleball League. He's now playing the pro circuit in Australia. Carolyn Laville, a business owner, plays at a growing number of courts around Wimbledon and recruits more and more players. 'Oh, well done!' she shouted, breathless, during a recent women's drill at Roehampton after failing to reach a wicked crosscourt backhand. Coming off the court, she unzipped her prized paddle, a JOOLA Agassi Pro signed by Andre Agassi. (Agassi is one Wimbledon vet who has embraced pickleball; as have Steffi Graf and Andy Roddick. John McEnroe has said 'compared to tennis, I think pickleball does suck, honestly.') The keen new players are phlegmatic about the resistance from tennis die-hards. 'It's a cultural thing,' said Serena Norgen, who says she joined the pickleball 'cult' after retiring. 'This club prides itself on being at the center of tennis. There's a lot of anxiety about that. But pickleball is here to stay.' It may be that no one ever orders a Pimm's Cup or strawberries and cream at a pickleball grand slam. And demand is still nowhere near the tidal wave washing through U.S. parks and tennis clubs. By some estimates, almost 50 million Americans have tried the sport, which fans hail as more accessible than tennis, and scolds deride as akin to riding an e-bike in the Tour de France. But popularity is building in the U.K. The number of venues climbed tenfold in the last six years, and the estimated number of players jumped from 2,000 to 45,000. 'A lot of clubs have embraced it, and a lot of them are now at full capacity,' said Karen Mitchell, a retired American Express executive who runs Pickleball England. 'We're always running out of space.' Four dedicated pickleball courts debuted in June at Park Sports, a pay-to-play tennis complex on the grounds of Chiswick House, an 18th-Century neo-Palladian villa just across the Thames from Wimbledon. It was their second run at the sport; eight courts launched last year were popular but sparked noise complaints. 'We learned some things,' said Luke Brosse, the marketing manager for Park Sports. 'With two tennis courts you have four players and two balls. With eight pickleball courts, you have 32 players and eight balls; it does make a bit more noise.' The new courts, farther from nearby houses and showcased by the club entrance, have drawn double the bookings – 'I've never seen a sport grow so fast,' Brosse said – and has inspired eye rolls from tennis-firsters. 'I think it's a little silly compared to tennis, to be honest,' said Benjamin Borger, 19, a university student playing tennis at Chiswick last week. 'My biggest issue is that it takes courts away.' But Park Sports wants to expand pickleball. It is eyeing courts it manages in Hyde Park, Regent's Park and other billboard London locales. But in those 'Royal Parks,' owned by the Crown, pickleball has been a tougher sell. 'They have been a bit more hesitant about a new sport,' Brosse said. Maybe, in the House of Windsor, pickleball has met its match.
Business Wire
22-05-2025
- Business
- Business Wire
Sublime Systems and Microsoft Sign Binding, Long-Term Purchase, Transforming the Market for Clean Cement
SOMERVILLE, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--In its latest move to shape its future supply chain, Microsoft is contracting with Sublime Systems to verifiably reduce construction emissions through a binding purchase of low-carbon cement manufactured with Sublime's breakthrough American-invented technology. 'We need breakthrough, reimagined products like Sublime Cement at scale to reduce emissions—both at Microsoft and globally," said Jeff Leeper, Vice President of Global Datacenter Construction at Microsoft. Microsoft's purchase will deploy up to 622,500 metric tons of Sublime Cement® over a six- to nine-year period. Deliveries will come from Sublime's first commercial factory in Holyoke, Mass. and its subsequent full-scale production factory. Sublime's Holyoke plant is designed to eliminate scale-up risk to progress to full megaton-scale Sublime plants—a trajectory accelerated by Microsoft's purchase. Sublime's manufacturing process avoids conventional sources of carbon emissions and other pollution, a 'true-zero' technology that forgoes the need for carbon capture, enabling cost competitiveness at full-scale production. 'In designing creative transactions such as this one with Sublime, Microsoft aims to accelerate the mass production and adoption of clean construction materials, enabling innovators to overcome the real, acute challenges of scaling in heavy industries with existing manufacturing capacity,' said Jeff Leeper, Vice President of Global Datacenter Construction at Microsoft. 'We need breakthrough, reimagined products like Sublime Cement at scale to reduce emissions—both at Microsoft and globally.' 'This purchase enables Microsoft to access Sublime's low-carbon cement technology regardless of where their construction is,' said Sublime Systems CEO and Co-founder Dr. Leah Ellis. 'This solves a previously intractable challenge for clean cement scale-up: the lack of long-term cement transactions contrasted with the immediate need for innovators to demonstrate bankable customers to fund their manufacturing. Microsoft is stepping up as the first customer for our future megaton-scale plant, enabling us to more rapidly build and scale Sublime Cement as a global, enduring solution for clean construction.' Microsoft has secured a priority option to purchase and deploy Sublime Cement in its construction projects when geographically possible, at their datacenters, office buildings, and other infrastructure. Through this novel contract, the environmental attribute certificates (EACs) of Sublime Cement can be purchased separately from the physical cement material—a similar mechanism to decoupling renewable energy certificates from the electron at the point of clean electricity production. This model is powerful when applied to heavy industry like cement, which is typically produced within a tight geographic radius of customer construction projects. 'To reach net zero, the world needs innovative technology solutions like Sublime Cement. At Microsoft, our focus is growing the market for these solutions,' said Katie Ross, Director, Carbon Reduction Strategy & Market Development at Microsoft. 'While we prioritize deploying physical material whenever possible, this EAC approach helps both buyers and sellers overcome geographic, supply chain, cost, and other barriers that make it challenging to introduce new technologies.' Microsoft's purchase of Sublime Cement EACs will be third-party verified, and it's expected to be managed on a future book and claim system. This follows a 2024 memorandum of understanding, where the two parties committed to developing a book and claim transaction that was verifiable, additional, and catalytic. It complements efforts from organizations such as RMI (formerly known as the Rocky Mountain Institute), who published a white paper with Microsoft on a book and claim model for the materials sector and who is partnering with the Center for Green Market Activation on the development of a book and claim system in partnership with other leaders in clean concrete technologies. Sublime is currently developing its first commercial factory in Holyoke, harnessing rich industrial infrastructure to bring quality manufacturing jobs back to a city that was once the world's biggest paper manufacturer. With an up-to $87 million award from the U.S. Department of Energy, Sublime is working to reshore and modernize American cement manufacturing, strengthen American supply chains, increase energy efficiency, and lead innovation of an essential material. It produces Sublime Cement as an ASTM-compliant replacement in concrete for ordinary portland cement (OPC), which is made in kilns running at 1450°C to decompose the feedstock limestone, a mineral that is roughly 50% CO 2 by weight. Sublime's breakthrough electrochemical process breaks down the entirety of its rock and industrial waste feedstocks, avoiding the pollution and waste that have characterized cement manufacturing for over 200 years while improving energy efficiency. Low-carbon Sublime Cement is more durable than legacy OPC and can exhibit premium qualities such as lighter color, desirable for aesthetics and reduction of urban heat island effect. Microsoft's binding offtake follows successful commercial deployments of Sublime Cement demonstrating the material poured and placed like conventional cement. Sublime is partnering with industry-leading general contractors to further accelerate adoption through the construction supply chain. To inquire about integrating Sublime Cement into your construction, email partnerships@ About Sublime Systems Sublime Systems is commercializing breakthrough technology to manufacture cement more energy and resource efficiently. Sublime's electrochemical, ambient-temperature process breaks down low-value rocks and industrial wastes into its constituents: reactive cementitious ingredients and critical mineral co-products. It avoids the waste and emissions characteristic of portland cement manufacturing while producing a similar ASTM-compliant Sublime Cement® that is more durable, more consistent, and whiter in color than portland cement. Sublime was founded by Dr. Leah Ellis and Prof. Yet-Ming Chiang, both respected experts in materials science and electrochemical systems. The company has raised over $200M in funding from leading tech investors, cooperative agreements with the U.S. Department of Energy, and three of the largest cement producers in the western world: Holcim, Amrize, and CRH. It operates a Somerville, Mass.-based 250 ton-per-year pilot, is developing its first commercial factory in Holyoke, Mass., and has secured offtakes from construction industry leaders and technology companies alike. Learn more at or contact partnerships@ to inquire about working together.
