Jody Williams of Portage la Prairie recently captured the men’s singles title in his age division at the 2025 Pickleball Manitoba Provincial Championships.
The event took place last weekend at Winnipeg’s Dakota Community Centre.
Williams competed in the Men's (3.5) 60 to 69-year-old group.
“I was lucky enough to win my division,” he notes. “There was only four of us in our division, so I ended up playing seven games in total in about four hours.”
He adds, “I won all of my games in the round robin and then I lost one game in the finals, which was the best out of three, so lost the first one, won the next two.”
Williams lost the first game 17-15, before rallying for wins of 15-10 and 15-8 over Eduardo Skiarski.
A lifelong love of raquet sports
Williams mentions he has played raquet sports most of his life, including squash and badminton.
He got into pickleball about four years ago when his wife invited him to join some friends for a social game.
“It is more of a social event,” he says. “There is some competitive stuff to it, obviously with these tournaments, but it’s just a social event and that’s how I got involved.”
Growing local club and new courts
Portage Pickleball Club now has about 80 full-time members.
Williams remarks the club plays indoors in Southport in winter and outdoors on six new courts on the Island in summer.
“We tend to have more of an older group because it seems to be more of a retirement sport,” he continues, “but we are getting a lot more younger people involved as they get to know that we’re in the community.”
Williams encourages anyone curious about pickleball to visit the club’s website or drop by the courts.
“If people are thinking about it, please come out and join us,” he says. “Anytime we’re out on the courts, they can drop by and we’d be more than happy to show them how to get involved in the game.”
Members of the Portage Pickleball Club are competing this week at the Manitoba 55+ Games in Steinbach.
Sign up to get the latest local news headlines delivered directly to your inbox every afternoon.
Send your news tips, story ideas, pictures, and videos to news@portageonline.com.
PortageOnline encourages you to get your news directly from your trusted source by bookmarking this page and downloading the PortageOnline app.