Pickleball News

New pickleball court in Dallas pops up in the unlikeliest of places

Of all the places for a pickleball court to show up.

Invited

A pickleball court has shown up in the strangest of places: atop Santander Tower, the high-rise building in downtown Dallas.

According to a release, the new court resides in the Tower Club, a private members-only club located on the 48th floor of the 50-story Santander Tower at 1601 Elm St.

Ordinarily, a private club offering its members an amenity would not merit a story. But this amenity has some exceptions:

The location is an oddity. They're billing it as "the highest pickleball court in the world," and who are we to disagree.
It's open to everyone, not just club members.
It has a charitable component.

There's also something to be said for the fact that you can take what looks like a ballroom, slap down a temporary rubber floor, plop in a net, and voila: pickleball court.

The court will be featured at the club for the month of July and can be rented by both members and non-members.

Non-members can rent via this link. Rates are $45 per person per hour. The court has a maximum of four people per hour during open play.

Hours are Tuesday-Wednesday 11 am-9 pm, and Thursday-Saturday 11 am-10 pm. The court will be open to the public on specific days in July. Call the club at 214-220-0403 or email sydney.sims@invitedclubs.com to find out when.

Part of the rental proceeds will benefit Bonton Farms, Invited's charity partner, committed to combating the effects of poverty in South Dallas.

Pickleball, which has been described as a combination of tennis, Ping-Pong, and badminton, is growing like crazy; according to the Sports & Fitness Industry, the number of people playing pickleball grew by 159 percent over three years to 8.9 million in 2022.

The popularity has prompted some homeowners to similarly add their own backyard courts. (These homeowners are obviously unfazed by the fact that the rise in popularity has also been accompanied by a rise in injuries.)

The Tower Club is owned by Dallas-based Invited, the largest operator of racquet facilities in the world with more than 800 tennis courts and 400 pickleball courts across its portfolio of 200 clubs.

Invited is all-in on pickleball, hosting numerous professional PPA events at its clubs and broadening the pickleball offering for its members.

Invited is also the owner of the Brookhaven Country Club in Farmers Branch, which will host the 2023 USA Pickleball National Championships, presented by PPA Tour, on November 5-12, the largest pickleball event in history, anticipated to draw more than 4,000 amateur and professional players competing on up to 100 pickleball courts.

"Invited continues to surprise and delight its members and the local community with innovative experiences," says Invited CEO David Pillsbury in a statement. "The 'Pickleball Court in the Sky' is just another example of engaging with the pickleball fans in Dallas and continuing the growth of the sport across our nationwide portfolio of clubs."

sports trends

Movie Review

Cillian Murphy takes on church in Irish film Small Things Like These

Photo by Enda Bowe/Lionsgate

Cillian Murphy in Small Things Like These.

Last we saw actor Cillian Murphy, he was starring in the titular role of Oppenheimer, a role that would go on to earn him a Best Actor Oscar, not to mention many awards for the film itself. Instead of a big, flashy follow-up to build on that momentum, Murphy has gone in the opposite direction with the small and personal Small Things Like These.

Set in the 1980s in Murphy’s native Ireland, the film centers on Bill (Murphy), who owns a coal delivery company. One of his clients is the local convent, and during a delivery he witnesses a young pregnant woman being forced into the convent against her will by her mother. The scene triggers memories from his own childhood when he was raised by a single mother.

Every subsequent delivery to the convent has him questioning his own morality, although his taciturn nature doesn’t allow him to share his misgivings with his wife, Eileen (Eileen Walsh). With the Catholic Church an all-encompassing entity in Ireland, even if Bill wanted to help the girls who are trapped and mistreated at the convent, he’s not sure of any way to go about it.

Directed by Tim Mielants and written by Enda Walsh, the film has a slow build to it, so slow that it is a little difficult to ascertain the point of the story. The filmmakers go back and forth between scenes showing Bill as an adult and Bill as a child, and even though they each contain elements of trauma for the characters, the connection between the two timelines is not as strong as they might want it to be.

Even when it’s not part of a scene, the power of the church is the driving force of the film. Bill is clearly having a crisis of faith given his history and what he sees, but his wife seems to be willfully ignorant of any faults of the church and remains a true believer. The few segments that take the audience inside the convent are full of unforgiving nuns, with Sister Mary (Emily Watson) as their ultra-stern leader.

Given that this is an Irish film featuring all Irish actors, heavy accents accompany the majority of the dialogue, making it difficult to understand at times. This is clearly not an issue with the filmmaking and it helps with the verisimilitude of the story, but anyone who doesn’t have a lot of experience with the Irish accent may find themselves a little lost and/or disengaged with the emotions of the story.

Murphy’s role in Oppenheimer and this one don’t share much in common save for the fact that he clearly put his whole self into each of them. This is a testament to Murphy’s skills and dedication that he cares as much about an inherently local story as he did about a world-changing one. Walsh and Watson are also great as two women who have a huge influence on Bill’s outlook on life.

Small Things Like These, based on the book by Claire Keegan, is not as huge a takedown of the Catholic Church as some other films, but it’s still a searing indictment of its arcane practices. It’s one made even more effective by using a smaller story of one man’s lonely fight against injustice.

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Small Things Like These opens in theaters on November 8.

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