From 30 Players to 15,000: Dubai’s Picklers Set to Host Their First Minor League Pickleball Event
When Patrick Chucri first introduced pickleball at his club, he figured there were about 30 active players in the entire UAE. Today, he puts the number at around 15,000.
Now his club, Picklers, is taking the next step. Minor League Pickleball (MiLP) Dubai kicks off at the venue on 14 November, the first MiLP event the club has hosted.
From Touchtennis to Pickleball Pioneer
Picklers didn’t begin as a pickleball club. It started out as a touchtennis club. In 2024, Chucri added pickleball on three courts, and the response was so strong that the club grew to six dedicated indoor pickleball courts within a few months.
There was no template to copy. No other professional pickleball club existed in the region, so the team built everything from scratch, from coaching structures and player levels to events and programming. “There really was no roadmap for us,” Chucri says. “We had to learn, adapt and create as we went along.”
Today, the club runs structured coaching and a Junior Pickleball Academy, level-based open plays and DUPR sessions, tournaments and corporate events, and a referee certification course aimed at raising the standard of local events. Off the court, there are changing rooms, lockers, showers, a pro shop, and a bistro. The aim, according to the club, was never just to rent courts but to give pickleball a professional home in the region.
The MiLP Format
MiLP is a team event, and that’s what Chucri likes best. Each team has two men and two women, who play men’s, women’s, and mixed doubles. If the matchup is tied, it goes to a DreamBreaker, a rotating singles tiebreak in which every team member takes a turn. “The men’s, women’s and mixed doubles matches, together with the DreamBreaker, give everyone on the team an important role,” he says.
Picklers will run two divisions, DUPR 12 and DUPR 16, which Chucri says reflect how much the competitive game in the UAE has grown. DUPR ratings sit at the heart of how the club runs play, he adds, because players “improve and enjoy the sport more when they consistently compete with people around their own level.”
A Culture, Not Just Courts
Dubai draws people from all over the world, and the Picklers community mirrors that, with players of different countries, cultures, ages, and sporting backgrounds. Many are at the club several times a week. Chucri believes that mix explains why pickleball has caught on so quickly in the city.
Growth alone, though, isn’t the goal. “Growing pickleball isn’t only about opening more courts,” he says. “It’s about creating the right culture around the sport.” That includes welcoming other operators who “are doing things properly.”
A Former Pro, His Picklers, and Those Big Plans
Chucri’s own path to pickleball runs through tennis. He played NCAA Division I tennis at Ole Miss, turned pro, and reached ATP No. 1,000 in singles and No. 500 in doubles. He also represented Lebanon in the Davis Cup for many years.
His goals are ambitious: scale Picklers across the Middle East, host some of the biggest tournaments in the world in Dubai, help establish a UAE pickleball federation, and see a UAE national team at the World Championships. Picklers already has a distribution agreement with JOOLA and is finalising another major brand partnership. His advice for aspiring club owners? Passion isn’t enough. “You really need to understand what you are doing, know your market, understand your customers and be prepared to work extremely hard.”
Indeed, from a few dozen players on three courts to an event with its own MiLP billing, the pace has been startling. “We’ve come a long way in a very short time,” Chucri says, “but I genuinely feel we are still only at the beginning.”
