Island tennis and pickleball players to play on new indoor courts this winter

It's been a while since island tennis players had indoor courts like these. Tennis PEI and the Charlottetown Pickleball Club are teaming up for more court space inside the Eastlink Centre. It's the first time Tennis PEI has had full indoor courts since renovations permanently shut down their home facility at the Royalty Crossing Mall in Charlottetown a few years ago. We've had different community centres and different gyms at schools that we've been in over the last three years, but this has been the first. Real full court space in Charlottetown that we've been able to train out of for six months of the year. So that's a huge, huge help to the competitive players, especially who are competing against all the other provinces with full running indoor facilities. McGregor says these courts have better grip, so it's easier to change position and they can actually play full games with serving instead of just doing skill drills. Something that's important for player development. I find this kind of better because I get to run around way more and it's more free space. As well as it's like less like Sliding around, the ball slides less, and it just feels more like free for it. It's almost just like it's outside. We've been playing in APM Centre in Cornwall and all across the gyms on the island, and it's very hard because none of the lines are right. So when we go to tournaments and stuff, then it's very difficult because our shots wouldn't always go in, and they would go in the net or they would go out. And now that we have the real dimensions on the court, it will be much better. The pilot project started this week and runs through next April. There are two tennis courts and five for pickleball. The Charlottetown Pickleball Club says it could use the extra space. We're going to have just so much play time and so many places to play for our club. It's wonderful. It just helps us be able to bring new members in. Our club is growing every day. It's a very centrally located place, great parking, and we can kind of set our nets up once a week and take them down at the end of our play time, and we don't have to do that every night as we do when we play in school games. Both groups say long-term they'd still like to have an indoor racket facility with the proper surfaces, but this is still an exciting time for players. Connor Lamont, CBC News, Charlottetown.