Pickle in the Land, the pickleball tournament News 5 Cleveland calls the Midwest’s largest, returned to the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland on Thursday for its fourth annual run, welcoming hundreds of players for four days of competition that continue through Sunday, November 8, according to the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission. The tournament, presented by Akron Children’s and organized by the Sports Commission with Rock Entertainment Group, takes over the downtown convention center at 300 Lakeside Avenue East, which the commission says it transforms “into a massive indoor pickleball hub.”
Play opened Thursday with the senior brackets — men’s and women’s doubles for players aged 60 to 69 and 70 and older — alongside open practice and social play on the tournament courts, according to the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission’s competition schedule. Registration for this year’s tournament is closed, the commission said, with players entered across divisions ranging from elite competitive athletes to recreational enthusiasts.
Friday’s program belongs to singles, with men’s and women’s singles contested across all age and skill divisions, according to the Sports Commission. The first of the tournament’s Daily Open Divisions — men’s singles open and women’s singles open, the cash-prize brackets — also run Friday. The open divisions, running Friday through Sunday, carry a combined $6,400 prize purse and are open to any player 18 or older, whatever their skill level, the commission said.
Saturday shifts to men’s and women’s doubles in every age and skill division, again capped by open-division doubles brackets with prize money on the line, according to the Sports Commission’s schedule. This year’s official game ball is the Franklin X-40, provided by Franklin Sports, the commission said.
Sunday closes the tournament with mixed doubles across all divisions and the mixed doubles open, and it adds a first for the event: a Parent/Guardian and Child Doubles division pairing one parent, stepparent, foster parent, legal guardian, grandparent, aunt, uncle or primary caregiver with a child aged 10 to 17, in any gender combination and at any skill level, according to the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission. Tournament directors may verify the pairings, the commission noted.
The tournament also crowns a Club Cup champion — the club whose players pile up the most combined points across the weekend — with Cleveland Premier Pickleball the defending winner from 2025, according to the Sports Commission. Clubs represented in the field include Cleveland Pickleball Center and Pickle & Chill, the commission said.
For Cleveland, the tournament is one more marker in the rapid growth of a sport that has moved from recreation centers to filling a downtown convention hall. Play continues Friday, Saturday and Sunday at the Huntington Convention Center of Cleveland, and the full division schedule is posted by the Greater Cleveland Sports Commission at clevelandsports.org.
Photo: Michael Barera, CC BY-SA 4.0