By Mohamed Hamza in Southampton 

Spain's Glauka Carvajal heralded the inaugural DUPR European Pickleball Championships as an 'insane experience'. 

The 26-year-old Benicàssim native competes as a professional pickleball player in the United States, once trading volleys with world no.1 Anna Lee Waters. 

While her future in the sport may have led her Stateside, Carvajal Lane didn't have to think twice about crossing the Atlantic to represent Spain at the sport's first-ever European Championships, held in Southampton. 

“It’s an insane experience,” she said. “It’s an honour to represent your country and to be here and seeing all the other countries involved is fun. 

“I played college tennis and I was coaching and I had a friend, his mum was playing pickleball and he was like ‘Hey you should play this sport, it’s super fun, you should come play it’. 

“I had no idea how to play the sport but I loved it, everybody was super social, so fun and from there we started training. 

“I’m very competitive so I don’t like to train unless I’m competing and it started from there two-and-a-half years ago.

“I played against Anna Lee Waters last year. It was pretty intense, I’ve never seen a ball come as hard to me as that girl hits it. She’s been playing since she was 10 years old, so her level is really really good.” 

Pickleball is a fast-growing sport in Europe having first started in the US in the 1960s, it is a hybrid racket sport that is popular for its accessibility for all ages and abilities. 

Pickleball gets its name from its American founders, with the family game created in 1965 named after their pet dog Pickle. 

The European Championships saw players compete in men’s, women’s and mixed doubles, across both the Open and Senior categories. 

Individual medals are on offer in each of the disciplines, with the medal tallies also added up to decide the overall Champions of Europe. 

Carvajal Lane added: “The sport's growing and definitely getting there. We had the nationals in Spain and bigger companies are getting into it and investing into it, we just need more people to know what it is. 

“I think that the learning curve for pickleball is a lot easier than other racket sports. It’s such a fun sport. I can still compete at a high level after playing tennis for so long. 

“It’s so cool to see so many people from Europe. Me living so far away I didn’t know what pickleball looks like here and it’s crazy to see.   

“It’s huge because it’s going to help improve the level for everybody and showcase the sport so much better.   

“That in the long run is just going to help the sport in general.”  

Find out more information about the European Pickleball Championships by visiting www.europeanpickleballfederation.org