Pickleball has arrived in Sri Lanka. And it’s not ready for anybody’s permission to develop.
The game that began on a yard in Bainbridge Island, Washington in 1965 has been on a rare world march—from the courts of the USA and Canada, by the skilled leagues of Southeast Asia, into the grassroots communities of India, South Korea, and past. Now it has reached Colombo, the place Sri Lanka is about to host its first-ever girls’s pickleball event. The game doesn’t cease. It simply finds new locations to take root.
Dinking Divas 2026—organised below The Pickle Meeting banner by Nayantara “Taru” Fonseka, Anusha Senadhira, and Nilka Dabare—takes place on 20 and 21 June on the Colombo Pickle Membership on Torrington Avenue in Colombo 07. It’s the first event in Sri Lanka designed solely for girls, and it’s constructed round a particular hole the organisers have recognized within the native sport: girls, significantly these over 40, are taking part in far lower than their male counterparts. Dinking Divas is the reply to that imbalance.
“Pickleball is a sport that welcomes everybody no matter age, health stage or sporting background,” stated Senadhira about Dinking Divas 2026. “We needed to create a event the place girls might really feel inspired, supported and impressed to compete. We hope that Dinking Divas turns into a catalyst for rising girls’s pickleball throughout Sri Lanka, particularly amongst those that might really feel it’s too late to start out a brand new sport.”
It’s the sort of sentiment that has powered pickleball’s world rise in every single place it has taken maintain—accessibility, group, and the novel concept that sport doesn’t have an age restrict.
Dinking Divas 2026 will run doubles-only, divided into 4 classes that replicate the breadth of who the organisers are attempting to achieve: Playful Divas for newcomers, Precision Divas for intermediate gamers, Energy Divas for superior gamers, and Timeless Divas—reserved for girls aged 40 and above. The class names are deliberate. The message behind them is much more so.
The Pickle Meeting just isn’t a one-event organisation. It runs tournaments, teaching programmes, and group initiatives throughout Sri Lanka, with venue companions together with Colombo Pickle Membership, Air Sport, Grand Park Enviornment, and Picklebee by 71. Fonseka, who can also be linked to Nyne Inns, famous that the organisation operates three devoted courts in Bentota—constructed particularly for pickleball tourism, group teaching, and employees growth.
“In Colombo, our venue companions are Colombo Pickle Membership, Air Sport, Grand Park Enviornment, Picklebee by 71 and naturally our personal three courts in Bentota, primarily constructed for pickleball tourism, educating the area people and our personal employees the sport of pickleball,” Fonseka stated.
The organisers hope Dinking Divas turns into a bi-annual fixture on Sri Lanka’s sporting calendar—an everyday gathering that builds a group of girls who compete, assist one another, and preserve coming again to the courtroom.
Pickleball is rising in locations and amongst communities that will have appeared unlikely only a few years in the past. Sri Lanka is the newest instance. Girls over 40 in Colombo choosing up a paddle for the primary time is the purpose. The game retains proving it belongs in every single place—and in every single place retains proving the game proper.
