Gold Coast Glory captain Sarah Burr recently wrapped up her first Major League Pickleball Australia season as captain of Gold Coast Glory and after being introduced to the sport in January of 2021, the 37-year old mother of two and her family are going all-in on and off the court.
After hearing about the sport through a gym interaction between her husband and a friend, Burr reached out to learn more. Friends in the local pickleball community took her to the court, introduced her to the rules. After an initial game, she was hooked.
“When you start playing, you can see yourself improve quite rapidly,” said Burr. “I think that’s what is so addictive about it, because if you put in a little bit more work into it, you’re going to get a little bit better, and you just keep wanting to do that.”
Her background in tennis—a 14-year old junior Burr represented the state of Queensland—helped ease the transition into pickleball, with similar skill sets emerging as a benefits, including a less common, left-hander. Initially training once-per-week, Burr quickly transitioned to competitive matches and found herself on the podium virtually off the bat.
“I just started playing every tournament that I could in my state of Queensland,” added Burr. “I also looked into New South Wales, started playing a few interstate tournaments and I was really hooked.”
Really hooked might be an understatement.
With the popularity of pickleball on a massive upward trajectory, combined with her success on court, Burr and her husband decided to go all in on pickleball. The two packed up the family, setting up their kids in homeschool and leaving their plumbing business behind before setting course for the United States for a two month trip at the end of 2022, beginning in Texas.
“We could just see the potential of pickleball,” said Burr.
Upon arrival, Burr dropped into a number of tournaments and quickly found herself in competition alongside and against pickleball’s marquee players, including Shelby Bates, Susannah Barr, Lea Jansen, Tyson McGuffin and Jessie Irvine, to name a few. (Among her overwhelming number of competitions, Burr was also a member of Arizona Drive’s Season 1 squad with teammates Sarah Ansboury, Andreas Siljestrom and Wes Burrows.) Encouraging on-court results validated Burr and her family’s decision to head abroad.
“We had some real adventures and met so many great people along the way,” said Burr. “We literally only booked four nights of accommodation for when we first arrived in Houston at the beginning of the trip and the rest we just had to work out as we went along. It was a really cool adventure for the family.”
Since returning home to Australia, Burr’s involvement and visibility in pickleball has only increased. She was recently announced as a returning captain for MLP’s Gold Coast Glory for 2024 and will transition from her current role in teaching to focus on professional pickleball moving forward.
“I take the responsibility of being captain very seriously,” said Burr. “I’m honoured to have that that role as captain and I want to do what’s best for the team, which requires me to devote myself 100-percent to pickleball.”
Ranked No. 1 in Women’s Doubles with teammate Rebecca Kingsley, Burr and Gold Coast Glory will be amongst an expanded MLP Australia when competition resumes in the New Year. The league is set to raise the stakes with over $700,000 in prize money for Season 2, alongside an additional eight new teams and six events across Australia, New Zealand, and Asia. It’s the largest cash prize pool outside of the United States.
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