The Hillsboro Pickleball Association will be holding the Hillsboro Ohio Bell City Open pickleball tournament at the Railroad Park Pickleball Courts in Hillsboro on Saturday, Sept. 21, and Sunday, Sept. 22.

“My husband and I have been doing tournaments since we started playing pickleball, and we decided that we need to bring a tournament to the city because tournaments actually bring a lot of visitors into town from out of town,” Rebecca Sexton of the Hillsboro Pickleball Association said.

“We’ve got people all the way from California, Kentucky, and Indiana that are coming to our tournament,” she said. “They’re coming to our tournament from all over the place into our little town of Hillsboro.”

Anyone interested in participating in the tournament can enter and pay the $65 fee at pickleballbrackets.com.

“There are several different divisions from beginners all the way to advanced competitive play,” Sexton said. “This tournament is set up for anybody who would like to play, and we have a beginner division that is our 2.0 to 3.0 division, and all of our proceeds from that division go to our Lady Indians basketball team.”

Tournament winners will receive medals.

“It will be recorded in the DUPR [Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating] system which is the pickleball rating system,” Sexton said. “How you do in this competition affects your DUPR rating which is the rating used by professional pickleball players.”

There will be room for 240 competitors, but registration ends Sunday, Sept. 15.

“We’re organized to take players from amateur play to competitive play,” Sexton said. “The tournament is helping to fulfill our mission which is to help everybody love pickleball, and we want everyone playing pickleball.

This is the first tournament organized by the association.

“This is a big deal for Hillsboro because Hillsboro has 13 dedicated pickleball courts, and no small town of 6,000 people has 13 dedicated pickleball courts,” she said. “It’s kind of amazing that they are doing that so Hillsboro is kind of paving the path from small towns in a major way when it comes to this sport which is the fastest growing sport in America.”

Reach John Hackley at 937-402-2571.