Won My First Pickleball Tournament

About a week before the tournament I was asked if I wanted to be in it by another person who plays rec level play. Both of us are the big fish in the small pond of our group. Neither of us had played in a pickleball tournament before(though my partner had played in tennis ones).

We spent as much time as we could leading up to the tournament getting familiar with one another as partners. Since both of us were on the higher end of our group, we pretty much only ever played against each other before, since our group tries to make fair team pairings. Both of us were used to taking the helm in our games, so it was nice to see us going from chaos to moving as a team in such a short time. It was really nice, a duo that plays in the group above us took notice and helped us out for a few days, they really got us prepared.

My partner has been in a lot of tournaments since he is also a tennis player, but this was my first ever. He was really good at giving me tips to keep my mind in check.

On the day of the tournament we played seven games, with opponents ages ranging from their 20's up to around 50's I would say. We never lost a game, in fact, we had two games we never even lost a point on. We communicated really well with one another.

Most of my points were from defense, it's how I got used to playing where I would just not make a mistake and outlast the others and let them mess up. My partner has a lot more reach than I do, I think he's "6'7" if I remember correctly, so he could attack with fierce slams if the ball got popped up.

It was honestly a great experience, we played at a 3.5 level, but the next one we enter we are going to enter at 4.0.

While we both did well, he was the carry, he made less errors than I did, but I've already started working on patching those holes.

I think the only thing I didn't care for was the price to enter, I felt it was high for what you won, but still, it was a fun time.

Congrats :) I must admit to not knowing what Pickleball is so I looked it up. It looks like a fun game.

It's a great game. You can go out and have fun with it the first day you play it. It's easy to get into, hard to master.

Congrats! It's a lot of fun when you can push your level of competition to new heights.

Congrats!

I couldn't help but think of the commercial with the pickleball players. The commercial shows just one side. A man and a woman on the team. They are smashing balls and talking shit about the other team. After they easily win a few quick points the camera pans back to see who they are playing. It's two little kids about 3 years old each. Very funny commercial.

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Turtledove wrote:

Congrats!

I couldn't help but think of the commercial with the pickleball players. The commercial shows just one side. A man and a woman on the team. They are smashing balls and talking shit about the other team. After they easily win a few quick points the camera pans back to see who they are playing. It's two little kids about 3 years old each. Very funny commercial.

I've never seen that one, but that's hilarious.

My afternoon group has some older people in it, and it's very funny to see them getting amped up and smack talking me if they manage to sandbag me(hit me) or hit such an aggressive angle they call to their friends on the sidelines "I got him".

The game really does look goofy from the outside, but I recommend anyone to try it, what other sport would you play with people in their teens to 80 year olds on the same court.

Here's one of the E-Trade Pickleball baby commercials.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JjLr4bdLPIs

LOL, nice.