For the Love of Pickleball

Whichever holiday you celebrate, it’s that time of year!

We’ve put together the pickleball holiday gift guide whether you need a present or you have a pickleball addict in your life.

How do you get better at anything?  By doing. 

Want to shorten the learning curve?  Learn from the best.

Invest in your pickleball game by partnering with a coach that will give you the correct instruction and confidence to compete at your highest level.

Ever wanted to ask a Gold Medal winner about how they go to that level?

Have a pickleball question for one of the top players in the game?

We’re putting together a webinar with Daniel Moore and would love to know what questions you want the answers to.  We’ll create slides with questions for him to answer and could include yours.

Last week, the USAPA rolled out their new player rating system.  The UTPR (USAPA Tournament Player Ratings) was established to have a more accurate assessment of all players. 

With the previous or legacy system, the ratings were based on tournament directors and each player’s own ratings.  (Surely no one would play down a level, would they?)   

With tournaments getting bigger and more players entering the sport, it became difficult to track everyone correctly.

The UTPR is comprised using up to 3 years of tournament history from pickleballtournaments.com.  It’s based on past performance and will help in seeding future tournaments.

I was playing doubles recently and had a match against a couple former tennis players new to Pickleball.  I’ve shared some stats about the Tennis to Pickleball migration on our Instagram account and how great it is to see firsthand.

Our opponents as former tennis players were used to driving the ball but didn’t have much experience with the soft game.

“Dinking?  What is that?”

Not being one to give unsolicited advice, I let them play using their banger or slammer techniques.

What do you do when playing against a banger?

1. Get to the kitchen line, keep your knees bent
2. Have your paddle up, flat and still
3. Keep your paddle head above your wrist and elbow down
4. Use your paddle to block their shot or punch it back to their side

There’s a debate going on in Pickleball whether we should change from Side Out scoring to Rally Scoring.  Not sure what the difference is?

Rally Scoring is a scoring method where points can be won by the serving or receiving team

Side Out Scoring is a format of scoring where points can be won only by the serving team

Happy National Pickleball Month!  How are you going to celebrate? 

When I step out of the Pickleball bubble and talk to people that don’t play, I’m surprised how many of them know about the sport.  Pickleball is only about 50 years old, it’s not on TV very often and it’s played mainly in North America. 

Merriam-Webster defines dink as “a couple with two incomes and no children”

Wait, let me keep scrolling.  Ok, here it is…

“Dink is to hit with a drop shot, probably of imitative origin”

That sounds better.