Archive for "Pickleball"
2023 ICT Summer Classic
Posted on June 23, 2023 by Ching under Pickleball.
Saw Bo Tolbert at Riverside Tennis Center on Friday night, the first day of ICT Summer Classic. He was in his Picklemania shirt from last year. I just love these t-shirt sightings. Not only are they great promotion for our annual Rotary club pickleball tournament but it makes me think that the players really do love the tournament. If anything, at least I know they love the shirts.
Lots of Asians on singles night. For people who cramp a lot, we love our singles. LOL. Anyway, singles was super rough for me this go round. There weren’t enough entries so they just combined all the ladies. I ended up having to play against Colby Fugit and she pickled me!
Here’s the shirts from this year’s Picklemania tournament.
Saturday was gender doubles day. I love women’s doubles day because the women’s doubles teams are always so matchy matchy.
The ladies are also super fun. Here’s our women’s 4.0 17+ podium pic. Kimberly Howe and Janelle Lindeman took third, Alice Tunks-Jones and I got second, and Vickie Hancock and Lisa Alexander were the champs.
Alice and I actually beat Vickie and Lisa in pool play but they got the better of us in the championship game. Anyway, Alice was a complete delight and I had a blast playing with her.
Obviously, Bo and I intentionally coordinated. After I saw him on Friday night, I asked him to wear the blue shirt with white shorts the next day.
The color coordination with Frank Reyes was unintentional, though. Still equally fun and picture-worthy.
Sunday was mixed doubles day. Matt Nola ended up cramping in men’s doubles so they withdrew from the championship and he wasn’t well enough to play the next day so Ev Kim ended up filling in for him.
Lori and Dave Belew were back from their big, fancy tournament in time so they stopped by to watch some matches but didn’t end up playing this year.
Tanner Rice was at the PPA Texas Open that same weekend so no Tanner this year. I did snag a great partner in Dustin Herman, though. I thought we played amazing.
Our first match in pool play was against Cody Courter and Jen Tiano. We lost that 13-15 but they had 4 unreturnable net cord, which if you negate was really the difference maker. We totally could have won that match.
Our next match was against Nathan Peters and Gwen Warwick. I think we lost that 7-15. Nathan was just in beast mode and I couldn’t handle his drives. I learned a ton from that match, though.
Our final pool play match was against Scott Wolford and Kayla Keuter. Their game play was more suited to my style of play, which is a lot of dinking (as opposed to mostly shake-and-bakes, which was Nathan and Gwen’s strategy) so we had a better chance. I think we were down 11-14 and ended up winning 16-14.
It was a solid win considering Scott and Kayla are both amazing, experienced pickleball players.
Our first match in bracket play was against Chris Wilson and Greta Siemens. Bracket matches were best 2 out of 3 games to 11, win by 2. Our first game was rough. We lost 3-11 but then we rallied in the second game and won 11-4 and carried that momentum to win the third game 11-6. Their side choice actually helped us because we finished on the side that worked best for us. Had we started and finished on the opposite side, I think the outcome of that match would have been completely different.
Also, Greta was getting frustrated that Dustin was covering so much of the court. It’s the correct strategy in mixed and it was making it very challenging for them to target me. Add to that the fact that the wind was blowing to my right (and I play the right side of the court – always when I’m playing with a right handed mixed doubles partner). Not only was the target very small with Dustin covering 85% of the court but they had zero margin for error because of the way the wind was blowing. If they target too close to the line (which they generally did), the wind was blowing their shots out.
Our second match was against Ev Kim and Ling Wei Kong. They were the favorites to win but we were actually up 7-2 in game 1. That would have been quite an upset! I totally thought we had a chance. After a few side-outs with neither team scoring, they ended up scoring 2 points. We were at 7-4 for what seemed like an eternity (maybe 15 minutes in reality). We went through multiple side-outs with no one scoring until Ev went beast mode and they went on a tear. When they got to 9 points, I ended up calling a time out. Dustin doesn’t really like to call time outs but we had to because we hadn’t scored in forever. Anyway, we only scored one more point that game and finished it at 8-11. We lost the next game 2-11. Ev didn’t even have to do much that game, Ling Wei was just flawless.
That match was the end of the line for me and Dustin and Ev and Ling Wei eventually won gold as expected. I wasn’t not unhappy about how we played though. I feel like we gave them a good match.
The ICT tournament is so fun. I think regardless of how I do, I always have a great time. Tanner said he would play the fall one with me so I am looking forward to it. Hopefully nothing comes up that prevents him from coming up to play. We’ll see. Until next time, GNG.
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Jenny Marcos and Mike Gates in Wichita
Posted on June 15, 2023 by Ching under Pickleball.
I had an absolute blast the weekend that senior pros Jenny Marcos and Mike Gates came to visit Wichita. I’m so glad that Kathy Moser, owner of the Pickle Club, invited me. It’s such a treat to be able to play with such amazing players.
We got some solo time with Jenny and Mike until about 1 PM when other players joined us. We had some players join from 1 to 3 PM and then some others join from 3 to 5 PM. There were some of us, hardcore picklers, who played all day.
I’m not kidding when I say “all day” because I started playing at Zach Nguyen’s house at 8 AM that Sunday morning. Erika Atkins was in town from Texas (my first time meeting her) and Zach set up a game for her. It was so much fun!
Immediately after that I was off to the Pickle Club to meet up with Jenny, Mike, and Kathy. We played a little bit and enjoyed some lunch. Jenny made a ton of delicious pancit. Besides feeding us pancit, she also brought her portable camping stove and a wok and fried up some fresh lumpia for us to enjoy.
I got some free pickleball and Filipino food. And, I didn’t even have to leave Wichita. It was the best weekend ever!
I invited Matt Nola to join us because he travels to Asia to promote pickleball and has been recruiting some Filipino pickleball players to join his team. Jenny was getting ready to travel down there (in fact, she’s in the Philippines right now) and so I wanted the two of them to connect. Anyway, he invited the out of towners to Mochinut after so Jenny, Mike, and Kathy stopped by on their way back home to Oklahoma. I think they liked it.
It was such a fun weekend. It was a pleasure meeting new people (Erika from Texas earlier that day and Mike who is from all over) and Jenny is not just an amazing pickleball player, she also feeds you which is icing on the cake. I cannot wait for her to be back from her trip so we can catch up. Until then, GNG.
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Picklemania MMXXIII
Posted on June 13, 2023 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.
The pickleball tournament fundraiser for my Rotary club just keeps on growing. I remember the very first year we had it. We weren’t sure how successful it would be but we knew we needed to do something that spring because we couldn’t have our Haus of Brews fundraising event due to the COVID pandemic. We planned to have the tournament in May 2021 but then the weather didn’t cooperate so we had to move the tournament to June. It was so freakin’ hot!
We had much better weather the following year but it got really windy in the afternoon and one of the canopy tents flew into one of the courts. Thankfully, no one was hurt. Last year was the first year that we changed the event to a team format (instead of just a normal doubles pickleball tournament) but it was a completely made up team format that I came up with based on Wrestlemania. LOL. You could tag in and out in between points (not during because that would be way too crazy and completely unsafe). Anyway, it was weird but fun. We had 16 teams participate last year.
This year we ended up with 24 teams but we still only had 8 courts so I had to get seriously creative. We kept the team format but change it to MLPlay (rally scoring) because it takes less time and the match durations are more predictable. We also did games to 15 (instead of 21) to further reduce the amount of time to complete each match. We kept the dream breaker tie breaker round because it added a fun, unique element, but still kept the game to 15, win by 1.
Here’s a good summary of this year’s tournament format:
Anyway, the format worked out great. With 6-team pools in the round robin pool play, each team was able to play every other team in their pool. After pool play, the teams went on to 3 different brackets (Elite, Advanced, and Intermediate) based on their results. We started at 8 AM and wrapped up around 5 PM. We were right on schedule. Couldn’t have planned it better!
This is what the pool play schedule looked like with 24 teams and only 8 courts. We basically assigned 2 courts for each pool. This meant there were bye rounds but it worked out fine because it gave people an opportunity to visit, grab snacks/drinks, go to the restroom, etc.
Here’s a fun video that my friend Jonathan Thorne made using pictures and drone footage from the event. I feel like we really exceeded all expectations this year. So much work went into though, as it always does. I did get to salvage some signage that I made last year like these ones.
I’m glad I thought ahead and didn’t put a year on them so we can recycle them for use year after year.
An improvement we had this year is a bag sponsor. Our friends at Bodyworx Physical Therapy provided us with string bags and player swag (coozies and pens) along with sponsoring a team. It was great because then we had a bag to put the players’ tournament shirts and other swag (stickers, overgrips, etc.) in. Definitely a step up from the paper bags that I delivered everything in last year.
Here are some fun pics from the event…
I’m so glad we finally got to play with Tanner Rice (red-head on the left) because the times that Ramon (Lozano), Katie (Merrill), and I have played in team events we’ve had to pick up a different fourth team member because Tanner wasn’t available for one reason or another. Kyle Rinck played with us in the DUPR team event we did back in December in North Kansas City and Jared Smart played with us in the “One Last Dink” team event at the Pickle Club.
I am so grateful for Brian, who ran the tournament so I could play. Kyle Starkel came out in the afternoon and helped, too.
Our team missed making the Elite 8 bracket by one stinkin’ game! We were in a 3-way tie with Bodyworx (Jen Tiano, Mike Ellison, and David and Lori Belew) and Mid-Court Crisis (Ling Wei Kong, Natalie Lubbers, Noi Sourinthone, and Scott Wolford) in our pool. We each had one loss (4-1 tied record for all 3 teams) and they were to one another so we had to count games won. Mid-Court Crisis won 16 total games. Bodyworx won 15 total games. We won 14 games. Only the top 2 teams of each pool went on to Elite 8. Middle 2 teams went to Advanced bracket. And the bottom 2 teams went to the Intermediate bracket.
We ended up winning the Advanced (middle) bracket, but pretty whichever team in our pool didn’t advance to Elite 8 was going to win that middle bracket no matter what because the matchups were sooo close. We had an amazing team!
These were the pool play groups. In each of the groups, the first 2 teams listed advanced to the Elite 8 bracket. Except for in our group, which had a 3-way tie (Bodyworx and Mix-Court Crisis ended up advancing). In pool C, Team Equilibrium and FORVIS both had a tied record going into their final match so the winner of that ended up advancing to Elite 8. Equilibrium prevailed. FORVIS ended up in the Advanced bracket with us.
These were the other medalists:
Intermediate – Drop It Like Itz Hot
Frank and Kim McCormick, Tiffany and Donnie Lesperance
Elite 8 – Chicken N Pickle (No surprise!)
Michael Harris, Kim Blackman, Jack Oxler, Lindsey Vermillion
You can read more about this year’s Picklemania tournament here. More pictures here. That’s all for now. Until next year, GNG.
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Cincinnati Quickie
Posted on June 8, 2023 by Ching under Pickleball, Travel.
I traveled to Cincinnati last month to play in the APP Vlasic Classic in Cincinnati. I saw that someone I knew from Oklahoma was listed in mixed doubles without a partner so I asked if I could play with them to try and earn my “golden ticket” to Nationals for mixed doubles. I already had my “golden ticket” for singles and women’s doubles so I really just wanted to play mixed. It was a quick a trip as it could ever be. I literally flew in to Cincinnati on Saturday, played on Sunday, and flew back home on Monday.
Brian dropped me off at the airport early on Saturday morning, May 13. I arrived in Cincinnati in the afternoon. Went to the hotel first to check in and then went to Sawyer Point Park (tournament venue) to watch the guys — Ryan Luelf and Eric Bunch — play. They played amazing the entire day. They went undefeated in the winner bracket and I honestly thought they would win the whole thing. However, they ended up losing to a team that they had already beaten in the championship match and finished in second place.
Here’s a picture of Caroline Luelf, Ryan’s wife.
Due to some rain delays throughout the day, the matches ran late into the evening. I think we were the last people to leave the park that night.
Here’s a podium pic of the guys. Ryan is on the left and Eric is on the right.
I’m glad that I didn’t have to play until the afternoon the next day so I could sleep in a little bit since we were there so late. I think Ryan and Caroline got to their Airbnb around midnight and then had to get up early the next morning because they were scheduled to play at 8 AM. I didn’t really end up sleeping in because I wanted to go to the park and watch their matches. I also need to get some feminine hygiene products (aka tampons) because shark week unexpectedly started early for me. I ended up taking an Uber to a Walgreens that I found on Google that (a) was in the same direction as the park, and (b) according to Google was open. Yes, I really did check. Unfortunately, Google let me down. The information online was outdated and the store turned out to be closed. It absolutely sucked for me because I paid money to Uber over there and they weren’t even open.
Instead of taking a chance on Ubering to another Walgreens that may or may not be open, I decided to call Brian to help me navigate the downtown area. I thought, surely there’s a Walgreens nearby that I could walk to. He couldn’t find anything. Anyway, I saw this young woman walking and asked her if there as any kind of convenience store nearby (because most convenience stores carry tampons) and she pointed me in the direction of a store which I never did find. Lucky for me, I came across a Marriott hotel. I’d stayed at many Marriotts before and they always have a stash of tampons. I went in the lobby and they were able to help me. They let me take as many tampons as I wanted so I didn’t even have to go to Walgreens anymore. LOL.
The Marriott wasn’t that far from the park so, rather than taking a car, I decided to just walk over there to save money. I walked by the Great American Ball Park, home of the Cincinnati Reds, and a few other sights. It actually worked out great.
I walked along the river that separates Ohio from Kentucky and followed the path to the park. It was a nice day for a walk and I actually quite enjoyed my little adventure.
Ran into Brendon Long at the tournament. He is an amazing pickleball player who I had seen on YouTube and Facebook livestreams several times. I met him for the first time at the US Open in Naples and it was a real treat to see him again at the Cincinnati tournament.
The tournament itself was fine but I didn’t get the results I’d hoped so I still don’t have my mixed doubles “golden ticket” — we are back to the drawing board. Eric is an excellent player but not having played together much prior was a disadvantage. I’m going to try to qualify again in Kansas City in a couple of months. Hopefully, I’ll get my “golden ticket” for mixed then.
Until next time, GNG.
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Mid-South Diamond Regional Tournament
Posted on May 29, 2023 by Ching under Pickleball, Travel.
Finally sitting down to recap Mid-South Diamond Regional, the tournament that wasn’t actually on my list of planned tournaments this year but happened anyway. At the beginning of the year I really didn’t have much planned for May because I was going to use it as my recovery month from the US Open. Also, May is when we have the Rotary Club of Andover’s Picklemania pickleball tournament so I would be busy planning for that all month. Besides that, I didn’t plan on going to Florida for Diamond Amateur Championships this year so Mid-South really wasn’t on my radar. I did, however, have Nationals on the agenda for this year since I’m already qualified for singles and women’s doubles so I had APP Vlasic Classic on my list of potential tournaments so I could earn my mixed doubles ticket.
This is what the month of May looked like at the start of the year:
- May 13 – APP Vlasic Classic in Cincinnati, OH
- May 20 – Picklemania MMXXIII
Then shortly after the Picklemania tournament at Life Time in OKC, Melissa Hawk invited me to play in PPA Texas Open. She is a player that I admire and have been wanting to play with for a while so I said yes. We were planning our outfits and I was actively looking for a mixed doubles partner to make the trip worthwhile so I reached out to Casey Dominguez, my mixed partner for the OKC Picklemania to see if he would be interested in running it back with me at TO. He said he wasn’t doing TO this year but I was welcome to join him at Mid-South if I wanted and so that’s pretty much how Mid-South happened. Casey is super fun and I enjoyed playing with him in OKC so, even though it wasn’t the tournament that I was wanting to do initially, I was willing to add it to the list.
At this point, my May began to look really crazy:
- May 5-7 – Mid-South Diamond Regional
- May 13 – APP Vlasic Classic in Cincinnati, OH
- May 20 – Picklemania MMXXIII
- May 26-29 – PPA Texas Open
Add the ICT Summer Classic on June 2-4 weekend and I basically was looking at a tournament every weekend for five consecutive weeks. So much for recovering. I was still actively looking for a mixed doubles partner for TO when PPA announced their agreement with USA Pickleball which resulted in Nationals moving to Brookhaven Country Club in Dallas and PPA Texas Open and PPA Kansas City Open becoming golden ticket tournaments for Nationals. Along with this change was a date shift for the TO. TO would now be June 2-4 (same weekend as ICT) instead of its original dates.
Despite me trying to kill myself playing all these tournaments, the universe decided to give me a break after all. But then I was faced with a choice TO or ICT. Obviously, I was going to choose ICT because not only is it far cheaper (registration is $50 compared to $200) but I wouldn’t have any additional travel expenses since it’s in Wichita. It’s a good thing I hadn’t found a mixed partner yet because I only had to notify one person of my withdrawal.
That brings us to Mid-South on Cinco de Mayo weekend. Even though Mid-South wasn’t originally on the list, I was actually really looking forward to it after securing a couple of great partners. I got Casey for mixed and then Molly Sager for women’s doubles. This was our second time playing together. Another reason I was excited for Mid-South is because it’s a tournament that we can drive to so we could take Saki with us. She was such a good girl on the drive to and back.
We finally got to experience a Buc-ee’s first hand. It’s the only gas station convenience store I’ve ever been to with its own door greeter like at Walmart.
As massive as the place is, we still managed to run into a couple of friends. Molly and I got a selfie with Drake and Cassidie Johnson.
Drake, Cassidie, and the McAllister clan (Karen, Danny, and Josh) except for youngest Isaiah who stayed in Oklahoma came out to play some rec on Thursday evening. Cassidie and I were unintentionally matching so naturally I need a pic.
It was pretty much warmup for women’s doubles day on Friday when everyone was matchy matchy. The ladies definitely like to play in matching outfits.
In the pic above are Kali Wilson and Olivia Bond, a couple of friends who were in our same women’s doubles division.
These ladies were so matchy matchy, they even had matching paddles, matching shoes, and matching sunblock bottles.
Molly and I played in 4.0 19+ (because she is a baby) ended up finishing just outside the medals. We were actually 3rd after pool play but ended up having to play 1st place in the playoff bracket and then lost the bronze medal match. That tournament was all sorts of jacked up because they had 1st vs. 3rd and 2nd vs. 4th in the playoff bracket, instead of the normal 1st vs. 4th and 2nd vs. 3rd. I’m not sure if the ultimate outcome would have been different but I guess we’ll never know.
Once we got a lay of the land and figured out the tournament flow on Friday, we decided to pitch our canopy on Saturday (which we brought with us, just in case — better to have it and not need it, than need and not have it). The McAllister clan got there early and were already set up so we just pitched our canopy next to theirs.
Michael Harris grabbed an Adirondack chair and claimed it for the day. It was the perfect size for his giant frame.
I only mention his gigantic frame because he made EVERYTHING look miniature in our Airbnb. He could barely fit at the dining table. LOL.
Anyway, Saturday was mixed doubles day. I didn’t really get any pictures because I mostly focused on not letting my partner down. I say this because I agreed to play 4.5 this time which is the highest level I’ve ever played in a regional tournament. I mostly play 3.5 for regional and national level tournaments. I’ve dipped my toes in 4.5 and 5.0 in smaller, local tournaments but only when I’m tricked into doing so.
Casey wanted to play 5.0 but I wasn’t ready for that I really wanted to play 4.0; however, guys can be really proud sometimes and he felt like he was too good to play 4.0 (which I would agree with, unfortunately for him, he had me as his partner and I am “3.5 at best” or so the Pickleball Studio guys would say) so we decided to split the difference and play 4.5. He was super confident we could podium at 4.5 because he assumed I was more like a 4.2 and had absolutely no idea how much of a handicap I would be.
For someone who is “3.5 at best” I actually didn’t play too terribly. Here’s a video from my most favorite match of the day. It was my favorite because we had a lot of amazing rallies and, according to DUPR, we should have lost this match against Jonathan Hill and Courtney Glenn. But even though they had match point against us, we didn’t give up. We fought hard and ended up winning 16-14.
There were 10 teams in our division so we were split into 2 pools for round robin pool play. Considering I was probably the lowest rated female in the group, we actually did pretty well. We had a 2-2 record (2 wins and 2 losses) but our only losses were to the Gold and Silver medalists. We ended up 3rd in our pool but only the top 2 in each pool advanced to play for medals.
I don’t think I would have predicted these results based solely on our ratings. I think this a definite case of 2 + 2 = 5. Casey is one of the few guys that I actually have synergy with. When I play with most people, I end up not playing up to my full potential and I also end up making them play worse.
When I watched our matches at Mid-South, I was amazed at the shots I was making. Sure, I made errors but there weren’t as many as I could have made and, at the end of the day, I felt good about how I played. I felt the same as I did after the OKC Picklemania earlier this year. It was disappointing not to medal but I had an amazing time and enjoyed every minute of playing. This is saying a lot because I’ve played in tournaments before where, at the end of it, I’m left feeling like I never ever wanna do that again.
Of course, just because I loved playing with him it doesn’t mean that he felt the same. He could have hated it and probably wouldn’t have said anything. I mean, I don’t usually tell people I hated playing with them. I just don’t play with them again. It’s like when I order food at a restaurant and I don’t like it, I don’t send it back to the kitchen. I just know either (a) don’t go back to that restaurant or, if I do go back, then (b) I don’t order that dish again.
I can only assume that he doesn’t mind playing with me because he agreed to play with me a second time but I am kind of glad that he didn’t look me up before we played Mid-South because I’m thinking he wouldn’t have agreed to play with me. When we all got back to the Airbnb that night and we were recapping the day, he was completely shocked at how low my DUPR is. I think, had he known he possibly had the weakest female partner in the bunch, it would have completely changed the dynamic. I feel like we played based on what he knew from when we played together in January and he trusted me to handle my business. Often the lack of trust is the biggest detriment to having synergy with your partner and if you think your partner is not very good then that can definitely be a detriment to you trusting your partner and, whether you mean to or not, it affects your on court chemistry and teamwork.
Anyway, don’t have any future tournaments planned with Casey but, if he asks, the answer is definitely 100 percent yes because he’s made my list of most favorite partners to play with; however, he doesn’t generally play with people below 4.0 and now he knows. Ratings are a big factor for a lot of people. I know it is for me, specially when I know nothing about the other player.
Saturday was my final day of competition because I ended up withdrawing from singles. I really wanted to play but the event started at 1 pm and Brian and I really wanted to be on the road back to Wichita by then because of the 6 hour drive. I was hoping my start time would have been 8 am (or anything 10 am or earlier could have worked). We really just couldn’t get home super late because we still had to do laundry and then I had to pack for Kansas City since I was working there on Monday and Tuesday that following week.
That’s pretty much it for this post. Next few posts will be of the food we ate while we were in Rockwall. We did get to try a few different restaurants so we had some very interesting dining experiences. I’ll also write about the whole storm breaking the bedroom window fiasco, which startled the crap out of me and really did a number on Saki. Until next time, GNG.
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