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Helping Pickleball Players Get Accurate Ratings

Posted on July 27, 2022 by Ching under Pickleball.

As a USA Pickleball ambassador, I can rate other players based on official USA Pickleball player skill rating definitions and assessment sheets. However, because most people think they are way batter than they truly are, even though there are objective checklists and assessment sheets that I can use, I have always found this whole business awkward. People often get butt-hurt and offended if you rate them lower than what they perceive themselves to be so I avoid this whole business at all costs. Thankfully, there’s DUPR to the rescue!

With DUPR any player can get a rating and you don’t need a third party to do it for you. You simply plug in the results of your matches and voila — a few matches later — you’ve got yourself a pickleball rating. I know I’m oversimplifying it here, which is completely unfair, because DUPR’s algorithm is sophisticated and beautiful. You can follow this link to learn more about it.

Anyway, nowadays if anyone wants me to tell them their rating, I just invite them to play in one of our DUPR Match Sessions. Then the amazing DUPR algorithm assigns them a rating based on how they performed against the other players. It’s not a rating that is subjectively assigned by me based on how I feel they performed but rather it’s assigned by DUPR after the algorithm crunches its complex calculations from the inputs (reported scores).

I started hosting DUPR Match Sessions last month in an effort to get as many of our recreational players rated as possible. Here’s a video from our most recent DUPR Match Session over the weekend.

I was originally hosting these events at Riverside Tennis Center. All of the players would split the cost of the court fees. Each session was about two hours. Players would have a different partner each round and I would record the scores and input them into DUPR later.

Here are some pictures from our sessions at RTC last month.

We typically have 16-24 players who participate. At Riverside we can book 6 courts but they don’t open until 9 AM on Sundays and lately it’s been too hot. I decided to move the sessions to Wichita State University where there are 4 public courts that are rarely used in the mornings. We start at around 7 AM and go through 10 AM, right before the temperatures get too hot. The nice thing about doing these at WSU is then it’s completely free for anyone who wishes to participate.

Here are a few more pictures from another session at Riverside.

These sessions have proved to be quite popular. Players not only want to establish ratings but they want to continue to improve and increase their ratings. Currently the Wichita Pickleball club on DUPR has about 300 active members and half of them are now rated. Until next time, GNG.

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This Blog is So Far Behind

Posted on July 18, 2022 by Ching under Pickleball.

I’m going to attempt to catch this blog up.. maybe.

Here are a couple of pictures from the Memorial Day cookout/gathering at Seneca Park. I wasn’t part of the planning/organizing because I was out of town for the Middle States Diamond Regional pickleball tournament in St. Louis but I did get back in time and was able to swing by. It looked like there was a great turnout and everyone had a ton of fun!

It was a super windy day but people made the best of it.

I think the best part was that #TeamModel #TeamEurope Jocelyn Devilliers and Patrick Smith (two of our local pickleball pros) came by and played some rec games. It’s always so special when they come around.

These two amazing guys, Jay and Pat, held a clinic at Chicken N Pickle the next day (Tuesday, May 31). I couldn’t go to it since I had already taken time off work the prior week to play in the regional tournament in St. Louis so I felt bad about taking off another day.

It looks like everyone who attended had a great time, though.

The weekend after that was the ICT Classic Pickleball Tournament, which seems like so long ago now that registration for the ICT Fall-out is open. The ICT tournaments are great for pushing your limits. At least for me, I don’t feel significant pressure to medal so I can just play and enjoy myself.

I played 3.5 singles, 4.0 women’s, and 5.0 mixed (don’t ask – lol). I was supposed to play with Judy Nola for women’s and Matt Nola for mixed, so I got both wife and husband; however, Judy had wedding obligations and couldn’t play on Saturday. I picked up Jenny Pinkston who I had met at Chicken N Pickle. She happened to be playing in the Riverside league I was in the day Judy canceled so I asked her and she agreed. I thought we played pretty well together overall. The other teams just played better and cleaner.

Playing 5.0 in mixed was a huge stretch but that’s what Matt wanted to play and I wanted to play with him so I just had to roll with it. Admittedly, it wasn’t terrible. Even though it was my very first tournament at 5.0 level (I think it might have been Matt’s first also), we didn’t feel completely out of place. Also, Matt is super nice and chill and didn’t make me feel bad for not being quite up to that level.

My takeaways from that tournament (and this is actually an observation that I’ve made about myself and pickleball in general):

I find that we rise to the occasion. No matter what skill level I end up in, I find that I play at that exact level. So if I’m in 3.0 division, I play just like a 3.0. If I play in 4.0, I play just like a 4.0. When I played 5.0 with Matt, I played my best possible self. Given this, it really doesn’t make sense to play down in skill because it doesn’t bring out your best self. The only way you’ll discover how great you can possibly be is by playing up in skill level. I think others came to this conclusion much faster than me. And, even after knowing this, I still don’t want to skip any steps. I have it in my mind that I need X number of medals (podium finishes) at a certain skill level before I feel like I can move up. I don’t know why my brain works this way (I wish it didn’t), but it just does.

At any given skill division, with a very competitive bracket where everyone is of similar skill, it’s ultimately the team that makes the least number of errors that prevails. Granted, there are those times when there are some teams that are leaps and bounds better than the rest of the field — but, removing those outliers — if everyone is entered in the appropriate skill level, it really is anyone’s game and the team that wins is the team that makes the least mistakes that given day. It’s this type of mentality that helps me sleep at night and not take my losses so harshly. You win some, and you lose some, and that’s just the way it goes. I’ll keep working at becoming more consistent but it’s not the end of the world if I don’t medal in my events.

We wore blue that day and, although we went 0 and 2 in our division (which is not a good thing), I wasn’t blue. I was happy for the opportunity to play with my friend Matt (who is always so much fun to play with) and I am eternally grateful to him for believing in me enough to invite me to “play up” with him.

I feel like I’m either winning or I’m learning. And lately it seems I’ve been doing a lot more of the latter but, as a life-long learner who always wants to be better than I was yesterday, I would not have it any other way. It’s helpful when you surround yourself with positive people who believe in you and push you to be the very best you can possibly be. You can keep on “learning” without feeling down or discouraged or doubting yourself.

Winning is fun but getting better is funner – lol, I know it’s supposed to be “more fun” but saying/writing funner is “more fun” to me.

I know I want to catch this blog up and I didn’t get very far this time but, honestly, there’s not enough time in the day. I guess I will have to save the rest of the updates for tomorrow. Until next time, GNG.

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Middle States Diamond Regional

Posted on July 6, 2022 by Ching under Pickleball, Travel.

Every time I try to get caught up, I fall further and further behind on the blog. There’s just so much stuff going on and, when I had planned to compete in one tournament per month at the beginning of the year, I completely underestimated how many tournaments there truly are — if I count the local ones. It’s been more like a tournament every week. And, even then, I have to really pick and choose because there are often multiple tournaments going on in the same weekend.

Despite not having the best results, I really enjoyed participating in the Middle States Regional pickleball tournament last year so Brian and I traveled to St. Louis again this year. The tournament was held at the same location, Dwight Davis Tennis Center, but the difference is, instead of being a “golden ticket” event for Nationals, the regional tournaments are now qualifiers for the Diamond Amateur Championships. Click here for an explanation of how you qualify for Nationals. It’s not as straight forward as it used to be, unless you play in one of the National Championship Series tournaments, which are the new “golden ticket” tournaments rather than regionals.

This tournament is most memorable to me because it was my first ever triple crown. It’s the best results I’ve ever gotten in any tournament that I’ve participated in so far (thanks to my awesome partners Kendra Wicks and Ramon Lozano)…

3.0 19+, 35+ women’s singles – GOLD
3.0 19+ women’s doubles – GOLD
3.5 35+ mixed doubles – GOLD

Here are some podium pics:

Singles Women's Doubles

Play was canceled on the first day due to rain so I ended up playing both women’s doubles and women’s singles on the same day. Thankfully, due to multiple tournaments happening on the same weekend, the field was a lot smaller this year (about 200 players less than last year) so I didn’t have to play that many games. Women’s doubles and singles were both round robin formats rather than a regular double elimination bracket. Since my rating is still pretty low, I got to play 3.0 which was pretty manageable for me. The biggest challenge I had was getting combined with 19+ age group for singles. I was literally the oldest person in our division! But I pulled through and won gold.

Ramon and I had a pretty smooth run in mixed doubles. We played in the exact same division we played in last year (with different partners). I think we had an easier time for a couple of reasons: (a) there were fewer teams playing this year, and (b) we’d both improved a lot since last year. I guess it’s also worth mentioning that we make a pretty good team. Ramon is easily one of my most favorite mixed doubles partners. He is always so encouraging and patient.

Here are a few more pics from the tournament…

I think the weather this year was better than last year but not by much. LOL. It was a fun, productive trip overall and I was super happy with my results because it qualified me to compete in the Diamond Amateur Championships at Pictona in Holly Hill, Florida in December.

Until next time, GNG.

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Dream Team Doubles at Riverside

Posted on June 28, 2022 by Ching under Community, Pickleball.

Last month we held our first Dream Team Doubles pickleball tournament at Ralph Wulz Riverside Tennis Center. We ended up with six teams of four — two men and two women — to complete for the title of ultimate team champion. It was my first time running a mini tournament with this specific format (women’s doubles, men’s doubles, and two mixed doubles) and I was so proud of myself for staying right on schedule. I think I’m starting to get the hang of this!

This is the Excel template that I created specifically for the round robin portion this event. After five rounds of play, which gave everyone a chance to play against all the other teams in the tournament, we did a single elimination bracket.

Personally, I like the round robin + single elimination format compared to a double elimination format because if you have a rough day then you could go 0-2 (meaning play twice, lose twice and be out) and only play a couple of matches. The round robin + single elimination ensures everyone gets to play lots of games, which in turn is way more fun. Even if you do end up finishing last, you still got to play a ton.

These were the two teams that made it to the championship round — Team Topps (Antwome Topps, Jody Vinson, Lesli Toubassi, and Chris Wilson) and 1 Right 3 Wrongs (Caesar Naftzger, Cindy Egan, Vickie Hancock, and Cory Sager). It was a really tight match. Actually, all of the matches were super close and some matches even came down to a point or two.

Team Topps prevailed that day with their solid play. Congratulations to all! Can’t wait until we do this again. Noi?

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WPT Kansas City Pickleball Classic

Posted on June 17, 2022 by Ching under Pickleball.

Pictures from my very first World Pickleball Tour tournament. The tournament was held at Elite Tennis and Wellness in Overland Park. It’s a beautiful facility less than five minutes from the Overland Park Chicken N Pickle.