Pickleball

Archive for "Pickleball"

Team League at West YMCA

Posted on March 15, 2024 by Ching under Pickleball, Things to Do.

I played in the first ever team league at West YMCA and it was such a traumatic experience. Just kidding. It was so much fun. The only thing that sucked about it was that I’ve had the yips since the beginning of the year and so all my servers were basically points for the other team. That wasn’t the league’s fault.

Here are some pics that we took throughout the league.

Susie Ternes and I wore our blue Halara dresses on one of the days. I absolutely love this dress but I just hate being so short because it’s sooo long on me! Anyways, if you shop at thehalara.com, remember to use discount code CHERRIE for 20% OFF! (Discount doesn’t work on SALE items but works on everything else.)

Here are a couple of pictures of Austin Winter and Matt Von Feldt. I love that these boys were into being matchy-matchy also.

I really struggled this league because of the rally scoring and my yips situation. Because I couldn’t serve, we were pretty much playing with a handicap. We didn’t perform well enough to be in the upper division so we ended up in the lower division on tournament night (final week of league) and we ended up winning that division. I think it was kind of a blessing because I’m not sure we could have won the other group. So at least we medaled. That’s the silver-lining, anyway.

This kind of reminds me of last year’s Picklemania tournament. My team missed the elite group by mere points (we were in the toughest pool with three teams with the potential to advance to elite and we ended up being third) and then ended up in advanced group. We obviously won it because we really should have been in elite but just got edged out. LOL.

Speaking of Picklemania, we are having it again this year. This year’s event will be at Crestview Country Club on May 25. Hope to see you there!

No Comments

iPN Wichita Winterfest

Posted on February 12, 2024 by Ching under Pickleball.

We hosted our very first iPickle Nation pickleball tournament in Wichita a couple of weeks ago at Genesis Rock Road where they now have 10 pickleball courts painted on their tennis courts in the bubble. Genesis is getting into pickleball – finally – and it was time to celebrate this. Here’s a short video I made of all the medalists:

It’s a pretty short video because we didn’t have as many teams participate as I would have liked. We drew 65 players. While we had enough teams to host the tournament, we were dozens of players shy of the 100+ that I wanted to see. Last year, Chicken N Pickle hosted a tournament and, even with talent like Jack Oxler participating in it, the event drew less than 50. I really don’t understand why (a) Wichita players aren’t playing the local tournaments, and (b) players from all over aren’t flocking here to play. What is it about Wichita? What are we doing wrong? Or is it something we are not doing?

Since I started playing in tournaments three years ago, I have traveled West as far as California and East as far as Florida and played in maybe a hundred tournaments. Some have been amazing and some I will probably never, ever want to play ever again. It costs a lot of money to travel somewhere and play in a tournament, even when you drive there and don’t factor in air fare. You still have the cost of lodging, food, etc. besides the already astronomical tournament registration fees that just seem to continue to increase year over year as the popularity of the sport increases.

I quickly realized that it’s not sustainable for me to travel and play in all of these tournaments and that there are many pickleball enthusiasts, amateur pickleball players like myself, in Wichita who would enjoy playing in these tournaments but don’t have the resources to travel all over. For the last year or so, I’ve made it a goal to try and bring events to Wichita so that players like me could enjoy the competition without all of the added travel expenses. But now I’m wondering if I am unique in my desire to want to be able to play in tournaments at home. Maybe people really want to spend thousands of dollars traveling all over the place to play in these tournaments so we don’t really need any big tournaments at home.

I’m actually starting to wonder. Maybe I don’t know our local pickleball population at all and I truly have no idea what our community needs? Would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this.

Anyway, despite not drawing as many players and teams as we would have liked, the weekend was actually quite productive. I’d never used the Pickleball Brackets platform before and this tournament allowed me to see how to use it behind the scenes. I’ve only ever interacted with the platform as a tournament player so I’ve never really seen how the Tournament Directors use it. Duane Christian from iPickle Nation gave me access so I could see some of that and he explained to me how they organize their tournaments. I learned a ton.

I’m not sure how worthwhile it would be to host another one of these types of tournaments but at least I have some experience under my belt. I wish you all the best in your pickleball endeavors, no matter where it may take you. Until next time!

No Comments

DUPR Mixed Doubles Mini Tournament

Posted on January 12, 2024 by Ching under Pickleball.

I’ve been playing with the Swish Sports app the last few months and trying out different functions. They recently deployed their DUPR integration and so I wanted to test that out on a tournament format. Thankfully, Jeff Bally was nice enough to let us use his courts for a trial run.

We had six teams participate. The list below shows the teams ranked in order of performance after the round robin.

Fernando Martinez and Sarah Berry
Seth Mountain and Julie Pauly
Zach Nguyen and Fong Witte
Bobby Weisbrodt and Olivia Banks
Zach Holt and Alice Tunks-Jones
Jeff Bally and Shawna Geist

After the round robin, we finished the event with a single elimination bracket. At the end of it, the winners were:

First Place – Bobby and Olivia
Second Place – Jeff and Shawna
Third Place – Seth and Julie

I usually only have prizes for first place but Shawna had some extra pickleball tumblers made by her daughter in law that she wanted to donate so we decided to use those as the prizes for second place. Ironically, Jeff and Shawna finished second so Shawna basically won her own prize that she brought. They ended up giving them to the third place team, which worked out well.

Congrats to Bobby and Olivia on the win. These two have turned into quite a formidable duo on and off the pickleball court. Until next time!

No Comments

A Low-Key Christmas and Our Annual Recap

Posted on January 5, 2024 by Ching under Life, Pickleball.

Brian and I had a pretty low-key Christmas. I barely even took any pics. His parents came up from Oklahoma on Christmas Eve and then went home the day after Christmas. Instead of doing a traditional “Noche Buena” at mom and dad’s, we opted to get together for lunch. It was nice. We had lots of Filipino food thanks to Manny, who loves to cook also.

I ordered this game called Blank Slate because I absolutely loved it when we played it at Susie’s a couple of weeks ago. I brought it to mom and dad’s and we played a couple of rounds after lunch. Everyone loved it too. It’s so fun!

We had a quiet Christmas Eve dinner at our house with Brian’s parents. The next morning, Brian and his dad went to pick up grandma and the five of us celebrated Christmas Day together. Christmas Day lunch was also subdued. We ordered a holiday feast package from Hello Fresh and it worked out great. They pretty much sent us everything we needed for a nice charcuterie board and also a hefty prime rib meal. For dessert, I got this amazing cake from Prost.

We ate some of it on Christmas Eve but, as mom also ordered ube cake, we barely made a dent. We ate some on Christmas Day but we still had a crap ton left. I had been eating all week until I finally accepted that I wasn’t going to be able to eat the rest of it all by myself. I took what was left (a little over half) to Jeff Bally’s on Saturday when we played pickleball and we ate some of it while we played. There was a small piece left and my friend Zach Nguyen took it home.

I’m glad none of it went to waste because that would have made me really sad. This is seriously the best cake that I’ve had in a while. After having a slice of it at lunch a couple of weeks ago, I decided I needed a whole one because I wanted everyone to try it. #SharingIsCaring

I took time off work between Christmas and New Year’s and that week went by pretty quickly (much like all of 2023) but Brian and I were actually quite productive. We’ve both always hated the way our kitchen faucet looks so we decided to finally replace it. I had no idea kitchen faucets were so expensive! We found a $200 one at Lowe’s that we were happy with and then Brian got to work.

Here’s the before and after.

Installing the new faucet wasn’t too bad but getting the old one off was super tricky. We almost gave up partway through. But Brian persevered and now the kitchen looks much better. Who knew simply replacing your faucet could make such a difference? And I had no idea that a measly $200 faucet would bring me so much joy — more joy than any other gift could have given me.

I shouldn’t be so surprised though, because “acts of service” is my primary love language. And, replacing the faucet was not easy, nor did Brian enjoy it so this act is very much appreciated.

And now for our annual recap…

For the past couple of years (maybe more) my life has pretty much revolved around pickleball so it should come as no surprise that there as a lot of pickleball played in 2023. I did resolve to cut back on pickleball tournaments but, because I don’t know how to say no to anything (and I have major FOMO), I somehow still played in over 20 tournaments last year. They were mostly regional tournaments within driving distance so I spent about $5,000 less on tournaments than I did in 2022 when I traveled all over the country and played in 24.

The Oklahoma City Life Time hosts a Picklemania tournament about four times a year and I played in two of them last year.

The US Open in Naples is probably the most prestigious tournament I have ever played in and, this past year, I got to compete in five events! We had a big group go this year, including mom and dad, so that made it even more fun.

The other memorable tournaments this year are:

Mid-South Regional – I really wasn’t planning on playing in this one but Casey Dominguez who I played with in the January Picklemania wanted to play in it and I wanted to play with him so I squeezed it in.

APP Cincinnati – This was my attempt to earn a golden ticket for 2023 USA Pickleball National Championships for mixed doubles. I earned my golden tickets for women’s doubles and women’s singles at the Diamond Amateur Championships in Florida in 2022, but Ramon Lozano and I only got silver in mixed so I didn’t earn a mixed golden ticket.

Tulsa Pickleball Classic – This tournament isn’t really a qualifier for anything, unlike the golden ticket tournaments or the regional tournaments that feed the Diamond Amateur Championships but it was on my list because Tanner Rice wanted to do it. Anyway, he ended up getting hurt so I played this one with a blind date, Mo Luqman instead.

PPA Kansas City Open – This was another attempt at getting my mixed golden ticket. Due to another injury, I ended up with another blind date which is always disappointing but Kendra Wicks (one of my pickleball daughters and also my women’s doubles partner for Nationals) used both the Tulsa tournament and this one to get some tournament practice so I can’t say that it was a complete waste. Although I didn’t earn a golden ticket at this tournament, because of the cancellations and the mess of the whole tournament, they ended up giving EVERYONE golden tickets so I got my spot for mixed doubles after all.

Bartlesville Fall Classic – This is a tournament hosted by my friend Kumar Krishnan. It is run super well and you get three events, a tournament shirt, and lunch included with your entry fee. They also have prize money at all levels. This is one of those tournaments that I highly recommend to everyone because it is not only fun but also a great value.

NEO Shangri-La Open – This is a smaller regional tournament that is a fundraiser for one of the universities in Oklahoma. It is also hosted by Kumar so you know it is well-organized. One of my favorite things about this tournament is the beautiful resort setting. It’s just an amazing environment and I love that we have something like this within driving distance of Wichita.

USA Pickleball National Championships – It’s been one of my long-running goals (since I started playing in tournaments) to compete at Nationals. It was supposed to be at Indian Wells in California but they changed it to Brookhaven Country Club in Dallas, Texas. This is probably the biggest tournament I have ever participated in. My mixed doubles division had 80 teams registered!

ICT Summer Classic – This is a much smaller tournament compared to the other ones on this list but it will forever hold a special place in my heart because, many years ago, this tournament was the first ever real tournament I played in. Also, I think the 2023 ICT Summer Classic is Kayla Keuter’s very last one because she didn’t have the ICT Fall-out tournament last year and, the last time we spoke, it seemed like she wasn’t interested in hosting any more of these in the future (which makes me really sad).

Besides these bigger tournaments, I also played in and hosted a bunch of DUPR events (both on my own and through iPickle Nation), and I played and helped with a bunch of local tournaments (some of which were charity events to raise money for my favorite social agencies):

Dream Team Doubles (at Riverside Tennis Center)
Mixed Doubles Mini Tournament (at the Pickle Club)
Wichita Corporate Challenge (representing Evergy)
It’s a Big Dill (benefiting the Wichita Children’s Home)
Picklemania MMXXIII (benefiting Rotary Club of Andover)
Y’s Men Pickleball Tournament (benefiting Greater Wichita YMCA)
Rally for Hope (benefiting HopeNet)
Backyard Pickleball (at various home courts)
Holiday Hoedown (at Jeff Bally’s)

And then I had two Minor League Pickleball events this year — one I played in (Chicken N Pickle Ambassador MiLP) and one that I helped organize (MiLP at Crestview Country Club). MiLPs are team tournaments and it probably my most favorite competition format. I highly recommend playing in one of these if you’ve never tried it. They are a blast!

I also had several friends have pickleball birthday parties (Molly Sager, Susie Ternes, Ramon Lozano, Katie Merrill, Alice Tunks-Jones) which I guess is the thing to do here in Wichita. The girls even threw me a birthday surprise at one of our pickleball sessions.

Speaking of birthdays, I threw Brian a rum tasting party this year as a belated birthday present. He loves rum so it was perfect. I totally patted myself on the back for that one. Anyway, so much has happened this year more than just pickleball (helping with the NPL tournament at Chicken N Pickle, pickleball Christmas parties)… Brian and I had our first colonoscopies (yes, we are officially THAT age)… We started Hello Fresh so we could eat at home more (we are still using the service and really like it so far)… We did our annual Shock N’ Clause breakfast with our travel friends… It has been quite a year and I am thankful to each and everyone of you who helped make every moment of 2023 a memorable one. Happy New Year!

No Comments

Pickleball Christmas Party at the Pickle Club

Posted on December 20, 2023 by Ching under Events, Pickleball.

The ladies’ pickleball group that normally plays on Wednesdays at the Pickle Club decided to have a Christmas party and gift exchange on Monday night. Here are some pics from that fun event.