Singles Tournament Results
Posted on February 26, 2021 by Ching under Hobbies, Travel.
We had a pretty small field for 3.0 singles, as you can see from the above bracket. Since there were so few of us (4 players in 35+ and 2 players in 19+) they decided to combine both of our divisions. As it turns out, the older women actually prevailed. Gold (Jimena) and silver (me) went to women over 40 years old. I thought Christina (she took bronze) was actually under 35 so I assumed everyone would get a medal because there were only six of us total. But since Christina was part of the 35+ group, one of the ladies didn’t medal. However, both of the 19+ girls got medals — yes, even the one who had to withdraw.
Here’s a pic of me and my new friend Jimena from Gilbert, AZ. We both play with Electrum Pro paddles. I thought that was neat.
Here’s our podium pic:
– Jimena got gold.
– I got silver.
– Christina got bronze.
I was super nerdy and brought my Wichita flag to the podium with me.
Even though they combined our divisions, they awarded medals for both age groups. They basically just gave you a medal based on your performance so my new friend Marla also received a gold medal.
I think the best part of playing singles was having my Wichita pickleball friends there to cheer for me. At one point, Patrick Smith even came over. It made me feel super nervous but also special — because how many people can say they have Pat in their corner? Although, he just poked fun at us for our five-minute long timeouts. Without a ref there to enforce the 60-second limit, we weren’t really timing ourselves so we were basically having a good ol’ time during timeouts chatting about random things like what we’re having for dinner that night, plans for the evening, and what we’re wearing tomorrow. There was some talk of pickleball strategy but not much. LOL.
Speaking of refs, I did get my first experience with reffed matches when I got to the medal round. I learned that refs don’t watch the lines for you. You’re responsible for calling those yourself. If they see it, they’ll chime in but it’s not their responsibility. Mainly the ref is responsible for calling the score, making sure that you’re serving from the correct spot, and they watch for foot faults.
In the bronze match against Christina, I hit an overhead winner and had to steady myself to make sure I didn’t fall in the kitchen (I didn’t) but ref Andy was ready to pounce and call a foot fault. He had this look of “I’m going to get you!” on his face. We had a good laugh about it.
The ref for the gold match Diahann was super animated. She would call the score like it was baseball. Here’s a video of that match. This is the match where I learned the refs really don’t help you on the line calls. They’re not really watching for this and so you’re pretty much on your own. With me not being confrontational, I didn’t fight for some bad calls that I really should have and missed some opportunities (because every single point matters, specially in singles). Oh, well. It was a learning moment for me. At least I’ll know how to handle these things for the next tournament. And, I’m happy with my silver medal.
More from the PPA tournament next time. Until then, GNG.
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