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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