It’s been a few weeks since my last newsletter, in part because I’d been preparing for the iPickle St. Patrick’s Day Invitational tournament. I played at the 3.0 level in women’s doubles, and I’m thrilled that my partner Aileen and I won bronze!
I started playing pickleball during the summer of 2020 but avoided entering tournaments. I worried that competition would take the joy out of the sport for me and out me as an angry, petty person who could neither win nor cope with losing.
And, to be honest, that could have been the story of this tournament. Aileen and I competed against eight other teams. We won our first game, but after we lost our second, my mood took a total nosedive. My body got rigid, balls sailed past my paddle, and we got bageled (got a big, fat 0 as our score) in our third game. My body started to crash from the stress. My hands felt unsteady, as though I hadn’t had enough to sleep or eat. I walked over to my boyfriend and told him I wanted to go home. And I meant it.
But then I took a breather, put a warm sweatshirt on, and decided to let go of my desire to medal. “Today is just another Saturday doing the thing I love to do every Saturday,” I told myself. Loose and free, Aileen and I went on to win our final five games in a row. (Maybe it helped that Aileen took the cursed ball we got bageled with and hid it so we wouldn’t have to play with it again.)
I think it helped that we went back to what we usually do—we introduced ourselves to our opponents, praised their shots as often as we supported each other, and just had a laugh. The team we beat out for the bronze medal told us that we confounded them with our soft game and won them with kindness. I’m proud that we won playing our way—velvet glove, not iron fist.
Why games are soothing
Because I came to sports so late in life, I don’t think I understood the pleasure that comes from the prescribed rules and boundaries in games. On an episode of the Ezra Klein podcast, philosopher C. Thi Nguyen says games offer a reprieve from the “existential hellscape” of life:
[Games] give you this one moment where instead of the nausea of a billion different values and you have no idea how well you’re doing— games give you a moment where you know exactly what you’re doing because there are points. And you know exactly how well you’ve done, right? You know exactly how you’re succeeding, because the points have clear explicit mechanical rules to tell you how to get them.
This resonates for me. I love the idea of not just having rules that dictate how to win, but also an invitation to be competitive. I was socialized to choose humility over boastfulness. But competitive sport gives people like me a safe space to express a desire to win, as well as the freedom to lose with nothing on the line.
If you haven’t entered a tournament yet, I recommend it! The anticipation and practice prior to the tournament made me a stronger player. I worked harder at getting better and understanding strategy. My partner and I practiced moving as a unit, communicating verbally and physically, and changing our tactics after assessing our opponents’ strength.
And what you get for your entry fee is the pleasure of playing opponents at the right level. Sometimes in rec play at the park, especially on busy days, you wind up in weird games with lower-level players who don’t understand how to play yet; other times you get quickly creamed by people who smash every mistake at your feet. A tournament guarantees a bunch of games (eight in our round-robin, fixed partners tournament) with people who are as good (or bad) as you are.
I’m looking forward to the next tournament. Medaling would be nice, but it’s not what I’m after, necessarily. I want to meet my own demons again and find out what it takes to pull myself out of trouble while the stakes are low. I guess this is what counts as fun when you’re 40+.
What to know if you’re entering a tournament for the first time
For USAPA sanctioned tournaments, like the upcoming iPickle Pacific Southwest Open, you must become a member of the USAPA, which costs $35/year. (That’s in addition to whatever registration fee you must pay for the tournament.)
Tournaments like the CAPA San Gabriel Valley Pickleball Open in June use the DUPR rating system to track player performance.
If you want to find pickleball tournaments in your area, start at—where else—pickleballtournaments.com. If I were a stronger player, I might try to enter the APP $125,000 New York City Open over Memorial Day weekend which will take place at the Billie Jean King USTA National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, Queens. How cool would it be to play at Arthur Ashe Stadium?
Many tournaments require you to self-rate (here are the USAPA definitions of skill ratings). As I understand, it’s advantageous to round yourself down in sanctioned tournaments (aka sandbagging) and round yourself up in unsanctioned, unrecorded tournaments (no consequences for testing your mettle against higher level players).
A man we played with recently who started playing pickleball six years ago after a lifetime of competitive tennis told us that he used to play at a 4.5 level in sanctioned USAPA tournaments, but he has found that it takes more to play at 4.5 now—not because he’s gotten worse, but because other people are getting better.
And a note about time-outs in tournament play: You don’t get them in rec play, but they’re great for putting opponents on ice when they’re having a hot streak. (I gotta give Aileen major props for is her strategic use of time-outs.) We were the only team at our level to use them (and Aileen was 100% in charge of when to pull the trigger), and they often worked well, stopped a winning streak. If you can use a time-out, you may as well! Leigh and Anna Leigh Waters are known for being particularly good at utilizing their time-outs wisely.
In other pickleball news
Ben Johns signed with Joola (pronounced Yo-la) and helped design a new paddle. The Ben Johns Hyperion has a 16mm core with 5.5” handle, a carbon fiber face for spin, and a rounded top for aerodynamics for the up-the-ante price of $220. I’m intrigued!
Did you hear about the 71-year-old man in Denver who went to jail for marking a rec center floor with a Sharpie to denote pickleball court lines? At first I was appalled—seems harsh for a few lines, and why would they need to resurface the whole floor for almost $10,000? On this Washington Post article, commenter Doolee suggests that the so-called mayor of pickleball is no angel. I don’t know why they had to arrest the man. Anyway, the DA isn’t pursuing charges, and I hope everyone can figure out a way to get along in our shared parks and recreation centers. This is supposed to be a friendly sport.