Happy Monday, partner. 🤠 It was another exciting two weeks of pickleball with shake-ups on the tours, new celebrity investment into the sport, and more courts coming to the game. Let's get right to the recap, as well other tips and stories straight from the pickleball court... 💥
#1. 5 PICKLEBALL STRATEGIES TO WIN MORE POINTS WITH YOUR RETURN OF SERVE
The return of serve is one of the most important shots in pickleball. This is because you have the opportunity to make the third shot—arguably, the most difficult and most important shot—as challenging as possible for your opponents.
Click here to learn 5 strategies to keep the serving team back in the court and win more points with your return of serve. 💪
#2. MURMURS FROM THE LOSERS' BRACKET: “HEAD TARGETING” RULE CHANGE NOT A BRAINY IDEA
It’s that time of year when we pickleballers hold our breaths as people try to “fix” what needs fixing in the game. One such rule change proposal is to create a new fault called “head targeting.” 🤕
Click here to learn more about this proposed rule change, and get Murmurs from the Losers’ Bracket’s take. Will you agree?
#3. YOUR OPPONENTS ARE BACK ON THE COURT. NOW, WHAT?
Imagine you are on the pickleball court. You and your partner work to get the Kitchen line, while keeping your opponents back near the baseline. You and your partner have full control of the Kitchen line, while your opponents are back on the pickleball court.
What should you do? 🤔 Click here to learn now.
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#4. PICKLEBALL FEVER IS KEY INGREDIENT FOR COOKBOOK
Sports cookbooks are practically a rite of passage. For instance, Novak Djokovic has his own “Serve to Win” cookbook, and football is flooded with cookbooks for tailgate parties.
It may not have seemed likely for the sport of pickleball, though, considering that the sport’s mantra is “Stay out of the kitchen!” But, pickleball has reached another milestone, a pickleball cookbook. Click here to learn more now. 👩🍳
#5. HOW TO BREAK DOWN A STACKING DOUBLES TEAM IN PICKLEBALL
Stacking is a must-know strategy in pickleball. But, while this doubles strategy has advantages, stacking also has disadvantages that can be used against a stacking team.
Click here to learn how to break down the stack in pickleball, so you can make your opponents’ stacking strategy as difficult as possible. 🥞
#6. PICKLER THE PODCAST - PICKLEBALL IN PRISONS WITH ROGER BELAIR
Roger BelAir is responsible for bringing pickleball to the criminal justice system – in particular, some of our countries’ largest institutions like Cook County Jail in Chicago or Rikers Island in New York City. Now, BelAir hits the mic on Pickler The Podcast, with co-hosts Stacie Townsend and John "The People's Champ" Davison, to tell us more about what drives him in sharing his time and services for free to bring pickleball to the criminal justice system, as well as how the sport of pickleball impacts detainees and inmates across the country. Tune in now! 🎧
And, don't forget to subscribe to Pickler's YouTube page, so you never miss another Pickler video - whether it be a podcast, pickleball tip video, or other can't-miss video.
#7. QUICK TIP - YOUR INTERNAL VOICE MATTERS
When you are out on the court, pay attention to how you talk to yourself (and your partner). Your voice matters - not only for the sake of your own confidence, but your words also affect your actions. If you tell yourself, "Man, I can't hit a third shot to save my life today," then you will probably continue to fail on your third shots. However, if you tell yourself, "I will nail the next third shot," then you will have a better chance of doing just that. Your body has a strange ability to listen to your mind. So, use positive talk and tell yourself what you will do, rather than what you can't do. 🗣
DO YOU HAVE A PICKLEBALL ADDICTION?
If so, then this book, I Dink, Therefore I Am: Coming to Grips with My Pickleball Addiction, is for you. Have a laugh with longtime humor writer, Frank Cerabino, and grab some great pickleball tips! 📚
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#8. HEADLINES FROM THE COURT
Serving up your pickleball headlines... 🗞
- Pickleball hit yet another major publication… this time, The New Yorker with “Can Pickleball Save America?” It’s a long article and worth a read, and, in our opinion, the short answer is an emphatic “YES!”
- Everyone is catching on to pickleball’s explosive growth, including new Major League Pickleball team owners (buying into Mad Drops Pickleball Club): Super Bowl champion Drew Brees, LA Lakers owner, Jim Buss, and reality TV star, Ryan Serhant. This is also one reason why Life Time Fitness is making pickleball the “centerpiece of [its] growth strategy.” Life Time, which currently has 250 pickleball courts, plans to have 600 courts in its clubs across the country by the end of 2023. 📈
- Pickleball is loved in Seattle, which is evident in this skit, featuring pickleball pros Riley Newman and Brian Ashworth.
- Speaking of Riley Newman, he will have the honor of throwing the first pitch at the Seattle Mariners baseball game versus the Atlanta Braves on September 10th in honor of pickleball becoming Washington’s official state sport. ⚾️
- The London International Airport in Ontario, Canada ✈️ opened up a pickleball court on property. So, be sure to pack your paddle in your carry-on, just in case your flight is delayed. And, if you work at the airport, your boss may be offering up a day off if you can beat him!
- Pickleball growth is undeniable. With that said, should other sports, like tennis, be concerned? According to United States Tennis Association executive Amy Choyne, there is no such concern for the tennis 🎾 establishment. Tennis Magazine seems to agree, as Tennis Magazine is even promoting pickleball and embracing the sport’s “inviting and intoxicating culture.”
- One news article out of Boise, Idaho described an interesting side effect of the sport of pickleball—players giving up their vices. One player quit drinking alcohol since playing pickleball because it caused cramping.
- Some pickleball feel-goods… One pickleball community in South Carolina used the sport to raise money for a toddler suffering from heart failure, while pro pickleball players, Jade and Jackie Kawamoto, hosted a charity tournament in Indiana to raise money to fight Alzheimer’s disease. In the north side of Minneapolis, a program called We Win Institute is hosting a free youth summer pickleball program to provide more opportunities to local kids. And, one Nebraska native, Buck Wood, plays pickleball for up to 7 hours as medicine for his Parkinson’s disease. Wood describes the sport as an escape for him and encourages everyone to get on the pickleball court, as “it’s good medicine for all of us.” 🥰
- Could New York City be the next pickleball mecca? Central Park is exploding with pickleball, pickleball is played at the Brooklyn Bridge Park, the sport held its first tournament in Flushing Meadows, and now a developer is building a 20,000-square-foot pickleball facility on Long Island. 🏙
#9. ON THE TOUR: BEER CITY OPEN SHINES THROUGH THE RAIN ☔️
The Beer City Open is back for the fourth time, as pickleball pro and tournament director (not to mention, also full-time practicing attorney) Andrea Koop invites pros and amateurs alike to Grand Rapids, Michigan for this pickleball tournament. Click here to get the pro recap from the Beer City Open, which features one all-time undefeated player in Beer City.
And, don't forget to mark your calendars 🗓 for A TON of pro pickleball in August!
#10. RULES REFRESH - AVOID THE NET
Check out this point in the video below from the APP So Cal Classic. Early in the men's doubles bronze medal match, DJ Young jumps the Kitchen, but loses his footing. He then stops for a second, and states "I hit the net. It doesn't matter." ⚠️
This is a good reminder on net rules. Remember, no player may touch the net, posts, net system, or the opposing team's side of the pickleball court. If a player does any of these things - touch the net, posts, net system, or opposing side of the court - then a fault has occurred and that player will lose the rally. This is exactly what happened to DJ Young in the video above.
For a deeper breakdown on all of the rules of pickleball, check out Pickler's Ultimate Guide to the Rules of Pickleball.
Have you had an interesting rules issue on the pickleball court? Send it to us at stacie@thepickler.com, so we can share with the rest of the pickleball community in a future newsletter.
#11. THE PPA TOUR GOES HEAD-TO-HEAD WITH MAJOR LEAGUE PICKLEBALL
With the next Major League Pickleball event staged to take place August 5-7, 2022, the PPA Tour announced a new event and format—the Selkirk Labs Showdown—on the same dates, positioning the PPA Tour in a head-to-head match-up with MLP. But, is all this competition for the pro pickleball landscape between the two organization and their billionaire owners/founders really a bad thing? 🤷♀️🤷♂️ Click here to learn more.
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