Amazing Pickleball Points: Just Wow

We are so thankful that today’s technology allows the capture of so many fantastic points, games and matches from the great sport of pickleball.  Below are some of our favorites, shared by our pickleball friends.  ENJOY!

From Nationals VIII: Gold Medal Match in the 19+ Men
11 Jaw Dropping Points from Matt Staub and Daniel Moore vs Kyle Yates and Wesley Gabrielson.
Captured masterfully by The Pickleball Channel

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Playing Under The Lights at #NationalsVI

The greatest week in pickleball has wrapped up and everyone left raving about the experience.

One huge vendor tent combined with 28 courts and almost 700 players, plus dozens of Sun City Festival Pickleball Club and USAPA volunteers created the most spectacular tournament in pickleball history.

After watching players aged eight to eighty play over 2000 matches during the seven days, we have come to one conclusion.

It is great to play any time when you are at the National tournament, but if there is one goal that every pickleball player young or old should have, it’s to play under the lights.  It is just special to see and feel the atmosphere at those matches that are played at the end of the day.

If you are playing under the lights, it means pretty much everyone has lost except you.   The crowd is totally focused on you, the music is blaring during the timeouts and the TV cameras are rolling.  It means you have survived a long,  hard day and a medal is likely coming your way.

Nighttime at #NationalsVI

 

The matches under the lights are special.  Think about the tennis US Open in New York at night.  Yeah, it’s just like that, only better because you get to play in it.

So make it your goal to play under the lights.

It will be tough to do, but certainly worth the effort.

Good luck in next years National tournament in Casa Grande.

Pickleball Rocks!

Sponsoring World’s Biggest Pickleball Tournament

Are you registered to be a part of the world record attempt at holding the world’s biggest pickleball tournament?  It happens every year about this time.  Our whole “Pickleball Rocks” team is registered and ready to play.  Plus we just sent in our yearly signed contract to sponsor it.  This year’s USAPA National Tournament in Buckeye, Arizona promises to be the biggest and best yet.

From yesterday’s national press release:

Said National Marketing Director, Josh Grubbs, “we love being a part of this great annual event.  All the best players will be there, and as usual we will use the nationals to unveil our new fall line of trademarked “Pickleball Rocks” clothing, plus we will be introducing a great new pickleball related program that players everywhere will absolutely love.  We can hardly wait.”

USAPA Rocks at Nationals

The 2014 USAPA National tournament will be held November 2-9 at Sun City Festival in Buckeye, Arizona.

If you haven’t registered yet, the deadline is October 5th.

And as Josh said in the press release, “All the best players will be there”.  I’m going anyhow. 🙂

It will be fun to see all our old friends and make a ton of new ones.

Hope you’ll join us there.  I promise you’ll have a good time.

-Rocket

 

2014 USAPA Great Lakes Regional Tournament Results

USAPA Great Lakes Regional Pickleball Tournament

The USAPA currently holds five official pickleball tournaments each year: The National tournament in Buckeye, Arizona, along with four regional tournaments, the Atlantic South Regional, the Mid South Regional, the Southwest Regional, and the just completed Great Lakes Regional in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

SportONE / Parkview Fieldhouse was the scene for 3 days of fun, exciting pickleball.  Things kicked off Thursday night with an open practice session for all the players.  After practice, players took off for some of Fort Wayne’s famous bevy of great restaurants, like Granite City Brewery, Mad Anthony’s Brewery, as well as B Antonios and the fabulous Fort Wayne Casa restaurants.

After the traditional rules and guidelines talk, Friday morning kicked off with the National Anthem and then began a day of singles matches that ran from 8:30 am until 3:30 in the afternoon.  All 12 courts were busy and buzzing in a day which included one of the best men’s 5.0 brackets ever assembled east of the Mississippi.  After the dust had settled, Will Wilson, age 21, of Commerce Township, Michigan came away with the coveted Gold, followed by 19 year old Kyle Yates of Fort Myers, Florida and Rob Elliott from The Villages, Florida.

Will Willson, Kyle Yates and Rob Elliott

Just a funny side note, a Fort Wayne Journal Gazette writer, Frank Gray, after we told him that pickleball is a great social sport that helps seniors stay active, titled his newspaper’s tournament article, “Pickleball, Perfect For Non-Athletic Seniors”.  Whoa, you should have heard the buzzing throughout the building when the word of the Sunday article’s title was discovered. Some present and former collegiate tennis and racquetball players weren’t too happy.  Apparently he wasn’t paying attention to the action and athletes on the courts.  🙂

See all the Singles and Doubles winners by clicking here:

Saturday morning, our biggest day by far, we knew we had a huge task ahead with a building full of men’s and women’s doubles teams waiting to start. As we readied the courts for play, Roger Workman, our tournament operations manager, looked at us and said, if everything goes the way it should, we will be done by 7:00pm tonight.  So with a small amount of disbelief in our heads that we could possibly get it all done on time, we played the National Anthem and headed everyone towards their assigned courts. Many hours later, the final match wrapped up and we herded everyone to the USAPA medal podium for one last awards presentation.  As we walked towards the podium, we looked at the clock and it said 7:07pm.  7 minutes late.  Not bad Roger!

doubles 50

 

mixed 50

Sunday had another huge crowd of mixed doubles teams, but once again the many tournament volunteers came through with flying colors and another almost perfectly timed day.  Roger said we’d be done at 5:00.  Roger would have been dead on except for the very last match, a 3.5 (65+) mixed battle (won by Bill and Eileen Regan) that ended up 11-9, 11-7, 7-11 and 15-13.

mixed 35 65

 

So after 287 matches played over three days, we ended at 5:30 Sunday.

A great tournament put on by a great city with a ton of tremendously dedicated volunteers.

A quick shoutout to co-tournament directors, Ken Flora and Julie Hollingsworth, plus referee coordinator Winnie Montgomery.

A lot of people were giving undue credit to the Grubbs family for putting this tournament together, All and we mean all the credit is deserved by these great people and their teams.

Thanks for letting us be a part of it.

Grubbs Family 2

We love this game!

Josh, Abby, Zack and Rocket

Our video Thank You to all who helped: Click Here

 

For more tournament pictures, check out our Facebook page at www.Facebook.com/Pickleball

 

Pickleball Rocks with Pickleball Specialties

Rodney Grubbs and the team at All About Pickleball recently announced an exclusive marketing agreement with Pickleball Specialties of Ft. Myers, Florida.  The agreement allows Pickleball Specialties to be the exclusive vendor for the famous “Pickleball Rocks” trademarked brand of apparel at a series of 2014 tournaments throughout Florida, South Carolina and Michigan.

We are happy to say you will find the top selling “Pickleball Rocks” shirts at all the following tournaments:

THE PLAYERS TOURNAMENT @ STONECREST – March 7-9, 2014 in Stonecrest Community, Summerfield, FL

EAST NAPLES SKILL LEVEL TOURNAMENT – March 21-23, 2014 at East Naple Community Center, Naples, FL

ORLANDO CLEAR ONE INDOOR DOUBLES CLASSIC – April 5-6, 2014 at ClearOne Pickleball, Badminton & Table Tennis Facility, Orlando, FL

CHARLOTTE COUNTY SENIOR GAMES – April 11-13, 2014 at South Regional Park, Punta Gorda, FL

BRIGHTON BULLDOG CLASSIC – July 26-27, 2014, Brighton (Ann Arbor), Michigan

PALMETTO INDOOR DOUBLES INVITATIONAL – August 16-17, 2014, Aiken, South Carolina

SEASIDE CLASSIC – September 26-27, 2014, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina

TAMPA BAY SENIOR GAMES – October (dates pending),2014 – Tampa, FL

RIVERBEND RESORT CLASSIC – December 5-7, 2014 – Riverbend Motor Coach Resort, Labelle, FL

 

Pickleball Rocks and Pickleball Specialties