Pickleball, Then & Now... & Back to THEN (!!️🪵🏓)

The Sacramento Vintage Open is Tom Dundon’s brainchild- a first-of-it’s-kind event in which the playing field will be leveled, tradition & history will be honored, and players’ adaptability will be tested to the maximum. In this event, all professional players will be playing with the same stock wood pickleball paddle that was provided by the PPA Tour. The craziest thing? This tournament is for real PPA points, so expect the competition to be as fierce as ever. In this edition, I will break down the event and comment on how pickleball has changed just in my time in the sport.

I quite honestly have no idea what to expect at this tournament. Will there be upsets galore? Does anyone want to win this as badly as Collin Johns? Will points be twice as long? Will the game look fundamentally different? These are all questions I do NOT have the answer to.

I generally think the wooden paddles will favor people whose games are built around simpler strokes and “pushing” through the ball with less wrist. Players like Jessie and Tina on the women’s side and people like Andrei, Collin, JW, and Federico on the men’s side. Anyone who hacks at the ball or gets heavy, wristy topspin may be in for a rude awakening.

My picks to win the event are:

In Women’s, the top half of the draw is far more difficult than the bottom, but I still can’t pick against Jorja/Tyra. Will all my picks be wrong? Probably, but hey, I’m putting myself out there! I’m usually not a big fan of singles, but I am especially looking forward to men’s singles as I think this will truly be a war of attrition- long cat and mouse points in HOT weather. How many shirts will the finalists wear on Thursday?? My bet is a LOT. I could also see Dylan making the final- his singles game is so built around cat and mouse and I think he will be a nightmare for his opponents in this format. It’s a shame Frank Anthony David (FAD) isn’t playing this event, in my mind he is the father of cat and mouse. Who are your picks to win??

For the other events, choosing was hard, but I just don’t think I can pick against Kate in this field, I think Andrei/Tina’s styles should be well-suited to wood, and I think JW/Dylan will have a high level of motivation and excitement to be playing together again. In my opinion, as a team they came to lack creativity a bit, but with these paddles I think that will matter less, and they could be lethal. I’m very excited for men’s doubles!

Being in Asia where pickleball is younger and the impending Vintage Open have given me a chance to reflect on how pickleball has changed in just my short time in the sport. Oh, sidenote: I’ll have you know, you guys are all deeply entrenched in my subconscious. I woke up an hour ago (Tuesday 1:15AM local time), and realized the newsletter should have gone out! I forgot about the time change, but my subconscious didn’t!

Pickleball has evolved in so many ways in just my short time in the sport. A couple weeks ago, I discussed exponential growth and how juniors will change the game. Another, less appreciated area of change is in how the game is played itself at the highest level. In a true case of iron-sharpens-iron, all the professionals are learning from each other. In early 2022, I thought no woman besides Lea Jansen was capable of a 1 handed flick, that ATPs were effectively unreturnable, and had literally no concept of what a scorpion was. If you’re interested, I can write a whole piece someday on the biggest areas of change I have noticed at the pro game.

Though the names and faces at the top change with time, I think it’s so cool to literally see our game changing and evolving in real-time. If you haven’t seen it, here is me in my first professional tournament- the game was so different then! I often wonder how badly the Jorja and I of today would beat this version of ourselves.

This tournament will hopefully present an interesting return to pickleball of the past, with a modern flair. I am very excited to watch it and I hope you are too! You can catch all the action on PickleballTV.

In a completely unrelated note, I am looking to hire an executive assistant as I have come to accept that I cannot do all the things I want to do entirely on my own. If you or anyone you know is creative, driven, organized, pickleball-obsessed, and interested in helping me take the pickleball world by storm on and off the court, please fill out this form and attach your resume to it. I appreciate you guys always and I am going back to sleep! ❤️❤️❤️