It Feels Right
It Feels Right #73 - Pickleball's International Growth + PPA Kansas City Recap
2028 is out for pickleball olympics but 2032 is a really good option and you know people love to make those posts about whatever while climbing or break dancing or all different kinds of stuff. Why not pickle? We're not unified it's the biggest issues. The sports the sports plenty valid right you see in the other sure ridiculous sports in there. If you're an organized body that has everything in place that they need then it's much easier and and we're just not that. So we've got to unify because you know why why because it feels right it feels right. Legendary. This is the moment we waited for. Everything you want is right here. We gonna give them what they came for. We gonna take it up from last year. Watch the game change. Watch the game change. What's the game change? Pickleball pickle pickle pickle pickleball across the pond Robert. Oh Adam yeah I mean I'm in the land of the of the of the British. The land of the British I was wondering where you were going to go with that. Have you had an English have you had an English breakfast yet? Oh yes of course we've had some you know the bake the baked beans with the eggs and the mushrooms and I like it all the black thing there's like a cake like a black thing cake that they put in there. It's like a black pudding or something like that. I don't know. Yeah I I don't have anything to do with that. I just keep it keep it simple even baked beans freak me out for breakfast. So I just I don't I don't touch that. What I do like that they do internationally Adam is that they lay out some nice salamis some pepperonis some cold cuts some cheeses like just for breakfast a little yes for some little some little pickles some little baby baby dills baby oh baby dills I got no he's a big though now he's a big though I did say baby dill we had four quality nicknames on court for that men's vinyl so I had to pull it out but let's talk English open first international scene is popping and I'm I'm excited for all of it and a variety of places we had a Bolivian and Argent Argentinian winner on the PPA tour we got rumblings of southeast Asia and India and of course across the pond in English open how to go. Hey man the the sports race in all all corners of the globe right now which is pretty dope. So yeah English open was was was fun again it's um it was double the size of last year but it didn't necessarily feel like it was like that much busier I think they spread it out across a couple more days this year so kind of maintain the feel of you know not not insane but great great environment great atmosphere I love how they kind of structure their center court with you know Adam this is clutch the bleachers that they have are they're broader and they're not I don't think they're from the facility but they are cushioned oh cushioned bleacher seats which you know for somebody with my issues cushions are a big deal like when I when I just survey my surroundings and area like one thing I think about is like oh that's I like it's by default like that's a hard surface to sit on can't sit there that's a hard surface even go into restaurants Adam where it's like if the seats don't have cushioned I'm not I'm not going there so you're full booth guy now because booths I have to yeah I have some some barstools are like really nice now that are big heavy cushioned ones so like those yeah those metal bleachers with the little grooves in it mm-hmm yeah you can't sit there for too long and it gives me itchy butt like it makes yeah like actual cheeks itchy and yeah I'm yeah I'm not a fan so especially if you're trying to watch pickle for three or four plus hours that's not the play correct I like the old apples that bring bring their own seat cushions that's kind of fun uh yes yeah I like that I like that or like the ones that have season tickets I just like post up their chairs and just leave them there the whole time you know I just leave just leave them yeah uh yeah well uh it was popping it was fun yeah I I don't I talked to James uh Chowdhury who's he um he kind of helps run I think he's on the maybe the board of directors and just helps with the operation stuff good player played play tennis at Mississippi State great pickleball player really good at singles hits the crap out of the ball uh but you know has a real life and doesn't dedicate his his whole life to playing pickle uh but super talented it would be really really good if he was in the States but he was um he was mentioning that it's probably not going to be in Telfer next year which is this huge conviction center it's just you know we're using the pickleball United courts and those courts are basically as good as the surface underneath them and the surface underneath them's cement but they're you're just not going to have a consistent cement like there's parts where there's grooves there's little drains there's little there's little nubs like it's just it creates issues um so they're gonna yeah look at different options that can host 2,000 players but pretty wild that you know England had a tournament that had 2,000 people from 42 different countries that's that's pretty cool yeah gotcha that's great were you able to hang out with my boys uh eric bang bang Lang and purple hazoos max nanthel yeah max uh i didn't spend a ton of time with max but that was my first time meeting him and super nice guy i like him a lot yeah he's he's super nice guy i always always poke at him uh that he's a burgeoning pickleball superstar and he gets kind of no i'm not no i'm not and it's it's fun uh but yeah yeah they're they're good guys and uh i know they had a nice run up there they said that they played at least one team if not multiple teams of indian players that said they were very good like had some tight games and some tight matches and he said he said that uh you know the the talent level is very reasonable with some of the teams that were in that draw yeah i mean the levels the levels getting better and better um but i will say one thing that we've got uh i mean not we but they they've got to figure out especially you know with money money being involved um they let's talk about uh talk about a free-for-all no paddle testing uh this guy's playing with this guy's playing with a 20 millimeter paddle just you know hitting getting into firefights somehow winning percentage but still like if i had a yeah if i could if i was playing with the paddle it had a little pump it would be uh shorter exchanges but so um dude it was it was wild it was wild um you know uh armon batia batia i think that's how you say it um was playing with uh with a yola that was i mean it was it was hotter than a gen 3 it was ridiculous i mean so it's a riler hits the ball hard uh huh he does riler hits his forehand and his overhead he slaps it really hard and it looked like he was hitting with a pillow compared to this guy i mean it was it was just it like you know talking to people that got off the court with him he's like this just isn't like it's not fun like it's not fun when you're on court where somebody can do that to the ball and nobody else can it's just not a level playing field so we have yeah there's a fair amount of that this week and mainly that paddle that paddle is the biggest joke uh but that's going to have to somehow be regulated moving forward and they're not at a point now where it makes sense to do it right but right um moving forward it's going to be you're going to see it's going to be a big issue internationally until they get some regulations in line yeah it seems to be the the top the top thing uh as uh yeah it's it's it's been an issue in the states that and now uh outside of the states so uh and it's a real advantage man it's a real advantage i agree completely when one of four players on court has that special sauce and has you know seven eight ten extra miles per hour on the ball because because of the equipment that that's definitely something that uh yeah that that yeah not not a level playing field not something that that makes it great when a player has that kind of advantage so agree completely uh but you know uh money is money and regulating bodies or regulating bodies and sometimes it's not always perfect or possible and that is part of the stepping stone process to to getting to legitimacy and uh yeah i think you know a lot of people get really upset about it and i get that but this is this is just how it works it doesn't you don't just snap your fingers and have everything legit uh it's it's a process yeah and i will say i think this is going to be kind of the a little bit of the evolution as we see the ppa's going international i'm sure they're going to have their own testing and standards at at their events i don't think australia is doing any testing even though they're under the MLP umbrella i'm not sure if you're wrong on that yeah yeah but i think the next you know we've dealt with the tour awards for however long in the stage right adam it's kind of like an ongoing joke i think especially with the olympics just taking place in paris and you know we got la in 28 um i think we are going to really start seeing some um jostling for for the international um regulation and international organizing body i think that's kind of the next step in the tour wars is it's it's going to the global side not just not just the fight between um the us governing bodies or the us tours or leagues and all that stuff so go in global and it's uh hopefully hopefully we can make it a bit more inclusive rather than divisive no i agree uh i just i mean all i have to say is this is part of the deal guys it's not easy i mentioned the snap your fingers uh especially uh when we add in a bunch of extra countries from all over the world uh you just got to give them a little time even if it is uh frustrating little bit to get everything uh get everything going i did i thought i heard something where 2028 is out uh for pickleball olympics but 2032 is a really good option and you know people love to make those posts about whatever while climbing or break dancing or all all different kinds of stuff uh of stuff that's in the olympics so why not pickle and uh i think because we're not because we're not we're not unified what's the way i think okay it's the biggest issues the sports the sports plenty valid right you see in the other sure ridiculous sports in there it's just you know the olympics the IOC it's uh they've got eyes to dot and tea and teased across and if you're an organized body that has everything in place that they need then it's much easier and and we're just not that so we've got to unify somehow all right there you go um robert uh over here on the not across the pond in the states we had a MLP waiver wire situation uh we had one previously uh there was one setup for after the kansas city event which was right before the ppa and i believe there's going to be one more waiver wire uh opportunity before we get into post-season play and there was a lot of moves at the challenger level premier level everybody stayed pat no moves whatsoever uh there was a trade um which involved uh blaine hovaneer of the la madrops someone who uh filled in nicely for thomas wilson uh hope everything's great with you thomas um and traded for scarpa uh anderson and some cash considerations uh that the madrops received so it was scarpa and cash for blaine hovaneer and then also uh so hovaneer going to the uh los vegas night owls and actually the los vegas night owls uh made a trade to acquire rafah Hewitt so now they have rafah Hewitt blaine hovaneer zoe wong and yudit castio so uh a good bit of action and roster turnover for the los vegas night owls who are in a pretty good position from a points-per-match situation top top couple in the challenger league so uh recently also the los vegas night owls general manager katelyn kur uh was uh let go and chris patrick has filled in uh as the uh general manager of that team so uh yeah couple couple trades there uh thoughts on those trades before we get into some of the the waiver wire action yeah i mean what do you think the intention was um on blqk side just just take kind of take mode get some cash regroup yeah and so like i mean hope they can get some values there with the team or right yeah i'm not i'm not i mean uh i'm not sure they're a hundred percent mathematically eliminated but their points per match is pretty low and they played quite a few matches uh which is a big factor some teams have played two-thirds of their schedule some teams have only played a third so harder for blqk to make up some standing so that i mean this is i mean this stuff is crazy it's super similar to my fantasy baseball league and bottom teams just tank it get rid of all their expensive uh kind of right now talent for uh kind of up-and-comers or cash consideration which is more what's happening on the on the mlp side of it they also vlqk uh let susanna bar uh i believe susanna bar was a trade also and to lana susanna for two in land cash genie and cash and then also uh angie walker uh was uh drop for emily cedar quest so i believe the chicago slice about a year year and a half ago had one a challenger title with cedar quest uh and susanna bar together so uh i think that that makes a lot of sense to kind of route out the trade so i mean yeah i mean yeah quite a bit of a lana turn over lana became lana just became you know your biggest rival and in terms of going for the going for the championship in my opinion i think it's you guys and i think it's that lana alana's got what jamae tod susanna and emily yeah that's correct yeah tods play in some ball uh i should have i mean loved the guys we have on the socal hardates but maybe i should have drafted him again because he is uh he is playing great and and shall may uh such a handful especially and mixed uh very hard to coach against i'm not sure exactly what to tell the team to do when shall may is you know not oh not only coming over on the right side to take soft stuff when he sees a straight ahead attack to the lady that is on the right side he just jumps over there and counter attacks when she's like i got right you just back off yeah something very special i i've never really done that before i could really it's just really quick for a step you know yo man i took it like max speed instantly so he just pushes off and he's there and somehow even for a smaller gentleman uh is able to cover his backside when uh uh the the opposing team plays that proper shot back behind him so jamae is tough he's tough and in all events so i agree that is a very good team i i mean i think that las vegas nydal's got got a bit better too uh and uh we'll know i don't know i don't like like scarpa more than scarpa's tough man and scarpa more scar and rally and mlp dude he just doesn't give you much right so he's gonna make a million balls dude and dude is jacked man like he he he i think he actually has some i don't know what it's called it's some form of medical condition about his sweating and dehydration and one of the best options that he received was to put on muscle to help i i guess retain some electrolytes and some water but the dude is just i mean he's like six one six two and he is just filled out he is not missing balls and and uh yeah he's given it all three events all three all three yeah I agree completely so scarpa i mean it's man it's it's easy to just sleep on some of the guys that have been around a while and you have to be careful uh to to do that because i think plenty of people are whatever digging deep off the court with their workout routines or adding some shots or or stuff to their game so you can't sleep on the veterans uh so maybe you're right maybe i'm a little bit off they they did not get slightly better maybe they just kind of stayed the same uh we will have to see but anyway the black bears who received mo al-honey in that trade uh for roughah Hewitt they were first up for the waiver wire and they selected chris hayworth to uh fill in for mo al-honey and mo al-honey was waived so hayworth clearly single stud top probably three in singles or four in singles right now he's uh easily and uh i have not had a lot of uh time watching him on the doubles court have you seen him play a lot of doubles and kind of how does he play and what does he bring to the table yeah i think exactly what anybody would think of of a singles player that's that's really really good um you know we're seeing we're seeing most of these guys that are you know like the quangongs that are um starting out is really really good singles players turn into very good doubles players so um i don't know i don't to me it's it was a little bit of a surprising pick we talked about it at him uh last week i believe but you know Travis Travis Rhettmeyer was one of the guys that i sent a message to and and he was just like you know we've lost however many dream breakers like we need to get better at singles and i'm like well if you get better doubles you don't have to get better at singles yeah honestly though like i don't know why like there's there's such a heavy emphasis on singles when you know doubles is you want to rip off doubles wins you don't want to go to a dream breaker it's between one point and two points um so there's not a big difference between um losing outright versus losing in a dream breaker so single point so i uh yeah i have you have you had any more like clarity or insight around what the strategy is but behind going for these high-end singles players oh it's like Travis they picked up Donald uh yeah right i mean it's it's totally it's totally unsolved i believe we had an event with a full slate of challenger and premiere matches and we had something like 16 or 17% went to a dream breaker and then the very next event that was like 40% of the matches went to a dream breaker but i mean when you're talking about overall points that you can affect in a match when you're playing two doubles two full doubles matches or you are playing singles four points at a time i mean i'm just throwing out a number here i mean it's like weighted 10% for singles 45% for both mixed and engendered so you know something something like that so yeah i do think it's easy to have a team get in situations where they're in several dream breakers in a row and maybe overvalue it or panic a little bit and that was just kind of what happened for those five matches or whatever so i i do think it's it's over overvalued of on the single side but you know it's tough it's tough to to lose four or five dream breakers and maybe have a weak link in your singles game and not let that affect your decision making on these waiver wire periods even though i do think that's a bit of a mistake but again it's like we it's yeah it's it's what we've talked about for a long time about mop and it's like this it's just like the recency bias right and the yes what happened what happened yesterday versus what happened over the course of you know 50 matches versus two matches so like people aren't looking at real data they're looking at yesterday's data we need data uh we need more and more and more and it'll start it'll start getting funneled in and we'll get larger sample sizes and we'll be able to look at stuff at some point but this is similar to the the big piece of the betting aspect sorry to interrupt no we will have proper betting until we have proper data and analytics yeah and and it's it's one of those little steps to get there it's just not going to happen overnight uh but i do think it's something that is important in terms of uh team strategy and and the betting aspect that you talk about you know people people like numbers they like reasons for making those decisions even if you know some of that betting data is there for you to make the decision that they want you to make or whatever hat just having it there and having something to kind of sift through and dig through before making a bet is what people like to do and that's that's definitely that betting is important it just is people love to do it and it will take a sport uh uh it'll it'll let it allow it to grow in a in a healthy way for overall for everybody in my opinion so uh we have the florida smash as you mentioned uh uh with uh they had Yates Johnson, Martina, Frantova, Tammy, Emric, and Travis Rhett and Meyer second waiver wire selection they dropped Tammy, Emrich and they pick up Krista, Getcheva so i i would say that this is at best probably an even a wash a wash exactly yeah uh and very next round we have Martin Emrich selected by the Bay Area Breakers for DJ Young and DJ Young has had some wrist issues uh he had a bit of rust in in the Salt Lake City event i know that i talked to him personally so uh yeah i think that that certainly had some reasoning behind it as i do not believe his wrist is a hundred percent and for a player like DJ he needs that wrist and needs to be able to manipulate the ball that's what he does best Martin Emrich i thought played great uh as a fill-in for the Chicago slice and the in the Kansas City MLP event uh very solid lefty of course uh so i i think that this makes sense for Bay Area uh even if his overall upside is not quite uh what DJ Young's is yeah yeah no i think that's fair and especially especially if i don't know the situation with DJ's wrist but um Martin does 13 cold points of the day so he takes care of that body oh we got a little AJ oh my goodness gracious it's oh baby it's a baby AJ who is that AJ who is it oh he's giving me the stare down okay AJ is going to uh the library it didn't work today and that's okay that's okay we're like two for three two for four that's a good batting average he's going to the library for story time uh or i like it how story time is they keep it to about 20 minutes because there is just 20 kids taking psychics up there just just complete chaos i can't imagine trying sneezing coughing uh running into things just the whole shebang so glad we got him in there for a second i don't know if you know this but i haven't checked a bag since probably 2005 so i've gone on 20 years of of no check bags i only carry on and what's made that really easy for me over the past couple years are selkirk backpacks um because little did people know you get a personal item to carry on on those carriers and both items are big backpacks i carry them on i fill both of them to the brim um and they both count as carry on so i don't have to i don't have to check bag it's important i'm right there with you and uh oh see that see that's the big boy and i i am past my playing days so i do one big boy and one little smaller fella here that i can take with me from the hotel to the venue every single day leave the big boy there don't check bags get yourself some selkirk gear small medium big you need it i don't have the small i need the small somebody send me the small big yeah you're right because i could put my little laptop and i don't have to take the big one it's important uh selkirk send me a small i'll buy it tami emberich yeah was dropped from the floor to smash and a few picks later she was picked up by the frisco pandas for alley phillips was waived okay so now the frisco pandas have stefan avern john sycola and they actually not played a lot of matches recently so they can make a move because i believe they've only played about a third of their schedule so uh tami emberich and uh eva red zikowska rajokulska sorry that's how you're supposed to say it so i mean wild flurry of action uh in the challenger and i i mean i think it's cool so kind of how it's set up you're just not going to have many moves in the premiere uh as they have to if they're going to wave somebody they have to dip all the way down to someone who is not playing challenger so you see the trades but the waiver wire it's quiet and not and not as exciting you mentioned donald young uh so the second round of challenger waiver wire you have two rounds you have a possibility to make two waiver wire moves donald young picked up and gates johnson was waived so donald clearly best event is singles coming over from some uh pro tennis action he has had some solid score lines against good teams and doubles but i'm not sure he's really made a breakthrough on the doubles court and uh you know often not sure this is exactly the case but when you are that known as that single specialist it does take a little time to to get the the quality partner so so maybe donald has had some some lesser partners but not a lot of huge doubles results for that one yep um and that was in place of yates yeah i think i mean it's probably i would say i mean as inconsistent as yates can be i still think he's you know he's probably a better option than donald right now at this moment yeah yeah no i i i like yates i think he's a cool dude uh played played solid uh with viv david uh at this uh kansas city ppa i believe i called the match they had a tight game three with jay debilly and calley smith you made who made a pretty nice run so uh makes a makes a big deal having a partner like viv david beside you i mean it i i think that is an underrated thing is like you know having's having a partner that is like that well like it just it makes you play better it makes you know yeah partners matter a lot no it does i mean she's a rock you know she's not going to miss uh miss much it makes pretty good decisions out there have some quality you know up the line speedups against the guy and and as i said mid-court play dropped dinks all that stuff is is on point for viv david but i mean really if you think about it i mean it's donald young better than yates shonson at singles it's very yates is good i mean yeah i would say yeah i would say yeah i mean at at best for donald donald who seems like a very nice player with a lot of boxes checked to improve i mean yates is yates is a stud out there on the singles court so i can't imagine that donald is anything more than slightly better than yates at singles yeah man i don't think he is um i think yates just has more experience and a lot more rep still but donald has upside for sure yeah uh no doubt about it uh and then the last move uh for the second round of challenger waiver wire was uh we already touched on it that is angie walker getting waived uh for the atlanta bouncers and emily cedarquist picked up emily acriman uh for for those of you who are late to the party i mean i looked at emily cedarquist on draws for like two turnimists i was like oh my god i know everybody who is this girl you know who is this and then i realized it was emily acriman so uh yeah so tons of action that that pretty much is a light breakdown of all the moves and uh you know it's it's a little little ways to i believe the new york event is next so we'll see how it all pans out for everybody but still it's still fun to see the the the turnover at the challenger level and teams trying to to make moves and improve the roster i think anna bright made uh uh a tweet to that 17 of the 40 only 17 of the 40 people drafted and challenger are still on the same team uh that they were drafted for so that's less than half uh and that's that's that's a lot of turnover that is a lot but it makes makes it fun for us makes fun storylines no definitely one thing uh i talked to susan a little bit over here and she was mentioning that um she thinks having a lefty a lefty guy is almost unless i would say no like is a disadvantage because it i think her example was she was returning she's did you guys place his aunt on his team yes so we we played her at salt lake seem seem like she was a little bit nervous and a little off her game and then i thought she played very well at the can's the city mlp uh just a couple weeks later continue yeah so she just uh yeah she made it she felt like her having to return the guy served the entire match really put her at a disadvantage um unless your lefty guy has bombs too right and can really and can really crush their girl um but it didn't sound like that was the case so that is just like an interesting aspect of rally where um you know you could be locked into having to deal with somebody that has a massive serve if you're a if you're a female playing with the lefty guy so she thinks having a lefty guys actually slightly a disadvantage and thinking about it's like there's not i don't i don't know none of the lefty guys have big serves not like big big i mean i i'd say rafas is pretty solid but yeah mart martin emrich i love his game overall but he he was kind of laying it in there yeah he was kind of laying it but also i think it actually is somewhat specific to susana too loves susana's game she's got a lot of funk and a lot of great setup very linear player yeah she drives through her return flat yeah flat very aggressive uh so it gets to her opponent quickly and let's be clear she's 44 45 yeah she's 44 or 45 years old not a knock at all that's just what the situation is so i could see that being an issue with her on her court positioning for her first volleys so yeah that that is that is definitely a statement that makes sense to me from susana yeah yeah it's a little things i mean just small little things like that with mlp slightly different serve rules too so then they want to weaponize the serve there's less issues as long as you're hitting up or you know your wrist is above the paddle then everything's good so the contact point is higher than some of the ppa events or the ppa events so uh yeah all that baked in and returning the guy served every single time if you were on the left for susana makes it's it's something it's something different yeah yeah uh let's see here all right i got uh i got some notes here on the the ppa recap uh you have anything you would like to squeeze in robert or should we carry on with that um now feels like a good time for uh hip of the week woo and i would just say this this one is more for it goes in line with talking about the return and susana maybe struggling with the return and getting all the way to the line after after it it's about your partner you know if you have if you if you see somebody gets getting blast with serves and is really trying to fight it off and isn't making it to the line like it's really your job especially in mix but whether it's gender or mix to come over and protect protect your partner on the fourth and you can do this by really baiting it like you bait the hold hold hold and then last second you kind of crush over to take that first folly whether um you're on the left or the right doesn't really matter but it's um yeah it's kind of just baiting that you're staying where you are and then as you see that return as long as it's not like a high fluffy return in the mid court where they can hit it wherever they want if it's relatively decent and kind of further back you can hold your spot and then and then bounce over to cover your partner if they're not going to get all the way in so it's just um and that's that's something that's easy not to do it's easy to just hold your position and just be like well they you know they had a crappy return hopefully they can handle this fourth where it's it's really a conscious effort of like okay i need to really get active here as the off the ball partner and make my presence known in the middle to protect my partner on that return and getting in no i like that and and i like i think it's important actually to not necessarily just fully hang out because that opens up some go behind you opportunities for your opponents so if you are kind of holding on your side and then you make that jab step or or that lateral movement to kind of protect um when often your opponent is going to be targeting your partner transitioning and they don't have kind of that visually just visually it's it's interesting when you are already squeezing the middle and i actually think of it as in a similar situation as doing the earning if you are constantly faking and you are just kind of hanging out over there in the corner looking for earnings i don't think you're going to get many opportunities but if you hold your ground and you read the situation and then you make a move or you wait till the last second possible to make that move you're going to get more shots hit to you and more opportunities for that earning and i think that that applies also to protecting your partner so i i think that that is is definitely a good thought and uh yeah we've talked multiple times with with tips about possibly affecting your return to not have to deal with the shake and bake and partner protection goes right in line with that so i think that that's a good call and uh read the situation make your move accordingly if you're just hanging out in a spot you could get yourself in a little bit of trouble with the third shot options of your opponent yeah and i think another underrated thing to do is especially if you're on the switch or if you're struggling to get into the kitchen line um throw up a lofty return as long as it's relatively deep you're better off hitting a lofty return that lands kind of no man's land towards the baseline if you're able to get set at the kitchen line i would say getting set at the kitchen line is more important than trying to then trying to crush a return and getting three feet off the kitchen line to get in because you have to have less time i think yeah yeah you just you just need to be still when you're hitting that first volley and you need to be still the kitchen line this is where some data comes in like when we start getting some information about like this player gets the points line off return right what points one when you when you are not established on your first volley yeah or when you were making your split step right on the kitchen line and ready to to contact like that yeah it's it's so hard just as a human to kind of grasp a hundred of those situations and like know what the percentage is so so when you when you get this info in this data about little things like that it can really affect shot selection what you're doing and kind of knowing like oh man i thought i was 50-50 on that no you're you're about 22 percent on that one and instead so uh yeah the strategy is going to change as we get more and more information for sure and not even just that it's like oh yeah so it's that percentage but man my percentage on missing my forehand volley versus my backhand volley when i get to the line is is twice as much as my my forehand misses twice as much as my backhand that's what i got to work on yeah once we have data like that it's gonna also be really easy for players to identify like what you know where are there where are there pain points and and not like that's a really not like a not obvious one right like if you're rushing to the kitchen line off a switch as the returner and you miss a volley you don't always remember was that a backhand volley or a forehand ball you ask me after the match i don't necessarily remember or know i just know i bifted into the net so to have real data on where you're actually making these errors and ones that aren't like consistent over and over but ones that happen enough to where there's real data behind it is going to be super interesting and uh yeah again it's just going to keep changing and people are going to be able to identify where their holes are and how to plug those holes and it's going to be it's just going to make the quality that much better yeah we'll see different patterns different strategies it's going to affect a ton so i couldn't agree more um i mean wild amount of pickle going on uh we had like a special event pick a pickle and pucks and aspen we had the english open we have mlp uh Kansas city and now like four weeks in a row of ppa action so this yeah this is a pretty wild stretch and uh as i mentioned that that ppa in Kansas city piggybacking with the mlp Kansas city much better weather situations as it was like high 70s around 80 degrees and which is just lovely yeah which is what i what people have told me i was taking ubers and stuff and the drivers like it's never like this in the midwest at this time of year so we got a little bit lucky after a very hot mlp Kansas city and uh let's go ahead and start with uh women's singles kate faehey of the st louis shock for majorly pickleball had to qualify she comes out and beats number two seed leah jansen first round and actually this is a note women's qualifying of doubles and singles is same day so the men's there's so many more qualifying players they actually do it on a previous day than the event so so kate fae goes out there qualifies beat leah jansen beats leah jansen and then makes a run all the way to championship sunday uh ben john's annaly waters did not play their respective singles events because of that uh event and aspen and she played brook buckner on championship sunday and brook bazooka buckner was striping some ground strokes and so was fae he ended up being 11-8 in the third four buckner uh but a pretty nice match for the ladies and quite a bit of ground stroke play with the ladies occasionally sneaking in uh so uh clean ground strokes a lot of athleticism fae he's a great mover i believe a buckner has the power advantage but pretty cool match to watch yeah and i think that's kind of the that's where women's singles is is gonna be it's um it's like when we thought about or like when sent when like the samperous era kind of phased out in tennis right it's like you can't serve molly and chip and charge anymore because the passing shots are too good that's kind of what it's like in women's it's the passing shots are too good uh so coming in it's it's got to be you've got to be coming in on a ball where your opponent's on like the full run right and it's you have it deep like it's it's i remember in tennis like you just grind and drill approach shots over and over deep slice deep heavy slice you know to the backhand come in um it's going to turn into that where you can't come in unless it's a really really good approach and i think we're going to see a lot more baseline play unless like you have a freak of a specimen of a woman who's um you know who has you as the wingspan to cover at the kitchen line and can come in off return but right now we don't have that yeah well i mean probably the closest thing to that is lea jansen and she was beaten by kate feihy uh who who was and another thing about the ladies is the rolls are very good so they have the rip through the court traditional passing shots but the rolls on both forehanded backhand at kind of mid-paced forcing their opponents to hit up on the first volley and then possibly passing on the next like that's that's a big deal so uh yeah timing on when to come in for the ladies is huge and uh yeah congratulations to bucker her second title this year and uh for the for the fellas singles uh i mean such a deep draw a variety of upsets throughout uh tyson macuffin just i mean dude just keeps just keeps getting it done keeps going yeah yeah beat fedorico stacked root in a crazy semi-final where fed kind of lost it a little bit he destroyed his paddle uh in the middle of the court and left some electrical tape and lead tape on there so we actually had to get one of the referees to come and wipe it off he said a couple color colorful things in uh spanish uh throughout that match i thought he actually maybe should have got a point penalty uh tyson got called for a sur high serve toss release warning and point penalty so there this was also after a rain delay so it was like at 10 15 at night so there was some wild stuff going on and that men semi-final and after fedorico lost uh he kind of went underneath the bleachers uh right next to the commentary booth and i could kind of hear him bashing his paddle about 17 times on the ground so uh some real frustrations there uh from fed and uh conner garnet made it through on the other side of the bracket and conner garnet and game one on championship sunday golden pickled tyson tyson did not serve eleven in a row from conner garnet uh golden pickle then conner loses game two eleven two and then a fairly comfortable game three win so i mean wild stuff and men's singles and uh also conner garnet second title of the year just like rook buckner on the pph tour the cg yeah any any thoughts on some of that wild information i just threw your way no it's fun um it's it's yeah it's fun to get some some varying results right so it's the usual suspects you know at the late in the draws but to to get a cg win over tyson it's pretty fun all right to get a tyson win over fed it's good to see to see fed get pissed off that's fun too it's all fun yeah it's fun i like it quang yeah quang dwang took a fairly early uh had a fairly early exit and actually jao meh in the quarter final before fed played tyson jao meh actually had match points against fed in game three on a wild match on grandstand so they these are fun results fun story like rough a Hewitt beat alshan yeah i called i called that match that was wild rafas inside out forehand and just flat out up the line forehand when he was spread out to his forehand side was ridiculous i mean to pass christian over and over and over again with that shot is crazy especially with the the court coverage in the kitchen for for alshan so yeah shout out to the veteran rafi Hewitt uh winning i believe three matches and the main draw for singles so very very cool stuff mixed was another fun draw alshan and edirite texas rancher teammates have made me like pickleball had a wild match in the quarter final against analee and Ben crazy scramble points like uh pushed off the kitchen line freak athleticism from alshan and edirite getting a ton of balls back uh the number one seeds were able to get it done in game three but that was a very fun one and then georgia and jw johnson on championship sunday went to five with ben and analee and the johnson's were playing through ben i'm talking 80 plus percent of shots were going to the left side fella and mixed doubles and it was almost good enough to get it done wild patterns and wild shot making from every everybody very very fun match up georgia johnson just hand speed and power is is insane then we kept doing his little low backhand flip in the heart of the match and georgia was just punishing it over and over again very cool patterns as i mentioned and uh a fun dynamic in that match yeah and i'd be if anybody sees that forehand role as much as georgia i don't know who it is because because jade ups flicking those that are all day every day so she's uh she sees that ball a lot and yeah that's uh that's that's fun it's uh it's a typical result i heard some rumblings online i didn't see it about the uh the men's bronze match did you see it or hear about it uh i i did not i know what the score line was and it was not close for the john's eye big h and big h oh my god i called i called one of his matches uh oh big h and alshan big h and alshan yeah yeah so uh i think i believe it was like three and four or something like that in the bronze medal match against the john's eye who were uh yeah we might as well just play into the the men's doubles is fed and tardio beat uh the john's brothers and then beat in three games in convincing fashion jw johnson and dylan frasier so tardio man he is a nightmare for people the new wave of right side player like when fed is dinking cross court with the other left side male gave is just straddling the center line and he's all arms and legs he stays balanced he takes dinks out of the air he takes speed ups out of the air he has topspin forehand lob and he was just peppering the right hip of whoever was in front of him uh it was very impressive and he was eating pepperoni pizza on the timels so this is this is what it is to be a teenager no fear eating pepperoni pizza and beating the best players in the world a very fun match and uh yeah fed just he just doesn't miss i mean he doesn't make more decisions he doesn't miss i'm i'm done last week yeah it's insanity so uh congratulations to those guys and they did not have a soft draw they they beat the best and they deserve all of it yeah i mean and and straight games in the finals tells you all you all you need all you need to know there so um yeah crazy good result um kathryn and ally are too good that's about all i have uh for that and uh rob i wanted to mention something here our lovely producer uh josh just just froze me out in kansas city we were gonna grab up here i was like i was like yeah you didn't get together he was like uh pretty busy uh i'm busy had already old the old he threw me the old friend routine that he had to meet up with yeah right i'm ready to go i'm thinking about oh uh oh oh yeah josh so what happened i'm telling it to the people right now you you didn't can you were messing with me this is real this is real stuff she says you're not being recorded can we get you being recorded okay this is nonsense okay he tried that's he that's all he's given me right now is i tried okay i guess i'll take it i tried i tried yeah it was it was the the selkirk uh the ppa selkirk kansas city open so there was quite a bit of crude down there uh cooper flag uh some some uh content people i believe it was cooper deck did i say cooper flag oh that's the basketball is that the yeah that's the basketball player could predict yeah that's my fault cooper yeah um maybe i did that on purpose because you didn't have an ip flag either yeah oh my god these guys trust me if you guys want to have an ipa with anybody it's adam stone what are you doing that's what that's what i'm saying so uh we i saw eric length first time i saw eric laying in england he goes adam stone man you just he that guy walks into the room he didn't even have to say anything i start laughing he's just so he's he's just so ridiculous oh but yeah i mean that's your message josh that's what's your mission missing cooper flag yeah i mean it's it's a good time and that's that's part of being an mlp coach you have to facilitate a fun environment for your players and you know maybe i lack elsewhere and i certainly lack elsewhere but in terms of that i i i have the i am the glue for the team in terms of a good time so uh it's uh you're you're you're guys lost uh we had and if if they're not having a good time you're having a good time that's right i'm always having a good time i think his name is like Tate Inga Bretton he was the one presenting the trophies there were some other content people for selkert so it was fun to see the selkert crew at a live event and uh it's always it's always fun to see people when you haven't seen them before so you have you have this back and forth on emails we we see him we see his face on the on the podcast uh as a producer but then you see him in real life and you're just like hey it was just like three five eight guys uh looking completely regular regular middle-aged dudes and we were yeah it was it was good it was good it was good so uh yeah it was it was it was a fun weekend and uh i was in Kansas City probably a couple days too long i think it was 12 but uh yeah enjoyed it and it's a long long time in kc long stretch that's uh that's about all i have anything you want to add uh Robert as yeah i feel like i've been talking a lot the last one is good i like i like this we got a we got a big ppa in bristle we won't go too much into that oh yeah sure but you know bristle is where i spend a week out of the month so they've been preparing and planning and and doing probably i would guarantee they've done more work than any other facility or venue um that the ppa stopping at this year in terms of prep and getting the city behind it so this is you know this is what i always talked about before is like what i love about beer city and grand rapids is that you know they treated it as like their own like they they have ownership over that that stop right and they want the players to have a great time they want to put on a good show and i just feel like we need more of that to where every city and every stop doesn't feel the exact same and i made that clear with um you know kind of with the prep and bristle is like this is a really important piece is like you want this stop to be uniquely bristle and and have your own kind of personality come out because it's better for the players it's better for people watching on the stream if you have your own uh if everything just doesn't look the same weekend and week out you know so they got some fun stuff lined up for the players on Wednesday i believe where they're going to go to the speedway do some do some laps in the cars uh bristle motor speedway so a lot of i mean i don't be a fun experience they're going to do so bristle state street is kind of the main street downtown and the southern half is Tennessee the northern half is Virginia right across the street so i know they're going to set up they're going to block off the state street um from traffic they're going to set up a pickleball court where the net is basically on the state line so you'll have two players playing in Tennessee two players playing in Virginia you're going to have kind of battle the states they're going to have a band on a stage with live music and food and drinks down there it's going to be it's going to be a really cool atmosphere and festival um so that's that's bristle this weekend i'm going to move by tomorrow for monsoon gonna hang out with mr uv a little bit ahead of time maulin's gonna meet me up maulin's gonna maulin we're working on a visa issue but maulin's gonna get on a plane uh hoping her visa comes through for india and we're gonna roll the dice uh hard eight style and meet at the airport at Heathrow and hopefully she's able to get on that plane to move by with me tomorrow yeah uv south bon bay baby let's go bon bay say out of that north bon bay only south bon bay bro south bon bay let's go no that's great i didn't even realize i knew you were going i didn't know it was so quick so uh that's that's perfect that's perfect man uh dude i'm yeah i'm in india man a lot of people a lot of people there let's let's get them pickling they already are let's let let's keep it rolling uh no that and that's really cool about bristle and i i like it you know you don't i mean some tournaments are just going to be the same it's a similar setup it's it's it's the ppa doing uh doing all those stops but having some special little wands you know a lot of people love in the sand clementi and you have a special thing in bristle and you have something cool at each of the stops i think that's great uh actually uh championship court was a lot cooler this it's been a point of emphasis on the ppa to have some like walkout videos for the players uh some introductions uh there was a girl i hadn't seen before doing the emceeing thought she did a great job they had pickle ball uh beer pong out on the court when there was a break you know some of the fans coming out there they did a push-up challenge and it was a really fun atmosphere on championship court and uh yeah i i i expect little things like that to continue to build and make the event special for the people that come to them it's very cool to to hear that bristle is completely on board with with that kind of stuff great yeah are you are you heading to bristle or no i have bristle off so i have like three weekends in a row after bristle uh so Dave Fleming will be there for bristle and then i'm filling in for Dave who is not going to salt lake city which is the following weekend so uh you start getting you know back to back uh that's going to happen every so often you start doing three in a row or four in a row with all the travel it's pretty tough especially with a little one so sure break for me and then i'll be on the mic for sever i think four ppa's in a row after that so uh yeah good stuff man good stuff like a little aj a little aj being like who's this man yes this man and like i when i left i had a beard and i came back and i was like i was shaved yeah just like just like careful of you who is this dude who is this dude uh yeah so uh yeah all good uh part of the deal uh with the travel and you know it's it's i i can't complain about anything i like my job with mlp and uh in the booth for some commentary so let's go let's go well we'll have an update on uh i'll have an update we'll be doing i'll be doing this from india next week so we'll do that we'll have an update on what happened in bristle and then we can do a little preview for the monsoon championship which is going to be not this week but next week so uh with jay j devillier's going over quang dong's going over yes yes some uh ppa guys heading that way which will be fun so lovely i don't want to never see i never see those guys never played quang can't would that be fun yeah no absolutely uh he's he hits he hits the ball well uh yeah hasn't uh you know maybe hasn't found some some slippery deceptive shots you kind of know what you're going to get but yeah he hits it consistent and he hits it well uh so he his doubles game is growing but that that's awesome to see some of the uh some of those guys going over and i mean you got a french guy you got uh a guy from south east asia you got i mean you got a lot going on and and people love that variety so it's yeah great it's great yeah be a lot of fun so let's do it again next week baby signing off adios [Music] [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]