Sweet Sport with Sour Name

Shout out to The Pickleball Community --

A CBS news reporter and crew visited The Villages approximately 1 month ago, met with many resident players and observed how the sport is taught and played in The Villages. They filmed various pickleball activities to be aired on CBS


Below is the segment that aired on the CBS Early Show on Friday December 17th.
Sweet Sport with Sour Name - Inside the Pickleball Craze -

MP PICKLERS ENJOY RALLY TALLY IN SUN CITY

What an absolutely perfect day for a pickleball tournament. John and Bonnie, Chris, Karen, Cindy and Rich and Donna represented Meadow Pointe at the Rally Tally Tournament held at Kings Point in Sun City Center. Don was registered to play, but as you all know a recent alergic reaction put Don in the hospital instead of at the tournament. We really did miss having him with us, especially his partners John and Donna!!

Because of the extremely large number of participants and only three courts, the game scoring was changed from the traditional 11 point win by 2, to rally scoring to 13 points win by 2. Rally scoring means that a point is won on every volley regardless of whether you serve or not. Chris thought it would be a good thing to implement at home to reduce wait time between games when there was a large turnout to play.

That is Louann,in the green shirt welcoming players as they arrive to check in.

Each player received a goodie bag upon check in complete with a fruit drink, granola bar, crackers and other goodies.........

Each player/team wore their name tag with their team number. Above is the team play rotation for the opening doubles event. Men's and Woman's doubles were played in the morning, followed by mixed doubles in the afternoon. John, Karen and Cindy only played in the doubles, while Rich, Chris and Donna stayed to play mixed in the afternoon. Donna had to find a new partner!

Above, John waits for his number to be called and Bonne (who was our cheering spectator for the day) settles in. She will soon shed the sweatshirt and work on the "suntan" as she enjoys some really good competition today.

John and his partner take to the court. John and Don were supposed to be partners, but Louann found Mike, a Kings Point player to partner up with John. Both of these guys played some very good, close, competitive games!

Karen and Cindy take to the courts and prevail over Kings Point playes Ellen and Shirley.

And Rich and Chris take to the court for their first game. Both of them started out a little shaky - but had no problem pulling out a win!

Here's Donna playing doubles with her partner, Sally from Torrey Oaks RV park in Bowling Green. They lost their first match - ending up the day with 2 for 5....... No medal today - but lots of fun trying!

Rich and Chris - on their way to the Gold (Blue Ribbon). They won 4 of their five matches. The only loss? Tell you ...........in a minute.

Karen's son Zachary came along today and had a ring side seat to watch the competition and cheer on his mom..........

Meadow Pointe against Meadow Point..........Rich and Chris next have to face John and his partner Mike for their only loss of the day. John and Mike prevail in this game!!

Another shot of some of the spectators/players waiting to play.

That's Chris looking on in the back as John goes for a tough shot and makes a great return.

Rich and Chris win the final game to take the Gold.

Karen and Cindy show off the Blue Ribbons they took for first place in their woman's doubles draw. Great Job!

Rich plays in the afternoon with his mixed doubles partner, Nancy Meyer from Ft. Myers. They took the Bronze (Third Place-White Ribbon). Congrats!!!

Chris and his mixed doubles partner, Louann, win the gold (Blue Ribbon) against second place winners Bruce (Wauchula) and Jane (Kings Point). This was the playoff game for the gold.

Donna teamed up with Don (from Kings Point) and took the gold in their recreational draw.

CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE MEADOW POINTE PLAYERS. WE ALL HAD A GREAT PICKLEBALL DAY!.

TO OUR PICKLEBALL FRIEND , D O N

YOUR

HOPE TO SEE YOU ON THE COURTS SOON!

A Little Refresher on the Rules

Pat Zwloenski sent this to most of us and I thought it was worth posting for everyone to see. We all know the rules - but these may be a couple that we forget when we bring in new players. Thanks for sending this Pat!

The latest Rules are found at the following cite: http://www.usapa.org/officialrules/pbrules.html

Among the rules of interest to me were:

Serve Under hand defined: Rule 4.A. 1. "Arm must be moving in an upward arc and the paddle head shall be below the wrist when it strikes the ball.

Rule 4.D.Serves foot fault:
"When the ball is struck the servers feet shall not:
1. touch outside the extension of the outside lines;
2. touch outside the extension of the center line
3. touch the court, including the baseline.( notice this says "when the ball is struck" it appears that after the ball is struck, your momentum can carry you into the court. He is absolutely right!! Once you hit the ball you can move inside the line - but most players know that to stay back after the serve is the best practice.

Non-volley Rules that clarify my erroneous prior understanding: Most of us refer to the non-volley area as "The Kitchen". Rule 9.C. " momentum carries hitting player into the "kitchen" even after the ball is dead(bounces twice on opponents side.)
I always thought that once the ball hit twice on the opponents side you could let go and fall into the kitchen. Rule clearly say "No".Simply can not fall into "zone" even after the ball is dead.
Rule 9 D. Can't be in the "Zone" jump up after a return ball , hit it in the air and land out side the "zone"(acrobatic ability). Both feet have to be outside the zone , on the ground, prior to hitting a return volley.

Rule 12 J. 2. Hitting ball between top wire of the net and the bottom wire is a fault( ball must go over the net, but this seems in conflict with the following rule:

Rule 12. K. If a ball hit at an angle bounces in to the receiving court and the receiving player can hit it around the post, BELOW the net level into the opponents court, it's GOOD.( what happens if you hit it on the near side of the post, but between the net wires? doesn't sound fair, but...)

(Just think of the space between the top and bottom wire as an extension of the net - may help to better understand the rule)

I didn't note the rule number, but its specifically stated that it is a Fault when your ball hits the POST and bounces into the opponents court. Your fault.

Some very good reminders!

Monday night at MPII -

A good goup of players out on the courts for Monday night play under the lights at MP II.

Waiting for a court to open up are (left to right) Ken, Suzi, Steve, John, Pat and kneeling in the front - Chris and Liz. John (Gardner) was a guest player at the courts tonight, visiting from Rochester, NY. John plays with a group there and was instrumental in getting a venue for the National Senior Games Championships which were recently held at the Main St. Armory in Rochester.

The guys finish their game. Richard, Don, Rich and John. Richard is the newest MP pickler.........

And the ladies smile after their game - Bonnie, Marilyn, Penny and Rene.

Linda stopped on her way home from work to visit with the group and watch hubby, Don play.

And Mark stopped by to harrass the group, or may just his wife Renee!! Just kidding! We miss seeing Mark on the courts playing - but the knees just don't want to cooperate

Good Games and lots of fun tonight!

GRAB A PARTNER AND HEAD FOR SUN CITY CENTER PICKLEBALL

CLICK HERE FOR MORE INFORMATION

AND TO REGISTER

Seating is limited, so bring along your lawn chairs.

Doubles and Mixed Doubles Round Robin Competition.

Register By November 10th

Video from Wall Street Journal

VIDEO:Move Over, Tennis, Pickleball Is Here!
2 min
A fast-growing sport, pickleball is taking active-adult enclaves by storm. WSJ's Anne Tergesen got a look at how the game is played.
online.wsj.com -

We Will Miss You - Bill and Judy!!!!!

Rich and I got an e-mail recenly from Bill Wilcox and Judy Paul. It was good news and bad news.

The GOOD news is that Bill and Juday are still in NY, but recently bought a place at The Villages According to Bill - "it's nothing fancy or expensive. We bought in Orange Blossom Gardens We played a lot of pickleball there in March and April and decided we needed to try this place and see what we think. Almost kind of silly to buy a house just to play pickleball, but that's what we did!.......Almost all the people we met were very friendly and were fun to play with.

Everyone at Meadow Point looks for these two to be back and playing in December (AND THIS IS THE BAD NEWS!), but this year they will be playing at The Villages. Bill says that driving an hour each way to MP three times a week was kind of a killer - but " a nice group of people to play with."

Bill and Judy - congrats on the new place - enjoy your pickleball at The Villages. We Will Really Miss You!! Hope you come and visit some time!!!

Update on Support Our Troops

Following is a response from Ruth Ann on our recent shipment to our troops. Don thought it a good idea to share with all of our generous pickleball players!!

Thanks Don, just a little tidbit for you. I was at the warehouse on Saturday helping with Christmas boxes to be sent and this fellow and his wife came in looking for Bob. He proudly said he came personally from Gainsville to thank Bob and the volunteers for the boxes of treats sent over to him and all his fellow military friends. What a treat that was for me. He will be deployed again soon, but I had to thank him for what he does for us here in the USA. It brings a big lump to your throat to meet them in the flesh.

Ruth Ann

PS if anyone wants to see what goes on at Bob Williams warehouse, they can go to http://www.ourtroopsonline.com/ there is a a great video of it.

Barbeque and Pickleball

Don Bass reports (and sends us these great pictures!) We had a great cookout on Labor Day. Thanks to Renee, Mark and Penny for organizing it.

A lot of long term veteran MP Picklers in the crowd.But it's great to see some new faces. Judy ( with the visor) played with us for a short time a while back but is now a regular!!!

And this group always welcomes players of ALL AGES! That's Karen and her son Zachary. Zach has football practice most nights, so he and Mom can only join the group to play on Mondays right now. I think we should get Zach's football team on the courts - what about you??

The group moved to the pickleball courts after the barbeque, but it started to rain after just a few games. Probably a good thing! After all that good food!

The group met to play again Wednesday evening, but these late afternoon storms are putting a big hurt on play - The sky opened up before the first game! We'll try again on Friday!

Thanks for the pictures Don.