[Old School Hound]

The #1 seeds swept all of the titles. Men's #1 seed, 24-year old Ben Johns, won the men's singles, he and his brother won the men's doubles. 16-year old #1 women's seed, Ann Leigh Waters, won the women's singles and women's doubles titles. The #1 seeded mixed doubles team of Ben Waters and Anna Leigh Waters won the title. Johns and Waters both avenged recent losses in the singles finals.

It's interesting that you mentioned pickleball. When I got my hair cut last week, the stylist started talking about pickleball and how fun it was. I told him I wasn't very familiar with it at all but that it sounded like fun. I told him I was gonna check it out. Have you ever played, Hoot?

I've never played. I became curious about pickleball after watching an episode of the Lehto's Law YouTube channel. The story was about people suing an HOA because they opened up some pickleball courts near some residents' condos. The dispute was over the noise of people hitting the pickleballs. It was hard for me to believe that the sport could be noisy enough to generate legitimate complaints, so I searched YouTube and started watching some games. The ball makes a sound similar to a ping-pong ball, except louder but I don't think it would bother me to live near a court.

I am currently not in shape to take up pickleball but eventually, I hope to give it a try. I loved racquetball when I was younger. Like racquetball, pickleball looks like it would be easy to learn well enough to enjoy playing it, but difficult to master. The game is like a cross between tennis and ping-pong, with some similarities to racquetball thrown in. Like racquetball and ping-pong, the pickleball rackets have much shorter handles and smaller heads than tennis rackets and you don't have to hold your wrist stiff - which always gave me problems when I tried tennis and golf. Baseball was my primary sport and keeping my wrists stiff just never felt right to me.

Another thing that appeals to me about pickleball is that most of the players, including at the pro level, have other jobs or are students. It is a rapidly growing sport and the top players probably make enough money to cover their travel expenses and many of them also have some endorsement deals, but nobody is getting rich playing the sport. Most of the players seem to get along well and opposing players make most of the calls when the ball hits near the lines. (There is also a video appeal system, where the appealing player/team loses a timeout if they lose the appeal.)

Pickleball looks like it would be a lot of fun to play and I enjoy watching it. Tickets to the Austin tournament were $50 for center court to watch the championship matches, but that covers several hours of matches. The closest upcoming pro tournament to my home is in Charlotte, North Carolina. There is also a tournament scheduled in Cincinnati in September.

I'm certainly gonna check it out. Sounds like fun. The hair guy told me it has really grown in popularity and is continuing to grow. I'm gonna see if I can find some matches on You Tube.

---

I feel bad for Oscar. I doubt that i will remember any of the other players' names in a couple of years. I have to admit that John Calipari was ahead of his time with the one-and-dones, but that is not a good thing, IMO. I don't like the proliferation of transfers and the high number of early NBA draftees but that does not seem to be a trend that is ever going away.

Agree and agree!!!

The Austin tournament is on YouTube and the coverage was pretty good. All of the finals were held on Sunday, so those matches would give you a great intro to pickleball. The first two games of the women's finals between Anna Leigh Waters and Catherine Parenteau were classics. Singles matches are usually the best of three games to 11 (by 2) and doubles are best of five. You can only score on your serve.

Man, you really know your pickleball. I'm gonna check some out shortly.