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Team BR relished in Victory tonight taking a decisive 4-1 win over the Juicy Pickles in Thursday Night’s league championships. With family, friends and fellow leaguers in attendance, the heightened importance of this match was immediately apparent as one stepped into the facility. No time for smiles, it was serious business.  Champions lock in. 

Something I noticed right off the bat, that the players seemed to confirm after it was all over, was the presence of nerves and their interaction with levels of experience. In pickleball it’s placement over power, but it also seems to be years of play and perhaps years of practice in high pressure environments. 

The Juicy Pickles brought a younger line up with ¾ of the team under 30 and one player about to graduate high school. It was the team’s first time making it to the Bull City Championships and the pickle greenness showed.  Though this team statistically was going into it as the favored #1, the lack of championship experience was something that might have been a contributing factor to their loss. Team BR on the other hand had been the Inaugural Champions in Season 1.  Dubbed “the old guys”, these experienced masters put the young green grasshoppers in their place. 

The Juicy Pickles’ Sid Patil, who just started playing pickleball a little over a year ago was recruited to the NC State Club pickleball team from the Club tennis team. While his groundstroke form and hand speed are as natural as breathing air, he seemed to struggle tonight with dinking under pressure and keeping the ball in on speed ups. His talent is ridiculous, but more time and experience will be the thing that helps him come into his own. Zander is another talent that needs time.  He was getting back shots that he had no business even seeing, but struggled as the whole team did that night with the soft game. Life and death in pickleball is in the power of the dink. 

 Was it nerves, perhaps, or sunburns, or the pressure of being #1 that got to them, who knows?  But one thing was clear - they weren’t playing their normal game.  And in the words of Coach Eric Zeigler, “whoever relaxes first wins.” This match seems to be evidence of that. 

Even Ryan Gilbert, the captain, whose lower gear shifting game style reminds me of Ben Johns, and whose attacks at the net are brutal, seemed frustrated with his execution and decision making. Kenny had some highlight reel moments and doesn’t back down no matter what’s on the scoreboard, but was also struggling to maintain the execution level we normally see from him. It wasn’t their night to shine, they knew they were better than this,  they just didn’t execute. As Gilbert put it, “We won the pennant but not the World Series.”

Team BR performed like seasoned veterans tonight. I think I underestimated their threat level in part because the only other time I have seen them play (the semi-finals) , I wasn't watching from the side. Pickleball is completely different when viewed from the side. The sheer Ball cRushing power of Brian Rosenthal's twoey backhand volley made me realize why there is no way I will ever make it into the Bull City lineup,  (well at least without some kind of protective gear - can’t entirely give up hope, right?) I challenge any of you “think you are good at pickleball” people to go to tryouts just to see if you can get a paddle on that thing. Robert Lightbourn and Niccolo Vercellino are both towering giants whose pace and consistency make them top tier picks. And though Chase Brautman might be the young one on the team, his age in pickleball years is borderline OG. He has quite a bit of high pressure experience under his belt with College Nationals, and has won gold in the APP along with being the 2022 US Open Junior Singles Champion.  Definitely a smart draft choice. 

The audacity of naming a team after yourself is next level confidence and that’s what Brian Rosenthal brought to the table. He predicted they would win, he played like they would win and at the end they deposited that check in the bank - easy $$$.  But it’s not just his skill level, and confidence that makes him such a larger than life character, it’s his ability to get into your head, which, according to one league member in the audience is “50% of his game.” It’s harder to say what hits harder -  his backhand, his forehand or his ability to rip to shreds any traces of incompetence. Either way, if you give him a pop up, he’s going to punish you and complain that you gave him such an easy shot. The BedRock aura of a rock solid player, (who midweek was hospitalized and passed a kidney stone), proved to be the foundation on which the whole team fed off collectively and which defined their play last night.  And on this stormy night, the house that was built on the solid foundation was the last one standing. 

On championship night I learned that sweet tea is a key contributor to kidney stones, victory is a function of maturity to the point of relaxation, and that the best part of the night probably happened at the afterparty, when these guys who have been pushing and challenging each other for months to claim ultimate bragging rights, finally had a moment to surrender to the power of the story, which for the younger guys, is just beginning. Each team had moments of glory, pain and struggle and each team came out with more experience and perhaps hunger to further pursue the drive and intensity that makes them great. And that’s the paradise of pickleball, the never ending levels of challenge that keep us wanting more..

Some nights are not your night, and sometimes its your time to shine. Kenny and Sid’s Thursday night defeat didn’t define them, it was just part of the storyline, Sid placed 13th in the Wilson PPA Challenger Men’s Singles Pro Draw (the top finish for any player in NC) and then won Gold with Kenny in 5.0 Men’s Doubles on Saturday! The North Hills Park Golden Boy and the NC State rising senior are two names to watch going forward! To see the Wilson PPA complete list of results click here.

Chinmay Kulkarni and Nitin Dabade of Apex took 4.0 Men’s Doubles. In the Women’s 4.5 doubles Lilly Shaw of Durham and her partner Rachel Quade came out on top.

Congrats to Lincoln Reffett for his 4.0-4.5 Men’s Singles win. Lincoln also won gold in 3.5 mixed doubles with his partner Azra Mineo. Cary local Ishaan Gautam and partner Kolton Youngblood won the gold in 4.5 Men’s Doubles.

Congrats also to Cary local Aedan Switzer and his partner from Wilmington Mats Gasparovic for capturing gold in the 3.5 Men’s Doubles Gold. Keep an eye on these kids - they are smart, talented, dedicated and we look forward to seeing where their passion for pickleball leads them!

Pickleball is more than anything a mental game. According to coach Eric Zeigler, “Whoever relaxes first wins.” But how do we train ourselves to relax when our bodies are experiencing nerves? Here are some tips to help you enter the ZONE.

Step 1: Learn about yourself.

What helps you get into the zone might be unique to you, some use positivity, others use visualization where they think through scenarios before they happen, some do better when they are hyped up, others do better when the pressure is off. Some focus on technique and footwork, others try their best to flow in the moment. Learning what makes you tick is a huge part of the mental game process.

Step 2: Learn what your tendencies are when feeling pressured.

When you are nervous do you tend to tense up? Do your legs wobble? Do you tend to rush shots? Do you get more aggressive? What causes you to lose your cool? Pick a court in front of your pickleball crush or find a person to play with that make you nervous, then do the mental discipline of training your mind what to think in key moments. Every mistake you make is information about your tendencies. Awareness is key.

Step 3: Put yourself in pressure situations.

Think about the first time you got up on stage. Versus the 100th time you were on stage. The feeling is different, sometimes you just need 100 tournament games to start getting used to the pressure. Allow yourself the growth curve, be patient with your process in the pressure, and give yourself a chance for your mind and your nerves to come into line. If the ideal state is relaxed, you need to give mind time to adjust to your natural physiological response, after your umpteenth high pressure situation, you are bound to get used to it.

Step 4: Remember what’s important.

When you are loading the world’s view of you onto a moment in time, you may be carrying a burden that is affecting your ability to relax. You are not your medal count, you are not your DUPR rating. You are a person enjoying the challenge of your opponent and bringing the joy of challenge to them. When that is your mindset, you won’t ever lose, you’ll see it all as a win, either a victorious win, a lesson learning win, or a geez they must have needed that winning experience at my expense win. The thing I love about pickleball is that even when you aren’t the top scorer in a game, you have walked away with a new set of things to work on. If you get pickled it means you had the opportunity to be challenged by a player who is much farther along in their journey of discipline than you. And this is where the Paradise is found…in the process of being continuously pickled by the game.

We lost an important member of our community this month- Joe Roads, but his boazing spirit lives on. The Joe Turkey Roads Memorial Foundation will be sponsoring a Mascot of the Month section of the Pickled in Paradise Newsletter. Submit entries for your pet here because pets and pickleball are on the same DOPE team.