Christian Alshon Blamed Singles. Ben Johns Got Pickled. Anna Leigh Lost.

[00:00:01] Meine Zehen bringen mich um. Diese Schuhe sind viel zu eng. Trägst du immer noch diese spitzen Dinger? Ich meine, sind nicht alle Laufschuhe so geformt? Nein, du brauchst Altras. Altra? Altras sind geformt wie deine Füße mit einer fußförmigen Zehenbox. Einfach viel bequemer. Bezwinge deinen Lauf mit Hallenzehen. Okay, das klingt traumhaft. Mehr Komfort, Kraft und Dynamik. Alles durch die Passform. Altra versteht das einfach. Altra, stay out there.

[00:00:29] I'll tell you, nobody is more upset with the new JW Johnson than me. Let me explain why. So, if anybody has watched me play Pickleball, surprise, I don't move my feet very often, right? And then the number one comment I get besides the fact that I don't move my feet and I don't bend my knees is your ready position is your paddle is almost like, you know, at your side, right? And then I get these, I see these videos that Zane creates that say like, don't put your hand in your pocket or by your hip. And then all of a sudden I look at all my videos and my hand's like this.

[00:00:58] So, basically, I am like the model of bad Pickleball behavior. And I could at least always point to, yeah, but look at JW Johnson. The dude doesn't move. The dude's paddles at his knees and he can do it. And so I would just say, I'm the homeless man's JW Johnson. Not the poor man. I'm the homeless man's JW Johnson. And then they go, oh, okay, that makes sense. Now, I can't even say that because he looks like a normal Pickleball player. He's actually moving. His paddle is sometimes in the right position. And so I hate it. I need to find a new person.

[00:01:28] Zane, if you know anybody else that doesn't move in pro Pickleball that I can now pretend like I model my game after, I'm all ears. But JW, you have betrayed me. Welcome back, everybody, to another episode of the PicklePod. This is the first episode of PicklePod PPA edition. And it was quite the PPA of that.

[00:01:53] We had a 12-hour break between MLP, got right into PPA. We're going to talk about some upsets, Ben Johns in singles, Annalie Waters in doubles, Federico getting bageled at the very end of a long weekend. Zane, you told me, I think at one point you said that you had a 102 fever. And I'm not sure if that was you or if that was on the courts. It was insane in Cary, North Carolina. I've never been. Sounded horrific.

[00:02:22] We got a lot of talk about Zane. I'm glad you're alive. Yeah, no, I thought I was dying. So first off, it was like 100 degrees on the court. But I had like, I don't know if it's because I've been like traveling or what, but like I had this little like eye infection thing. It was all red over here on my right eye. And like after we did the podcast that Monday, I had like the worst migraine. I went to bed at like 7 p.m. Next day, I wake up for singles.

[00:02:52] I've got like a 102 fever. I'm like, oh my God, which sucks on top of it being like 100 degrees outside. Anyway, that went away really fast. I was literally fine by like, I kind of struggled in doubles the first day. But by the next day, I was gone. It was weird. I had like a little infection or something that I got over really quickly because I don't know if I had to play more with a 102 fever in 100 degrees, it would have been disgusting.

[00:03:20] But I guess that brings us to an interesting like debate point, right? There's been a ton of talk. Is pickleball an indoor sport? Is it outdoor sport? Shit, after this weekend, I might have changed camps to indoor sport. Were you outdoor sport before? Yeah, I'm team outdoor sport. I mean, like, I'll never say no to an indoor, but like, yeah, I think outdoor is fun.

[00:03:46] Out in the elements, like wind, sun, all that stuff. Like, I think it adds a nice little interesting element to things. You know, I think outdoor is peak. But like, I would say eight or nine out of 10 times that I could play, I would want to play indoors. And if I'm at a venue, I think I'd want to watch indoor pro pickleball too for a couple reasons. So I just got done playing pickleball, 6.30 a.m. here in Reno, Nevada.

[00:04:14] It's the summertime, but it's chilly in the mornings. And so the ball is like a rock, right? If I go play indoors, I don't have that problem, right? So it's like temperature control. I don't have to worry about the ball being a rock. And then I can't play. We play in the mornings because, one, in the afternoon, it's scorching. 2 at 2 o'clock, it's windy. And so I don't find the wind to be like a fun thing with pickleball. I don't find 100 degrees. Yeah, because you got to move your feet. It just seems like I don't even like I'm expecting the ball to be one spot.

[00:04:43] I feel like all my training tells me this thing. And then all of a sudden, it's just like I start checking out immediately. As soon as winds is like above 15 miles an hour, I'm like, I hate this. And so I don't know. I don't find it fun. I feel like viewers don't find the wind fun either. And I would say you play pro pickleball indoors, it's like three times as loud. So I think it's fun. I don't hate indoor pickleball.

[00:05:13] I like the atmosphere of indoor pickleball too, just for how loud it is. And your comment on wind, there was zero wind whatsoever. So I actually cannot think of like a stiller day I've ever been outside in. I would have given my left nut for a five mile per hour gust of wind. It was so just like sitting there, humid, everything. So maybe it's this, maybe this. Like, I don't know.

[00:05:41] I think the best is going to be perfect conditions outside. Like you can't beat it. But like you just know what you're going to get with indoor pickleball. I still think it's an outdoor game for 90% of people. But like, yeah, it's more consistent inside. So anyway, that's kind of a shitty hedge of everything. But like, if I had to vote, I'm still team outdoor. But man, my stance is a lot shakier after this weekend. Yeah.

[00:06:08] So would you rather play in extreme cold, extreme wind, extreme heat? Like, like, I want you to rank like the worst conditions for outdoor pickleball. Well, worst conditions has got to be extreme heat first. Like that's, that's, I would rather play in like 40 degrees than that. Because the interesting part too, is the lifetime balls are different in that when it gets hot, the lifetime balls get springier.

[00:06:35] So the pace is faster in the heat with the lifetime ball. And that's different than pickleball's entire history. It used to be you play with a Dura, you play with a Vulcan, you play with a Franklin. Those balls get mushier. The lifetime balls get more lively. So it's actually like the pace of play was, was much faster. When you play in like really cold temperatures with any of those other balls, the ball is like a rock and it, and it like fires off of the, off of the paddle quickly.

[00:07:05] I don't know. You can always put sweatshirts on and like 40 degrees. So I would say least favorite would be super hot. And then probably super windy, but there is like a certain amount of wind where it becomes comical and kind of fun again. Like the worst is like 15 to 20 mile per hour winds. Cause that just sucks. But once it gets to like 40 mile per hour winds, it's just like, it's laughable. And it's like kind of fun again, in my opinion.

[00:07:33] Texas PPA last year, like Annalie Waters and Kate Fahey or when Annalie lost in doubles, I think. So yeah, I think so. I might actually flip the, okay, here's my rankings. By far the worst to me is extreme wind. It's just miserable. It sucks. It's just like, I get frustrated. My eyes roll in the back of my head. I want to quit. Then I'll, then extreme cold. And it's not because I am cold. It's because the ball becomes like a rock.

[00:07:59] Uh, I feel like it's impossible to control, you know, like somebody, I asked somebody is like, would you rather have feedback or take paddle review information from like a nerd or from a six. So, and I said, even if the nerd can't even reset a ball and they said, well, pros can reset everything. So I feel like you don't understand what it's like to play in the cold because you guys are actually good and can probably reset everything. But when the ball's a rock, it's so hard to play. It's just like, yeah, my skill level goes down like a full level. What ball are you using though?

[00:08:28] Like the lifetime ball now I'm convinced. Have you played lifetime in like 40 degrees? I try not to play almost anything in 40 degrees. So now that we have a new course. Fair enough. But, but like, it's not the same. Like a lifetime, I feel like solves that problem in cold weather. Like completely agree. Franklin, Dura, Vulcan, like in cold, it's a rock, super hard to control. The sweet spot of your paddle is like tiny. But like, I do think that lifetime, uh, lifetime balls would like fix that.

[00:08:56] It's basically they, they react to heat opposite of other balls. Weird. I wonder why. And then I'll take, I'll take heat all day. I, I have no problem with the extreme heat. The only problem I have, and I thought it was funny. Anna Bright mentioned this is like, I don't eat when I play pickleball tournaments. And I think a lot of people have this problem. Like the tournaments are long and you're focused on the tournament. You're the bracket and looking at pickleballbrackets.com or whatever. And everybody forgets to eat. Everybody forgets to drink water. And then they end up cramping.

[00:09:24] But that's, that's my biggest problem with heat is I will probably die. But what before, like up until the part where I actually do die, I'm fine. Yeah. Can't cramp if you don't move. It was a low hanging fruit, Nico. Yeah. Interesting. I'm really surprised we didn't see more like just full body cramps and stuff. Like Jack Sock was really the only one that I saw. He withdrew from men's doubles.

[00:09:50] They gutted out a win in the first round and then withdrew after going to the third game in the second round. Len Yang was struggling. I saw they lost a, a tough one, but yeah, I was actually impressed with the, with the pickleball pro pickleball community did pretty well. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. They survived real, real athletes here. Did well, didn't cramp, didn't complain too much, played until 1230. How, how late did the matches go?

[00:10:21] Yeah. One of them went till, well, there was some rain delays. That's why. But that's another thing I wanted to talk about. Dude, we got to get more nighttime picky out there. Like that's electric. So, so obviously we have the U S open going on and I think this, this week we literally had like the latest start time to a U S open match. I'm pretty sure Tiafoe went on at like 1230 PM. Like somebody can fact check me on that.

[00:10:47] I, all I saw with the Twitter highlight of it, but either way, U S open matches are routinely going on well after 10 PM and sometimes finishing two in the morning. That's way too much. Don't get me like, I'm not suggesting that as way too much. You would never catch me at one of those. I am closer to waking up at that time than I am going to sleep at that time. That's too much. But like, give me some like 9 PM pickle.

[00:11:16] Like, I think that's great. Pickleball under the lights, people on the East coast actually being able to watch after work or I'm sorry, the West coast being able to watch after work. Like, like I thought that was great. Did I watch any of it? No, but like conceptually, I thought it was awesome. You liked the idea of it. Yeah. For us, it was great. So, and it was interesting because you got the worst and the best in one tournament. So as we know, I'm on the West coast.

[00:11:42] And so I was really looking forward to the Kiora Kunimoto, Sophia saving match. And I'm just like typing away, doing work on my computer. And then I get alert that it's over and it's like 740 my time in the morning. And I'm just thinking, how is marquee pro pickleball happening at 7 AM? Like, it's insane. There's no sport that does 7 AM. It's like, to me, I just don't, but I don't understand is that I think in order for pro

[00:12:12] pickleball to be successful, it has to be successful on TV. And sometimes I feel like they make decisions based on what is happening at the event, right? The venue or whatnot. You'll never see the US Open play at 7 AM in the morning tennis. That doesn't, that won't happen because they know that has to go on TV, right? And so they start, US Open starts their primetime matches at 7 PM. And that's, they have two matches on Arthur Ashe or whatever.

[00:12:39] And so if those matches, the first match goes four and a half hours, the next match starts at midnight. So I just think they need to... What? Is there actually, I can't think of any sport that starts before 11 AM. Like you have, I think you have some daytime baseball games. It starts at noon or one. That starts at noon or one. I guess that's 11, that's a noon Eastern time start. So you got some like noon basketball games, football games on like holiday. Yeah, like noon.

[00:13:09] I can't think of a pro sporting event that starts before noon. The closest you get is March Madness happening at like nine o'clock Pacific time is maybe when the first game happens. I guess that's also noon. Yeah, that's noon. Yeah. None, there's doesn't exist. And so why does it exist in pickleball? I don't know. So this tournament, it was singles from like seven to 10 AM Pacific time. And then there was a little break because it was too hot and then a rain delay. And then we got to watch midnight pickle. And that's so much better.

[00:13:39] And to your point, like everybody's available to watch pickleball, you know, at nighttime, at least a majority of people are. So why don't we have more nighttime pickleball? I don't know. You could do it indoors. You don't have to worry about lights. But yeah, why do you think that is? I'm thinking about this right now. I actually have no idea. Like maybe it's because they have in the early days, like such a quantity of of matches. I know for sure MLP and PPAs on Sundays have to do it somewhat early because for the most

[00:14:08] part, they're shipping all of the equipment across the country for the next one. Right. So when they can leave at 2 PM on a Sunday, they have to be there at, you know, to set up for matches on Tuesday. So like part of that is Sunday logistics, but Sunday is a different one. Like people can watch pickleball in the morning on Sundays, but like weekdays, very different. I honestly don't know. All right, Nico, tell me anything new with your Merrick health journey, Merrick diagnostics?

[00:14:38] Yeah. So, um, I am trying and we talked about this last podcast. I'm trying to like weasel my way into a pro qualifier with you and Mari Humberg. Um, and so I, I like took a little bit of time off. Like a few months ago, I got blood work done with Merrick diagnostics. They told me things I need to change and I, I did great. And then, you know, wait, wait, wait, hold on. Is that the one where they said you had negative T?

[00:15:11] I think, I think you heard that probably on the KOTC podcast. Um, but, uh, my, my Merrick diagnostics, uh, it was not a phrase. It was not, it was like a report card, uh, from high school. The numbers were pretty low. Uh, I was embarrassed about it and didn't want to tell my parents. Um, but so I did some things and now I took a little bit of a, a, a relaxation, but now that I want to do this like pro qualifier, I'm trying to like weasel my way into a Selkirk combine, do some pickleball stuff.

[00:15:40] Um, so I decided I would recheck my blood work and I just realized like there's no really real way to tell if you're healthy, if you don't get your blood work done. Right? Like you're like, you can feel healthy, but are you healthy on the inside? I don't know. Like my, my arms don't say I'm low T or something like whatever. Only Zane tells me I'm low T and Zane is not Merrick diagnostics. So if you actually want real diagnostic, if you want Zane, Zane, you can go on cameo and you can have Zane tell you, you have low T or you can go to Merrick diagnostics.com.

[00:16:09] Use code the dink for 10% off, get a complete panel and Merrick will tell you, you have low T or whatever is, is, is, or is not working inside your body. Yeah. And honestly, I know we're, we're joking around a little bit, but I really think if you're somebody who is being very, very active all the time, like this is something that you should probably do.

[00:16:34] Like, it's just so hard to, to know, like, you know, I get my, my everything checks, you know, once every year. So I've got the aura ring of that stuff, but like, yeah, knowing what sort of like deficiencies you have and like actually being able to plan for it is great. And stuff like this sneaks up on you. You get a little bit more tired day over day. Like sometimes it happens so, so soon that you don't even notice it.

[00:17:02] So, uh, yeah, I really think that preventative healthcare like that is, is huge. Exactly. Testosterone, cortisol, vitamin D use Merrick Diagnostics. Once again, Merrick Diagnostics.com and use code the dink for 10% off. But that brings me to another debate question. Is pickleball a daytime sport or a nighttime sport? It's a daytime sport. I think now it's a daytime sport. It should be a nighttime sport, but, uh.

[00:17:30] I think pickleball should be a nighttime sport. I mean, think about summers. Like you just going out there after work, like it's too hot in a lot of places during the day to go play. Like something about being under the lights in the evening, I think is just awesome to both play and, and watch. I think pickleball should be a nighttime sport. Look, you think, you got to think about this. Who's your core audience, right? And it's, you know, Frank and Ethel, they want to get some pickleball in.

[00:17:59] They're retired. So, you know, they don't have any, any plans. They don't have any kids to worry about. But what they do have is a 4 p.m. reservation at Sizzler for the happy hour special. They have to make. There's no way in hell they are playing pickleball after Sizzler. They're going to bed. They might be, they'll watch Jeopardy! And then they go to bed, right? What I'm saying is that a majority of people that are playing pickleball are probably playing early. The demographic plays early.

[00:18:25] You do have some more like young people that will play at 9 or 10 p.m. But I think a majority of people, they'll play early before they play in the evening. And that's why every, every court is busy at 8 a.m., 9 a.m. in the morning. True. True. I think the PPA has got to look into that. I think we could boost our viewership numbers. Which, speaking of which, I mean, we got 773,000 average viewers at MLP finals last weekend.

[00:18:53] That was the second most viewed pickleball, pro pickleball event after the PPA Masters in January, which was like 793,000. So, pretty sick. I mean, and imagine if you shifted that maybe to a more prime time? I don't know. No, and I think the time was decent. I'm actually surprised that the Masters beat it. Like, why? I don't know. I guess more people like the PPA still. Like, I think it's starting to change. But, yeah, it's interesting.

[00:19:23] It could have also been, like, what was it competing against? There might have been nothing else on TV during the Masters or there was nothing else on TV some other time. I don't know. Like, it's probably relative to what else was going on. Yeah, for sure. But that's a lot. That's a lot of people. I mean, we're getting there close to WNBA basketball territory, which, like, if you guys want to knock, you can. But, like, it's actually fun, too. Exciting. Now that Kaitlin Clark's in the league.

[00:19:49] But, yeah, I mean, we're not going to be, you know, a million viewer sport overnight. So let's take the wins. Let's, you know, I think that's why everybody is celebrating it, even if it's, you know, I think, comparatively speaking, not a crazy amount. It's a lot for Pickleball. Yeah. No, I saw all. Okay. So, like, MLP put their thing out. And they're, like, 773,000, second most of all time. And people are like, that's not even as much as X, Y, or Z. I'm like, yeah, no shit. We're not really comparing it to that.

[00:20:19] We're comparing it to ourselves, right? Like, yeah, that's a lot less than the fucking Super Bowl, idiot. But, like, we're not claiming to be the Super Bowl. Like, it's good for us. Like, and it's growing, right? It was up 50% year over year. Like, that's a good thing. I don't know. I saw all that other stuff. And I'm like, these are just dumb comments, people trying to hate. Like, yeah, you're right. It's not a groundbreaking number, but it's good for us.

[00:20:47] That'd be like somebody saying, like, I won my 3-5 game last night. And me coming in and be like, well, your game would never stand up in pro pickleball. Like, yeah, that's not what we're talking about here. Right? Like, you did well for you. I'm surprised how many people like to shit all over pickleball who love pickleball. Like, supposedly the one guy that said pickleball is dead and plays pickleball three times a week. That's, like, one example. A lot of people on Twitter or on socials, they love to do the same thing, even though they love pickleball.

[00:21:16] And it's like, let's, like, round up, right? When it comes to our pride in pickleball. Like, it's so funny. So, I'm like, for you guys who saw me, I'm a massive guy. I'm like 6'3 and a half, basically, is how tall I am. And every time my dad would be like, oh, yeah, my son. I don't know why he would say this so many times. Be like, oh, yeah, my son, he's 6'4. And then my mom would say, actually, I think he's, like, 6'3. And he'd be like, what the fuck are you talking about? He's like, can you just, like, let me say that he's 6'4 for some reason?

[00:21:44] The only proud moment that he has in his son's life is how tall he is. So, she was always rounding down. He was always rounding up, right? And so, this is what I think about when it comes to pickleball and these numbers. It's like, let's let Samin and Connor and MLP and everybody, like, pump up how good we are. And let's be proud of it. And let's not try and find the nits with these numbers. Of course, they're, I don't know, I'm not going to say inflating, but, like, we can, like, look for the holes. But why?

[00:22:14] You know what I mean? MLP is 6'4. Yeah, all I heard there was Nico has daddy issues. That's all I heard. My daddy has daddy issues. Yeah, anyway, good for MLP. But, yeah, where should we go next here, Nico? Yeah, so, MLP, we'll actually probably talk about MLP one more time later. But, we're at PPA. We've got the weather.

[00:22:40] We've got 12 hours of break, which we'll probably talk about in just a second. But, PPA is a little bit different than it was four months ago. There's the world pickleball rankings. There is no bronze medal matches. Different seating expectation. Or, like, how that goes. Zane, I almost was like, actually, to be quite honest, Dan, our COO at the Dink, was like, Nico, you should create a video about the different changes. And I was like, I'm scared.

[00:23:09] I'm not sure if I understand all the changes myself. Maybe I need Eric Tice. But maybe he might be the only one that understands it. But, Zane, you are part of the player committee. You are a pro. Can you explain the changes? Can you explain WPR rankings for us as well and how that works with seating? Yeah. No, I can try. It's a little bit different between slams and everything else. So, it'll look a little bit different at the next event. But, basically, WPR, I think you put a video out about it.

[00:23:39] It's 50% of your men's doubles points, 35% of your mixed doubles points, and 15% of your singles points. That basically combines to make one ranking. And selection for buys and seating at non-Slam events is going to be based on the WPR. So, I believe, I could be wrong on this.

[00:24:05] I believe that this one, since it was a slam, operated more like normal. But, following events, you draw admission and buys will be based on your WPR. So, what people like to throw out there is Andre De Escu has zero singles points. But, his WPR is high. I don't know what it is. I'm sure it's top 10 because he's got so many doubles points. Yep.

[00:24:34] So, he would get into singles and also have a buy. He would be like the 60th seed or something like that. So, it's complicated, a little convoluted. Something that I agree with in premise, but not all of the points of execution. That's a longer story and that's stuff that we're talking about behind the scenes with the PPA. But, that's my understanding of it. I think we'll get a lot better.

[00:25:01] A more practical example this week with the next PPA tournament. Yeah, I'm interested to see. I mean, Ben Johns was like the 26th or 25th seed or whatever this week. So, next week or next tournament, he plays singles, he would have a buy. But, he'd still be the 20th seed. So, seeding based on your ranking in that discipline. And buys based on your WPR ranking. Is that right? The cliff notes? In the cups and opens.

[00:25:32] Okay, and do you think that that devalues singles at all? Only 15% here? No, I actually think it probably makes more... I mean, I guess it devalues the singles specialist. Like, I don't think that's good for somebody like Chris Hayworth or somebody like Hunter Johnson. But, I think it also pushes Ben to not retire from singles. It pushes somebody like Anna Bright or Hayden to go back to playing singles.

[00:25:59] So, it incentivizes some players and hurts the players who you would probably consider single specialists, if you will. Interesting. Yeah. To me, my biggest thing is I think that it doesn't do enough to incentivize someone like Anna or Hayden to actually play singles. But, it kills Chris Hayworth when it comes to like the PPA finals. So, that's one thing that's changed as well.

[00:26:24] The PPA finals is now eight men, eight women, top eight overall WPR rankings, right? Does that sound correct? I think so. I don't know. We've got nine months until the finals. So, I think... Things can change. I think... I don't even know how much it's worth looking at the finals at this point. Also, I think the finals is an irrelevant event the way that it's currently structured. I've been... Yeah. I've been low on the finals.

[00:26:52] It's just another semifinal Saturday. It's basically like the quarterfinals onwards of every other PPA tournament. And, everybody picks their normal partners. So, yeah. I don't care about the finals. I don't even think it's worth talking about right now. You know, I will say one thing though. So, it's... As currently situated, yes, it screws Hunter Johnson. Yes, it screws Chris Hayworth. But, if Andre DeSue is top eight and then he plays the PPA finals and has to play singles, I'm not going to lie. I wouldn't hate seeing the top eight WPR people play in a singles tournament.

[00:27:22] Ben, Andre, Gabe, Hayden. Like, all these people that don't actually play singles but are probably good at singles. CJ. All play in a tournament. So, that's the one benefit. And, to your point, PPA, probably like MLP, the rules will change like six times between now and PPA finals. All right. So, also, no bronze medal matches. Do we care? Does anybody care? Do pros care? The players who play the bronze medal matches are the biggest ones who didn't care about the bronze. It is...

[00:27:51] If you're not first, you're last. Of the people who are consistently on Championship Sunday, like, yeah. The hardest medal in sports to win is Ben Johns getting a bronze. Like, the people who are there consistently just don't care. If they don't win gold, like, what's the point? And so, I think that... I honestly think that, yeah, getting rid of the bronze was a good call.

[00:28:17] Especially, like, give these people more time to focus on the gold medal matches that they're probably in. Or, like, if they're not in anything, give them an extra day to, like, recover. This schedule is just getting absolutely brutal and grueling. And it used to be where, you know, you could go through an entire bracket in a given day.

[00:28:39] Because you'd play from the round of 64, but your first two matches would be, you know, like, a one-on-one beatdown that would take 15 minutes. Now, even if it's a three-and-three match, like, nobody's just missing random dinks anymore. Like, every single point is a dogfight. So, just, like, the physicality of the schedule is just getting more and more. So, yeah, like, give these guys a little bit of time to wrap some more. Yeah, I agree.

[00:29:09] Some people say, oh, we miss it, we love it. I feel like anybody that says that actually doesn't even watch bronze medal matches. I think they're all liars. Like, there's probably, like, 1% of people that cared about bronze medal. I'm glad they're done. To your point, nobody cares about that match. Give them more rest. And speaking of more rest, Championship Sunday, best of three except for majors. Which, to me, is the best. Yes. Okay. Why do you love it? Because otherwise, how do you even know what's a slam and what isn't? There's basically, like, no differentiation.

[00:29:39] And they're trying. I give them credit for trying. And I think this is a great way of actually making a few events feel more important. But, yeah. Like, first off, I think you'll see a few more upsets. Easier to upset, you know, Ben and Annalie, two out of three rather than three out of five. But, yeah. I think the differentiation, making the slams feel more important is huge. Yeah. Me too. And actually, I mean, making them feel important is good. I am here for the upsets.

[00:30:07] I think it gives the underdog maybe, like, 10%, 15% greater odds. Their odds are already slim. But the one seeds are like 203 on the year or something like that. So, getting them in the finals two out of three, I think it at least will cause some kind of upset. I don't even know. I think maybe there's been one upset in the finals of a one seed all year. So, hopefully we get more. So, I'm all for the best of three.

[00:30:37] So, that's exciting. Yeah. All right. Last week, we had Annalie Waters on the pod. And now, we are giving away one of her paddles. Yeah. If you listened to the episode, you already know Annalie Waters doesn't mess around. Neither does her paddle. Neither does Franklin. And Franklin built a limited edition Annalie Waters C45 hybrid paddle to mark the Fives MLP season. It's called The Fives. Surprise, surprise. And, yeah, you can win one.

[00:31:04] The Dink is giving away eight of these paddles. I told them they should give away five because New Jersey Fives. But, they decided with eight. So, I think that's actually better for you guys. I actually think I might try and enter to see if I can play more like Annalie with it. I'll let you guys know. But, if you're interested, head to giveaway.thedinkpickleball.com. That's G-I-V-E-A-W-A-Y dot thedinkpickleball.com. Giveaway ends September 16th.

[00:31:34] Good luck. Nico, if they can't spell giveaway, they don't deserve to win, respectfully. We got to tell the marketing people here. They have me spell out every single thing, every single time. And it is the most nerve-wracking part of the entire ad read. Because I can spell, but when it's spelled out, it makes it real hard. But, to your point, basic literacy is a requirement for the paddle giveaway. Good luck. Other thing we had was some AI challenges on the side courts.

[00:32:03] And they're not great. But I've actually changed my stance. Okay. So, like, I really don't think they're that accurate. Like, but are they better than the referee? At least the AI challenges are equally bad. Or unbiasedly bad, I suppose. Right? Like, I saw plenty of clips from this week of calls that it got wrong. But I think it's gonna, it's at least gonna have an opinion, unlike a referee who's just

[00:32:33] gonna, you know, not, you know, not say anything about it. So, I do think it's actually probably good. And hopefully, I think with an AI system, it should get better over time. As long as somebody is, like, manually, like, oh, no, this one should have been in or out or whatever. I don't know how the back end of that system works. At least what you guys are gonna see on the stream, hopefully, there's at least a video review of the AI system.

[00:32:59] Like, we cannot, on center court and grandstand court, you can't just rely on that challenge system when there's video that's, the video is still better than the challenge system. Yeah. Okay. No, I'm excited for it. It's a big improvement. And once again, people want to, like, comment, like, oh, it's not, it's not perfect. It's not this, whatever. No, hey, we're trying. And, yeah, if it's faster, if it's, to your point, if it, I'd rather it be machine error than human error. I don't know if I'm, I guess I'm team machine.

[00:33:29] Hopefully, we get it on all courts eventually. But how many courts are actually in, like, it's on eight, it was on eight courts. Is that every court that, how many courts are pros on? Like, does that cover every court? I don't know. The first couple of days, probably, like, I don't know, 16 courts. I actually don't really know. There's, like, probably a ton in the round of 64 and stuff. Yeah. And then, last thing, you guys switch sides at six. I don't like it. You like it.

[00:34:00] You like the break? Yeah. 100%. Why? I love it. We were doing it in MLP. This isn't new. I know, but it's like, MLP is like one game. So, like, I don't know. To me, it's just like, if it's a game of three and I have to switch three times, and I don't know. To me, it seems different. It seems, like, unnecessary. Why don't we just keep it one game, one game? That's why we switch at six in MLP, because that team doesn't play three games. They play one game.

[00:34:24] Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's, first off, we wanted to get rid of two timeouts per game. That was way too much. So, if you build in, like, a stoppage at six, that's good. And so, there was such a big impact on who won the toss. Like, if there's wind or a better side, you want to end on the good side. Well, that now, ending on the good side, now gets distributed across three different games.

[00:34:53] And so, it minimizes the impact of a good side. You had certain events where the wind was unplayable from one side or another. And matches were literally, like, being pretty much determined by who won the coin toss. Like, you just can't have that situation. Break this down for me like I'm five here. I feel like I'm missing it. Isn't it the sack same, though? Like, when you had no switches, it was the first team ends on, let's say, the good side,

[00:35:23] and the second team, and then the first team again, or whatever, right? Like, it just alternates. It's two out of three. Isn't this the same thing? It's just one team ends on the good side, then the other team? So, let's say that there's a really good side, right? And I start game one on the really good side. I win 11-0. The other team gets to go play on the good side. They win 11-0, okay? I start the third game out on the good side. I get up 6-0.

[00:35:52] They come back, and they win 11-6 because they got to end on the good side, right? Right? So, the only game that was closer was the game where you had the good, where both teams got a shot at the good side, right? Well, now you get that in game one and game two, as well as game three. So, you don't have two games, game one and game two, that are completely decided by who

[00:36:21] gets the good side. The good side. That makes sense. Yeah, and game three, right? When you have a good side, and you start on the good side in game three, it's about, it's actually a game within a game. Can I keep them to zero points while I'm on the good side? Because I know they're going to score more points than me in the second half, right? You know what would solve all this? Just playing indoors. Indoor pickleball. No, but there's good side and bad. There's visuals indoors, too.

[00:36:48] Wind is a big thing, but there's some places you just can't see one direction or another. There's almost always a good side indoors, too. Yeah. All right. Well, sounds good. That's it, I think, for the changes PPA has for this new season. Maybe we should get into the actual matches. It's only been 30 minutes. We're teasing you guys along. All right. So, why don't we start men's singles?

[00:37:16] So, the closest field that there is out of all the events. We've still got the top three, doing top three things. But Chris Hayworth upset. Hunter Johnson, pretty handily, you know, especially in game two, I think 11-1, takes out Chris Hayworth. And then you've got the matchup, the rematch, which I think is probably what Hunter has been, like, begging for after getting absolutely destroyed in MLP Finals Dream Breakers with Federico. Did not start out good for Hunter, but came back.

[00:37:45] Federico said, after game one, I ran out of gas. I had nothing left in the tank. I'm a little sick. Super hot. And I think in the finals, in his post-game interview, he said, whoever's in charge of the schedule needs to rethink things because this is crazy. Yeah. I mean, I don't really know what he wants. What do you want? Maybe it was, like, the fact that they played singles at, like, 2.30 in the afternoon, I guess.

[00:38:10] But honestly, I would say playing singles and playing doubles is just as equally bad, like, in heat. I don't think it's so much worse to play singles as opposed to doubles. What he was saying, though, was, and I think he might have said this exactly, was, whoever decided to put a slam right after MLP Finals, basically, you made a mistake. I agree with that. That is crazy. I completely agree with that. That's brutal.

[00:38:38] Like, literally, Federico was probably out until 5 a.m. in New York Monday morning, I would assume, right? Like, having himself a proper celly. Yeah. And he's in, I saw him, I was playing the same time on Tuesday morning, and I saw him out there battling at 9 a.m. I'm like, holy shit. This guy's a warrior. Like, that's nuts. Yeah. I'd completely agree. I'd assume. I mean, when you think about, it's like, I think it's crazy to have a PPA tournament right after MLP.

[00:39:07] You should probably have a week off. But if you don't want to have a week off, just don't put the slam first. Like, because out of the finals, 11 of the 16 total spots that were taken up by finals players were on the Shock or on the Fives. And then, like, three more were on the Flash and the Brooklyn Pickleball team. So almost, almost every single person that was in the finals also had to play MLP finals.

[00:39:36] I mean, one, that's a testament to how good they are that they can make it back to back. But let's protect the best players in the league a little bit. Yeah. I mean, I think a couple things. First off, if you can have a break, have a break, right? Like, have a one-week break. That'd be perfect. And if you really can't, make it a 1,000-level tournament. It was crazy to have this as a slam, for sure. Yeah. And usually, what's interesting is, like, in tennis, tennis doesn't start the season with a slam.

[00:40:04] Like, they have warm-up tournaments before the slam. And maybe that's what Challenger is or MLP. I don't know. But it would be nice to, to your point, maybe you have a 1,000, a 1,500, then you have the slam. And you have some build-up to it. But it was hard. I think it was hard for basically everybody that was watching to, like, conceptualize the importance of the slam. Because it just happened after MLP finals. So, yeah. I think they can fix that next year.

[00:40:31] But congratulations to Federico for making it that far. And then, you know, Hunter. I think he has his ninth singles title. Now moved up to number three all time. I mean, at this point, I thought Chris Hayworth was the best singles player in the world. But I think it's any of those three. Just, like, flip a coin. I don't think there's any difference between them. I think Fed is slightly behind Hunter and Chris. At least in the beginning of year stats.

[00:41:01] Like, I think Chris had the best beginning of year. Hunter was second. And Fed was third, I believe. And I would probably power rank it that way, too. Yeah. Fed is definitely consistent, though. I think Fed is the guy that gets to the finals every time and then loses to one of those two. So, maybe that's the Fed's biggest problem. Yeah. I'm talking more just golds. Because none of these guys care about silvers or bronzes. Obviously, they want a silver more than they want to lose in the round of 64.

[00:41:30] But, like, I really think the top level of pro pickleball is Ricky Bobby if you're not first, you're last. That was true in MLP for a long time. And I think that is now true of Championship Sunday. And I think that's why you see these guys also mixing up partners a bunch. Right? Like, Andre and Christian were the second best team at the beginning of the year. And, like, that wasn't... I'm sorry. Andre and Fed... Fed.

[00:42:00] I forgot exactly what... They switched to Andre and Christian now. So, it was Fed and Christian before and then Andre... Yeah. Wait a minute. Here's what... Here, Zane. I don't know if it's too early or too late for you. It's only 12 o'clock your time. Here's... Here's... I'll break it down. Fed and Christian were the second best team before last year.

[00:42:24] And then they broke up to have Andre and Fed and Christian and Hayden so that they could get better. Like, the second best team, Team Power Forward, broke up. Fed and Christian never played together. No, I'm sorry. Screw that up. Andre and Christian. Oh, is it too early or is it too late for you? Fuck you. I'm just trying to make you feel good. So, yeah. So, Team Power Forward broke up because second wasn't good enough. They tried something else. That didn't work out.

[00:42:53] They came back together. Switching sides. We'll get to men's doubles here in a second. But, yeah. To your point, if you're not first, you're last. And I think that's probably one of the reasons why I think Ben Johns is probably going to wipe his hands with singles. Like, I'm surprised he plays singles in this last event. But, to me, someone like him who's used to getting first, hardest medal to get is third. Why does he want to go out and get double bageled against John Lucian Goins? Granted, he did win a game in the middle of that. But I feel like that's something that he never wants to do again.

[00:43:24] Yeah, I don't know. We will see. But then again, like, okay, Ben is probably not making a championship Sunday run. So, he can go score some points if it matters to him in the round of 64, round of 32. Probably out on Thursday. By Thursday, most likely. By the time that his doubles are, you know, ramping up in intensity.

[00:43:48] Because, like, honestly, Tuesday through Thursday for him in doubles is a walk in the park. Yeah. I don't know. I just, Gabe's not playing singles. He's not playing singles. Hayden. All the people besides Christian aren't playing singles anyway. So, I just don't see any incentive. And he's so far ahead of everybody in points, he doesn't need it. Unless Gabe decides to start playing singles. Yeah.

[00:44:11] So, speaking of that, like, what did you think of the little kerfuffle between Hayden and Christian? And for those of you guys who don't know, basically, Christian and Rachel played Anna and Hayden in the semifinals? Quarterfinals? Semifinals, I think. Semifinals. And after, Anna and Hayden win 11-5, 11-2. And after the match, they're, you know, nothing really happened during the match.

[00:44:40] But after the match, they're tapping paddles. And Christian says to them, must be nice to not play singles. And Hayden and Anna are just like, what? And, like, that was about it. But what do you think of that generally? It's like, I mean, that's an embarrassing look for Christian. I think Eric Tice, who is usually really nice, except when he wants to dunk on me, was like, this is the softest shit I've ever seen. I might have been throwing some swear words into Eric's mouth, so apologies, Eric.

[00:45:10] But I agree. It's like, word for word, I agree with this. It's like, this is how my kids throw tantrums after losing sports or board games with the family. It's like, there's always an excuse. And it's just, Eric is right. It's so soft. I'd be embarrassed. Like, that's why I feel like Anna and Hayden, they weren't upset. They were more like, you're a dumbass. This is like a douchey thing to say. Like, what's happening? Like, are you serious, you child?

[00:45:39] Like, and if I'm Christian just getting beat down, I probably would say the same thing. But I don't know. I don't think it has any factor in the doubles game. Wow. I think it's got a factor. But I mean, I think that was one of the, I think, I mean, my read on this is, I think Christian was just pissed that he lost and blurted out the very first thing that he said without thinking about it at all. I would have to imagine, because if he thought about it for 0.2 seconds, he probably would have been able to come up with anything better than that.

[00:46:07] Which also is just so ironic because his partner, Rachel, didn't play singles either. Like, he was the only one that played singles. So I think it's nothing. I think it was just Christian being pissed off in the moment. I know Christian and Hayden are kind of like boys. I'm sure they, I'm sure they got over this quickly. All right. So Zane, if you listen to our podcast enough or you listen to the King of the Court podcast, which you have choices, right? You will understand that I record out of my parents' basement.

[00:46:37] I do not live there, but I do record out of my parents' basement. And I made the mistake of leaving some apparel from 6-0 on the floor in their basement. And now I no longer have access to it because my dad, who is not even my size, said, screw it, Nico. I'm going to just take your clothes and I'm going to wear it to play pickleball. So I've seen now, I go to pickleball at like seven in the morning. We talked about this.

[00:47:05] The senior citizen community plays at like 637. I see him every day across the pickleball courts wearing my 6-0 apparel launch. So unfortunately, I don't have anything to show you because he has it. I do have their shorts, which are fantastic as well. So check those out. Woo. I've been trying to look a little bit more like Blaine Hovignier. Um, it's not working for my game, but these shorts and their athletic apparel is going

[00:47:34] into my pickleball bag right after this. So Gaston, my dad, Gaston the righty, uh, can't steal any more of it. Nico, I've got to call you out. You still got the tag on those shorts, bro. What's going on here? Bro, I have four kids. I can only play so much pickleball. And luckily they sent me the shorts in every color. They sent me the shirts in every color and they have like a different style, you know, depending on what you want, colors, styles, fits, et cetera. There's a ton. They're all super athletic.

[00:48:04] And don't worry. I'll be wearing these in no time. Gaston hands off my shorts. That sounds bad. Um, but if you're, if you're interested in getting these, um, or anything else from 6-0, head over to 6-0 pickleball.com. That is S-I-X-Z-E-R-O pickleball.com. And this time makes a little more sense because it could have been the number six. It could have been spelled out, but it is everything spelled out 6-0 pickleball.com.

[00:48:32] But like Christian's point, although poorly given it, it's real. It's going to come into effect in my opinion. Like you see it with somebody like Fed and Christian, like it's going to be grueling at these slams, especially if there's heat factors like that and the matches continue to get more competitive. It is going to be tough to, to play all three in a given day. Yeah, I guess.

[00:48:59] And I, and you know, many people said Christian doesn't have to play singles. Singles is the lowest valued event. I don't know. It's his choice, right? Ben, Andre, Gabe, Hayden, all these people are good at singles and they're not playing singles either. Granted, Christian is probably better than all of them and has incentive to play, but I don't know. I think that if you think it's going to affect you, you should withdraw. And if doubles is the most important thing for you, make that work, you know?

[00:49:27] And I think it really comes down to is pickleball like a three discipline sport or is it singles versus doubles? And like, is there a difference, you know? And so to Christian, it matters to win or play all three and to other people who literally doesn't, they don't care at all. Like Hayden is not bothered one bit by the fact that he didn't play singles. He's not winning singles money or singles points or has singles glory or whatever. So I don't know. But I mean, like I think Hayden might, right?

[00:49:55] If I'm Hayden, I'm not playing 36 hours after the MLP finals. Like, you know, he expected to be in the MLP finals. Like I'm not, I'm not playing that. Maybe he'll play some other ones. But I actually really like that. This is the you can point to who is the best and most well-rounded pickleball player. It takes into account all three disciplines. So personally, I like it.

[00:50:19] It's interesting though, because I think now like pickleball is getting more elite. I also think that there's such a different sport. Like, I don't know, like it's not anywhere close to the same thing, playing singles and playing doubles. And so I don't see why, I don't, to me, it doesn't devalue if one person is just a single specialist versus a double specialist. So I don't, I don't feel the need to like be good at all three.

[00:50:47] Um, it is interesting to see them, but I just feel like the more that we play, the better that singles gets, the more that it'll be just like tennis. And I hate to say it because I hate to compare us to tennis in any way, but I think there's going to be the Carlos Alcaraz and the Yannick sinners of singles pickleball that play singles and could not give a shit about doubles and then double specialists that play doubles. But in pickleball, obviously it's reverse doubles as the marquee sport.

[00:51:14] But the problem is if you don't have doubles points, you're going to have to go through qualifying and singles and some of these other events because admission into the main draw is based on your WPR, not your event standings. So theoretically, Chris Hayworth, if he didn't have doubles points, he and other people had more WPR or whatever, he could be in qualifying for singles in theory. Like now that's not happening in practice, but like theoretically that could happen. Yeah, that'd be interesting.

[00:51:45] No. So I want to ask you, Zane, then I want to, I'm going to share, we're going to have the top eight in WPR. I'm going to mention the people that don't play singles. All right. So we have Gabe Tardio, Hayden Patrick Quinn, Andre De Escu, CJ Klinger, Rachel Rohrabacher, Paris Todd, kind of Hurricane Tyra Black. I think that's like six people or Anna Bright, seven people.

[00:52:10] How many tournaments do you think combined this year, those people play? Like, do you think they're going to, do you think they'll, any of those people will start playing singles? Yeah. The funny part is if, if none of them do, none of them have an incentive because it's relative, right? If one of them starts, it'll be a domino effect. But if they all just say, fuck this, I don't want to play singles. And then if I'm Paris and Rachel's not playing singles, I'm like, all right, well, she's not doing it. I guess I don't need to.

[00:52:40] So, and also that crew can score enough doubles points, I think, to, to stay ahead of, you know, the next tier down. So all it takes is one of them to start playing singles. And then I think the rest do. So I don't know. That'll be interesting. That'll be kind of fascinating. In women's, it doesn't matter almost at all because Anna and Anna, Anna Lee and Anna Bright are so far ahead of everybody. They don't need singles.

[00:53:08] Then the next two are Georgia and Tyra who are also so far ahead of people. So like the ranking doesn't make a lot of sense, but in men's Christian is the number three ranked player in WPR. He's got 11,682 points. All right. Less than a thousand points behind him is Hayden. And so Hayden has zero singles points. Hayden can get a thousand singles points in a year and maybe surpass Christian, right?

[00:53:37] And if Hayden's playing with Fed and Andre and Christian are playing, maybe Hayden playing a few more singles matches puts them as a higher seed than Christian and Andre or vice versa. Yeah. So I think that's the biggest one is Hayden. I think Hayden is the one question mark for me. Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. Cause you have somebody like Fed as well, who's going to be helped by something like this. So yeah, it'll be interesting to see. I do think, I do think it's going to end up with more players playing singles. Yeah, I, for sure.

[00:54:07] I'm just, I want to see if it, if it affects the top, but I do think we'll see the middle, you know, numbers nine through 30 really play singles. So that'll be fun. So, so anyway, so we had, you mentioned Christian and the Anna comment in mixed doubles. The other mixed double semifinal Georgia Johnson and JW Johnson, no longer the two seed. Maybe it's the best thing that ever happened to them.

[00:54:33] Now the three seed overtaken by Anna and Hayden had to play Ben and Anna Lee in the semifinals, took them out. But they are now, I think 22 and three against them lifetime second year in a row at the same event. Is this the start of the, the revival of Georgia and J-Dub? Cause they looked pretty bad to start the year now looking a lot better. Yeah. Well, first off, I'm impressed with us making it 50 minutes into a podcast without talking about Anna Lee losing.

[00:55:03] Like that's crazy. That's, that's wild. It's because we were sold. Then she came on the pod last week. It was fantastic. I became a fan. Now I can't say anything bad about Anna Lee for the rest of my life. I definitely can, but yeah, I'm surprised too. I actually forgot. I'm glad we're talking about it now. Cause this will probably be the thumbnail somehow. Somehow that didn't feel like the biggest part of this tournament, even though it should have been, I don't know. But yeah, honestly, a couple of interesting things to play.

[00:55:33] I did a little bit of a breakdown of that match in my recap video that I did. First game was just kind of sloppy by the Johnsons. And honestly, like not every point was sloppy, but they, they lost the unforced error battle. Second game, they cleaned it up. Georgia is just hitting dead dinks cross court with Anna Lee. And I, there's nobody in pickleball that shuts down Anna Lee better than JW Johnson. Definitely not Ben.

[00:55:59] Anna Lee is just firing at Ben constantly when, uh, when they play each other in mixed doubles, but JW was on everything. Uh, and when Georgia's not missing forehand dinks, even if she's popping them up, not missing, there's no team where I see Anna Lee, like thinking, what do I do against this team? Ben's offense was working. Anna Lee's really didn't work. And then when she's passive, she kind of, I don't know.

[00:56:27] The rest of her game doesn't feel as confident either. Yeah. Yeah. So what's interesting is like, they have such a bad record against this team. Like, you know, like I said, like 22 and three or something like that. So they've had their number, but is it, I think two things that people had mentioned and I want to get your take is one is Anna Lee passed, just stopped attacking completely. Like it was at the right move. Should she have attacked more? Like, did she do it?

[00:56:55] I think she just got beat down a few times as she was like, I can't do this. Um, and then second is JW Johnson 2.0. We, we let him spread his wings and fly away from Georgia Johnson and MLP, uh, had to do a lot more with Brooke Buckner. And now he's moving. Now he looks more like Ben. I don't know. You know, he's, he's definitely more aggressive is, is which, what was the reason for the win?

[00:57:23] Like what changed over the other 25 times they played? Yeah. Well, I mean, they've got a bad record against them, but relative to everybody else, they're the most successful team against Ben and Anna Lee other than maybe Hayden and Anna. The only other, the only other team that's better than them is just Anna Bright plus random partner. So, yeah. But I think they're what Ben and Anna Lee have eight losses total now. I think so. And the three of them, seven or eight total.

[00:57:52] And like half of them are to JW in Georgia. So, so yeah, you could actually say that they have, they're successful against them in a weird way. But first off, I think, I think that JW is playing really, really well. Like we didn't give enough credit early on in the Dallas flash to the fact that JW was, was moving so much. Jada, I, I, again, I said this in my recap video. I watched that back. Like Jada is like deep in his bag. Like he's pulling off bounce speed ups, which he never used to.

[00:58:22] I saw him lob. That was crazy. Like he's poaching, moving, like he's playing really, really well. And yeah, like the entire first half of the year, he was paddle tinkering, right? We saw him playing with some Selkirk, some Franklin, some Yolas, paddle techs, pickles, everything. He has settled on, on pickle. And so maybe there's some just confidence in the, in the paddle, which I don't think

[00:58:51] the paddles. I don't think the paddle is the end all be all, but confidence is real. Right. And so you see this with, I was actually thinking about this. It was like, you see this with baseball players when they go into a slump, they'll change like the tiniest little thing. And it's probably not about the change itself, but, but, but the fact that you've got something that you did change something, right? It's almost more, more mental. You know what I mean?

[00:59:19] So playing well, I'm sure the pickle paddle is, is, is contributing to that. But I also think just the change and settling on something probably helps too. Yeah. I think so. And I'll tell you, nobody is more upset with Jada, the new JW Johnson than me. Let me explain why. So if anybody has watched me play pickleball surprise, I don't move my feet very often. Right. And then, then the number one comment I get besides the fact that I don't move my feet

[00:59:45] and I don't bend my knees is your ready position is your paddle is almost like, you know, at your side. Right. And then I get these, I see these videos that Zane creates as say, like, don't put your hand in your pocket or by your hip. And then all of a sudden I look at all my videos and my hands like this. So basically I am like the model of bad pickleball behavior. And I could at least always point to, yeah, but look at JW Johnson. The dude doesn't move. The dude's paddles at his knees and he can do it.

[01:00:13] And so I would just say, I'm the homeless man's JW Johnson, not the poor man. I'm the homeless man's JW Johnson. And then they go, oh, okay, that makes sense. Now I can't even say that because he's, he looks like a normal pickleball player. He's actually moving. His paddle is sometimes in the right position. And so I hate it. I need to find a new person. Zane, if you know anybody else that doesn't move in pro pickleball that I can now pretend like I model my game after I I'm, I'm all ears, but, uh, JW, you have betrayed me. Like, you know what?

[01:00:40] Tama kind of looks like he's just standing there sometimes, but like, you can't say that he doesn't move right in his ready position. It looks like he's just kind of hanging out and then he just like takes off. So he kind of looks like it. Will McKinnon. Yeah. He kind of, sometimes he looks so straight up. I've never seen anybody look less fussed when getting in a hands battle. I feel like he could probably actually move more, but maybe that, I don't know. I guess Tama will somebody, you know, I don't know.

[01:01:09] I need, I need, I need a new role model. Yeah. Well, I mean the, uh, the, that match was, was interesting to, to watch. Honestly, AL didn't throw a tantrum or anything. She's kind of walked off and she was like, I think they just got beat. Like there wasn't too much that they should, they did wrong. Like J-Dub and Giorgio stops missing. They, they were just cooking in the hands battles too. Like, I don't know. That was a tough L. Yeah. It's, it's interesting.

[01:01:39] I, I, I feel like it was a combination of, I don't know what to do. I just, I'm getting beat from Annalie and an exhale. Like I played a ton of MLP. I'm tired. I win everything. I won the one thing that I haven't won. And like, okay, if there's a time to lose, like, I feel like this is in the budget. Like she's somebody that doesn't have a budget for losing, but this is as close as I feel like an acceptable loss in her book. Like it was this event, this, this experience. So you're right.

[01:02:09] No, no tantrum. She, you know, I always say she's a poor loser, but this time was not the case. I think she was shell shocked. Like I kind of was a little bit, but I guess going back to our, our interview with her, which if you guys haven't checked that out, we had like 25 minutes of just raw, pretty unfiltered Annalie, which I think was awesome. I feel like a lot of times you see some Annalie content and it's very polished, very, you know, almost very professional.

[01:02:37] Like she kind of, uh, she opened up to us a little bit, which I was excited about. And, and she said, you know, we asked, how are you going to celebrate your MLP win? And, and she was like, well, I'm going to go get some dessert and then prepare for North Carolina. So it wasn't like this was a MLP hangover or a, like something that she didn't care about as much. Uh, that was her fully, you know, locked in and she, she lost. And the other thing, the, one of the craziest things that caught me off guard from that interview

[01:03:07] was when we asked her to rank where the MLP title meant to her. What did you think about that? I was surprised. What did she, she said? Definitely top 10. I think she said like probably top 10. Yeah. And I was like, not top three, not, I don't, to me, I was like, what, what is better besides maybe like your first or I don't know, like you probably in the top three, probably your

[01:03:34] first, maybe like a big comeback win against, you know, Simone early in the career. But I'm like, I, maybe you can come up with a handful, right? Maybe. A U S open or something, but like anything outside of top five, maybe honestly, I feel that would kind of shocked me.

[01:03:57] I think the only, to me, one of the reasons why it's probably not higher is because she went two and two. And like, if she would have dominated, closed out the match when she should have closed out the match with no, not when she should have, when she had the chance, like maybe it feels a little bit better. But I, I am assuming winning while also losing your last match probably is like, eh, you know, I should win this. I don't know. That could be. Well, I mean, that's another thing she said. And she's like, I was mostly just mad that I didn't close out the mix.

[01:04:27] I'm like, well, that is some crazy behavior. You won. But Hey, that's why, that's why I'm not world number one. That's for sure. Oh my goodness. You know, and that, that's why unfortunately she wasn't MVP of MLP finals as much as that freak show on Twitter that will not stop messaging me about Federico versus Annalie. Federico even had to go in and be like, Hey, thank you. Thank you, Nico, for exiting out of this conversation. Wild stuff on a pickleball Twitter. Yeah.

[01:04:54] So for those, you guys, some, some person on pickleball Twitter was writing a fricking manifesto as to why Annalie should have been the finals MVP. And I mean, like, I think this is about it. Like Annalie wins everything. Like she, she is the most valuable player on the fives, right? This is different. Like also not really that important, right? It was very, very strange.

[01:05:21] But I think if you pulled just the overall pickleball public, that's gotta be like a 98% like yeah, Fed is, was, was MVP. Yeah, it was crazy. And there were so many messages. And then after exiting, like two days later, I get more messages. And here's one of my favorites. Here, lazy out of shape media like Jimmy Miller and Nico Valencia. Thank you so much. Nico the lefty. Anyway, who have no clue what it takes to be there at the level Annalie watered is can't

[01:05:49] stop eating Cheetos long enough to defend their positions and instead double down on their mistake without a shred of afterthought. I like this guy more now. Actually. I just like, what a dumbass. It's insane. Like I had, I had to, I had to scroll through like a wall. You guys can't actually see this. Dang it. Well, there's like a wall of all of his messages to find that one. And there's like five more after that. It was legit. Like what I saw, it was like a 15 piece tweet. Yeah, exactly. And it wasn't even AI. It was incredible.

[01:06:18] It was, this is all this person's thoughts. But I was insane. I was like, Zane, are you going to say anything? And my favorite was your response was it's giving unhinged. And then I was like, yes, yes. So hopefully I don't ever see this guy in real life because I'm actually nervous. But so, so anyway, yeah. Annalie, sorry, you weren't MVP for the MLP finals, whether or not I made a mistake or not. I don't think so. But so she didn't win mixed doubles. That's their second loss on the year. But she turned it around women's singles.

[01:06:47] Annalie is now one 830 days in a row. Is that where we're at at this point? Some stupid number insane. And goes through her first three matches, like 66 and 3 or 60 something, 66 and 3, 66 and 2, something like that. Four pickles and just pretty much rolled through almost every, every person except for Kate Fahey in the last game, 11-9. Like, yeah, no fun to watch. It was a beat down. At least she gave us an 11-9 game.

[01:07:17] Yeah, absolute beat down. No MLP hangover there. Yeah, she's well over two years. Last loss was June 2nd, 2026. She's good. Sorry, 2024. She's good at Big A Ball. Two things. One is there was like a shred of hope I had. And it might have been at like 7-6 or something like that in the second game. Kate Fahey gets this like cookie of like a half lob. She goes for a swinging volley, hits it right into the net. And then at like 8-9, tweaks her ankle, calls a medical timeout.

[01:07:47] So bad luck for Kate. Almost pulled out a third game. Probably would have gotten smoked in the third game. I don't know. It's tough. Annalise is so good. But my question on the number. So there, I'm not sure if you've seen, Zane, have you seen, I'm not sure if you're habitually online like I am. There's a guy who is not cutting his hair until Manchester United soccer wins five games in a row. Have you ever heard of this guy? Oh yeah, no, I have seen that. His hair is ridiculous. It's the funniest shit I've ever seen. You guys got to look it up.

[01:08:16] I forget what the guy, the dude's name is, but he basically every single day. Now he's got millions of followers. It's just like day number 865 of not cutting my hair until Manchester wins five games in a row. And I think it's like, they're at like 680 and his hair looks insane. One, my question is, you know nothing about soccer. So who's going to cut their hair or what streak is going to end first, Manchester or that? But how long is it going to be? What's the number? What do you think the number is going to be when she loses a singles match?

[01:08:46] Wow. That's crazy. I think Kate's somewhat knocking at the door. I will go out on a limb and say, oh man, this is going to get clipped to eternity. But I can't wait. I feel like I think it ends in 2026. In 2026? I could see her losing a match this season. This season. So what's the number? Give me a number. It's not that country. Oh man.

[01:09:16] That's like three months. That's three months. I'll give you my pick. Yeah. Let's hear your pick. Okay, so here's the thing. I think Anna Lee kind of cares about history and legacy. So two things. Is I think she's going to go... Oh fuck. Did she go undefeated last year? She went undefeated last year. So that doesn't matter. She is going to hit 1,000 days. I think that number actually means something to her in my head. I've made it up. But I think she wants to get to 1,000.

[01:09:44] At that point, she can then once again exhale and lose. And I actually think it might be good for her to lose one for her mental health and sanity. I'm not sure if you remember when we were kids, Cal Ripken Jr. played 2,000 consecutive baseball games in a row. And then when he missed the game, he sat out on purpose. He didn't miss it because of injury or anything. He's like, enough is enough. I'm done. And so I'm not saying Anna Lee's going to throw a game.

[01:10:13] But I think eventually she's going to be like, I need a break from this. And we'll take her foot off the gas or off her opponent's throat. So I'm going to go 1,068 days. Pass the number. You're honestly probably right. I just think it's such a crazy... There's got to be some sort of slip up at some point. Like, Kate's been knocking at the door, like games here and there. Taking a couple games. Kate's also playing, I think, her best ball.

[01:10:42] And playing very, very well. Okay, we'll put it this way. I think she loses. I'm walking it back slightly. I think she loses this season. This season, okay. Yeah. Give me a number, Zane. Over, under... So mine was 1,068. Over, under 1,068 days. Under. Under, okay. She's at, like, 700 now? No, she's well over 700. She's at, like, 830. Yeah, okay. So I think she loses this season.

[01:11:12] I'll go under yours. Under, okay. I like it. This is insane. And is it Kate that beats her? Who beats her? Call your shot. I feel like it's got to be somebody... Kate's the obvious one. But I feel like Anna Lee is going to just mentally prepare for Kate enough. I feel like it would be somebody that maybe trees out of their mind and she didn't, like, see it coming. Right? Like, like a Caitlin. Like a Sophia Seving. Leia.

[01:11:41] Somebody like that. I think it would be somebody a little bit unexpected. Or Kate. I don't know. Or Kate. I don't know. I'm grasping at straws here. All right. It's hard. When the person's unbeatable, it's hard to say who's going to beat her. Right? I'm going to also do just what you did. I'm going to hedge. I'm going to say Kate is the most likely. But my dark horse candidate, who I said at the beginning of our podcast run, is Kiora Kunimoto. I think she could do it.

[01:12:11] I think she hits hard. I think she hits deep. That's going to be my... And she's not like, to your point, like she would play her in like a quarterfinals or might sneak up on her. I don't know. That pick doesn't look as good after Sofia Seving just absolutely beat the living shiz out of her. But in their match. But that's my pick. Kiora. All right. Well, segue. Let's talk about Sofia. First PPA tournament.

[01:12:36] There was confusion over the summer whether she'd be back with APP or PPA. Both tours saying that they were going to be playing. I felt like it was probably never really in doubt that the PPA would end up getting her. Especially after signing MLP. But first off, tough L for the APP. But where do you think she ranks in the different disciplines? I'll go through the results.

[01:13:03] So she and Casey lost like 12-10 in the third in the first round to Riley and Catherine. So brutal draw. She lost 3-7 to Kate Fahey in the quarters of singles. And then Sofia and Catherine lost I think to Paris. And Rachel 12-10 like 11-5 or something like that. So honestly like no deep runs. But I do feel like a good showing.

[01:13:33] And she obviously proved it in MLP as well. Yeah. I think she is... I'm going to put her at... Hmm. I'm going to say 9th. 9th best in doubles. And then I'm going to put her at like 6th in singles. I don't know. I think... I'm looking at the top 10 in women's. I actually think she's better than Catherine. Yeah. And... In singles or in doubles? Yes. Both. Yeah. Okay.

[01:14:03] But... I agree. Annalee, Anna Bright, Georgia, Tyra, better than her. Catherine, I think she's better than Catherine. Paris, Rachel, Kate Fahey, I think are all better than her. And then Tina Pisnick is number 9. And I think that's kind of like right there. I'd say I put her behind Tina Pisnick above Catherine Parenteau. Catherine is my number 10 person in women's doubles. Yeah. I'd actually agree with that. Yeah. I'd agree with that. What about singles? Singles?

[01:14:32] I think you've got a clear one too, which is Anna Lee, Kate. I think Kate's definitely like put herself into like she's a clear two. You got Caitlin Christian. You've got Brooke Buckner after that. And I can see... I think she's right in the conversation with those two. Yeah. Or Leia. You think she's better than Leia in singles? I think she's probably... I mean like Leia is very up and down. So like I think Leia could take the paddle out of her hand and beat her.

[01:15:01] I think Leia also... Didn't she... She kind of... She lost to someone somewhat random this tournament, didn't she? Did she? I don't know. Great question. No, did she lose? I think she might have lost to someone. Ugh. I don't remember. You think she's... Yeah. And she already beat Kiora. So... Yeah. I think she's right around that like... Like right behind the top four. Which I think are... And I actually put Leia in the top... I would call it a top five. And then I would put like Kiora and Sophia and like...

[01:15:31] I thought Kelly... Kelly... What's her last name? Oh, that's who she lost to. I think she lost to Kylie Ulery. Kylie Ulery. She's good. Yeah. Like random, but she's also really good. So... She's around there. So... But yeah. I mean... I think... Now here's the question. Like... I think Catherine's a great partner for her to start as well. I think eventually she'll... She'll upgrade at some point. I actually think she could play great with Tina. But then... I think she's gonna go with Kate. To be honest.

[01:15:59] Like put Sophia on... On the left. Kate on the right. Like... I kind of like that. Kate's also one of the odd people out in the partnerships. Right? You got Georgia Tyra, Rachel and Paris. And then Annalie Anna Bright. Which kind of leaves Kate and Tina and Sophia out. I like Sophia and Kate. That's actually... That is good. I think Kate and Leia bought themselves another tournament or two.

[01:16:28] Like I was surprised that Kate and Leia had partnered together. But they were... I think... Out of all four events... Or all five events... They were the only non-top four team to make the semifinals. Was Kate and Leia. Every other event was chalk. One, two, three, four. But... Kate and Leia... Yeah, but who of their... Their four seed they beat was like Tina and Lacey or something like that? It was Tina and Lacey? Yeah. Yeah. That's the weakest four seed out of all of them.

[01:16:58] And... Yeah. I think that's the thing. It's like... I think Tina probably... Is another person maybe odd man out in the... The... The partnerships. Because I think Tina is better than Lacey. Or... You know... Needs a better partner than Lacey. So... Yeah. We'll see. Obviously... Also... Can't talk about Sophia without talking about... My favorite... Oh, I can't even... Danny Townsend. Who... You know... Noticeably absent from this event. Because she's playing back in... In Australia. In Asia. MLP Australia.

[01:17:28] Not playing PPAs here. I feel like one... There's got to be a way to get her back. The PPA needs her. And... That would be a team... I wouldn't mind seeing either. Is you know... See a Sophia and a Danny together. Or something like that. But... Yeah. Sarah. Yeah. We missed... We missed Danny and Sarah. Come back guys. Come back. Exactly. And... And I'm losing the bet. I told Danny. I said... There's no way that you play an entire MLP season. And then don't just permanently... Move to the US to play PPAs. And she's like... Nah. Not a chance.

[01:17:58] And she was right. But... I think... I think her partner... Her girlfriend or partner... I'm not sure. She's doing like law school last year. Maybe after that happens... They can all move to the US. But we need our Aussies back in the PPA. Agree. Hard agree. Alright. What else we got? Obviously so... Ben and Gabe won their 13th, 14th straight title. Beat Andre and Christian. Most interesting thing there was...

[01:18:28] Andre playing the right. And if Andre was going to play the right... I still don't understand why he wouldn't play with Hayden. Hayden and Andre I think is the best team that could challenge Ben and Gabe. Not to say Christian is playing well from the left. But like... I think that pairing... The reason why Andre and Hayden doesn't work is because they're both... People say they're both left side guys. Like yeah I suppose that's true. But you're... If you're usually much better than your partner... You're going to play the left side.

[01:18:58] So like... Andre played the right side with Ben a couple years ago... When they were testing out. And then Hayden was playing the right side the entire year with Fed. Like they can both play a good right side. So... Andre and Hayden. If there's a team that's going to beat Ben and Gabe... It is that team. Okay. Interesting. So... I wanted to talk a little bit about this. Because to your point... The side switching was interesting. And there's like a lot of people... That...

[01:19:27] Everybody has just decided is a right side guy... Is a left side guy. Right? Andre is a left side guy. Only. Not anymore. Fed. People thought that... You know... Hell would freeze over before he... Became a right side guy. Right side guy. Right? JW Johnson... Still a left side guy. He might be like the last remaining... I guess Ben as well. But Ben's so good he doesn't have to do... He can do whatever the fuck he wants. But... Maybe JW becomes...

[01:19:56] A right side guy. Right? And so... I guess my question is like... Are some of these teams... Either playing on the wrong side? Or... Is stacking... Maybe counterproductive? Like... What if Andre... And Christian played straight up... Versus... Stacking? Yeah. I like that. Especially... When you need the underdog... I think you want to... Make it... As little rhythm... As possible. But... You also need to be able to... To like... Execute that.

[01:20:25] You can't screw yourself up in the meantime. I would like to see... I think that's a team that could play... Straight up Ben and... And... And Gabe. Just... What about... Not get stuck in certain patterns? What about Hayden and Fed? Have them play straight up. Yeah. I don't mind it. But I mean... The only problem there... Is... Hayden gets completely iced... On the right side. When you have Andre... And Christian together... Like... I don't think they would just... Completely ice out... One player or another.

[01:20:55] But I think if you got Fed... And Hayden... And Hayden on the right... Hayden gets completely iced. That's what was... Their kind of downfall. Is... Hayden was literally standing in the center of the... Of the court... Trying to see a ball. And he wouldn't. Yeah. That's fair. Okay. Interesting. I just like... I want to see something that mixes it up. To your point... Gabe and Ben... Just never lose. And so... One thing... I think we might have done this once before... But I'd like to revisit it again. Oh by the way... Before we get to it... Women's doubles...

[01:21:24] Do we need to say anything else... Besides the fact that Anna and Anna just... Killed everybody? Is there anything in women's doubles that... Is of note? I got nothing else really. I mean we talked about the new partnerships a little bit. Like... Nah. It was just a steamrolling session. Yeah. I love watching women's doubles. But Anna and Anna just... You know... I'm not going to say make it unfun. But it's just... You know... We know what's happening. No. I mean I think it's the... I think it's one of if not... One of the best events to watch. Because I love the way that they have firefights. I love the way that they actually play more aggressively...

[01:21:54] In a lot of ways than the guys. But it's just... It's so lopsided with those two. The only thing I'll say is like... I miss watching them play against each other from last week. Yes. Me too. Me too. I wonder if eventually they figure out some kind of rules to split some of these partnerships up. I don't think it's possible in any way. But I would love to see it. And a slight victory lap from... I know people were saying... Anna Lee and Georgia better than Anna and Anna. I think you just had to watch like five minutes of Pickleball here.

[01:22:24] And just realize that's not the case. By far of the best women's doubles pairing option. It's not even close. I do... So I want to do a ranking here. But I have a question for you in doubles. Is how close is Anna Bright to Anna Lee Waters? So, you know... Anna Bright is by far the biggest heel when it comes to beating them in mixed. Besides maybe Georgia and J-Dub. I mean, she's beat them with...

[01:22:52] I think with Dekel and with, you know, Andre and Hayden and just James. Basically everybody, right? And when she was not playing against... Or with Anna Lee, she was winning a good amount with Rachel Rohrabacher. She put the beat down in the MLP finals. Basically had like a 50-50 record throughout the last year against Anna Lee. In probably both mixed and in women's. Are they close? Is it like... I would say...

[01:23:22] My thought is that Anna Bright is closer to Anna Lee Waters than she is to whoever number three is. Yeah, I agree with that. I'd say if you're going based on duper... My theory... I don't know what their dupers are. But my theoretical is like... Anna Lee is probably 0.3 better than Anna Bright. So like that's a decent margin. But, you know, in doubles, you have the option to just kind of... Not really hit it to Anna Lee. So you can get...

[01:23:52] So like Anna Lee is still head and shoulders the best. But when she's losing, she's not hitting too many balls in women's doubles. That makes sense. And that's why women's doubles is so good. Because why they never lose is because your second option is to hit it to Anna Bright repeatedly. Which is never going to work out for you. So, okay. I actually think...

[01:24:13] I think Dane Gingrich had a post yesterday saying that mental is the only thing that's stopping Anna Bright from being as good of... Or not better... If not better than Anna Lee Waters. I wouldn't go that far. And maybe I'm taking what he said a little too far. But I do think there's a universe where Anna Bright can become as good as Anna Lee Waters. In doubles. Do you think that will ever happen? Do you think that's possible? I mean, anything's possible. I mean, I don't see it.

[01:24:42] I mean, she's close. She works hard. But you know that Anna Lee is going to work just as hard. And Anna Lee is younger. Maybe she gets burnt out or something. So it's not impossible. But I would say improbable. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. I just think it's closer than most people think. But anyway, which is why women's doubles is not always the most fun to watch when it comes to Championship Sunday. But what I do want to do here, I want to switch gears slightly. Just to clarify, that's not because Nico and I are disgusting misogynists.

[01:25:13] It's just because it's a beatdown. Also not the case. All my favorite players are women. I like women's doubles. Give me a Kawamoto's versus like a Georgia and Tyra all day. I like that. Just Anna and Anna is inevitable. I'd say that's like the equivalent of like I have women friends. All my favorite pickleball players are women. So I want to talk, speaking of rankings and being unbeatable. The one seeds throughout the year have been basically untouchable.

[01:25:42] This week, almost no exception. But I want you to rank the one seeds from least dominant to most dominant. Because I think it might be a little bit different than what people think. Okay. Least dominant has to go men's singles. I think Worth was the one seed. Like very consistent, but like relative to the other four, not so much. Number two.

[01:26:10] I mean, or number four. I mean, I guess you've got to go. Currently, you have to go Mick. Because Ben and Gabe haven't lost this year. I don't think it's, I think in a normal period of time, I do think that Anna Lee and Ben are more dominant than Ben and Gabe. But recently, Ben and Gabe were dominant. So anyway, I would put mixed doubles at number four. Men's doubles at number three.

[01:26:38] Even though they have an undefeated season. I just think that, I mean, they're not double pickling opponents through the first three rounds like Anna Lee and Anna Bright are. So then you've got Anna Lee and Anna Bright and Anna Lee and singles. Do you have any differing opinion there? No. I am surprised every time I see that Ben and Gabe are like 45-0. They haven't lost a tournament in like 10 plus.

[01:27:09] I think Anna Lee and Ben are more dominant than Ben and Gabe. The numbers don't reflect that recently. They've lost twice this year. Ben and Gabe not losing at all. But like, I feel like Ben and Gabe's matches are closer. I think the field is closer to them generally. Yep. And I think out of all those matchups, men's singles is the only one where I would not take the number one player versus the field. Right?

[01:27:36] So like if I was a betting person, I would bet the field in men's singles. Every other one I'd bet like, give me 10 to 1 odds on the number one team and I'm taking the number one team. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good point. That's a good way of thinking about it. But yeah, I mean, Anna Lee by far the most dominant. I think, yeah, it's interesting. Women's doubles for sure is number two, but the numbers say it should be Ben and Gabe. And it's crazy to think that Ben and Anna Lee are the fourth most dominant one seed.

[01:28:06] And I think that you have to go that route. I think based on opponent, based on their results, that's it. Now my question here now is, I want to flip it. I want you to give me, putting you on the spot here. I want to rank the top five contenders in doubles.

[01:28:24] So what I mean by this is, give me some teams either as situated or could be created by you, Zane, that have the best chance of taking out one of the doubles teams. Man, that's tough. In men's doubles, give me Hayden and Andre. That's the only one I really have. And then in women's doubles, I like the pairings as they are. Georgia and Tyra together. I like Rachel and Paris together. I don't see any team.

[01:28:54] You can pair them up however you want and they're not beating Anna Lee and Anna Bright. And then mixed could be interesting, right? Maybe in an Anna Bright, J-Dub situation. J-Dub shuts down Anna Lee. And yeah, so maybe the best pairing is Anna Bright, J-Dub and mixed. Or at least a pairing worth trying. But I don't think they ever will. Yeah, I think so. Anna, okay.

[01:29:22] Yeah, I think the best chances are basically Anna Bright and test out a carousel of different guys like she did last year. And it worked out actually pretty well with a few of them. But yeah, right now, I think it's Anna Bright and Hayden. Obviously, Georgia and J-Dub. And then in men's, it's just like, I don't know. What's crazy is the men's field is so close. But I just don't see Ben and Gabe losing anytime soon.

[01:29:49] I think it'll be a random one to like Fed in some semifinal or something. Or I think it'll be like a random one to like Eric Onsen's and CJ Klinger, you know, in like a quarterfinal. Give me one where they take an extra game to warm up. They forget that they actually need to play. And then they just get blindsided by those things. You know, I don't know. So we'll see. All right. So that is the weekend in PPA.

[01:30:16] We do have Guess My Duper. All right. Now we're going to do Guess My Duper presented by 11624 Pickleball. Great paddles. Is it the stupidest name in all of Pickleball? I don't know. Am I allowed to say that for a sponsor? Maybe not. But you'll remember it. 11624. You can learn the backstory later. But they just came out with the Jelly Bean Paddle, which is like bringing back control, making control sexy. I'm not sure if I think it's sexy still.

[01:30:45] But fantastic control paddle. And the Power 2 Ultra, which is spelled like Ultre. So once again, you guys are really messing with me. It has an E at the end and an accent mark. Anyway, it might be Paddle of the Year. It's fantastic. Check it out. They like invented the flat top hybrid. So 11624, thank you guys for sponsoring. And here's Guess My Duper. Their SEO must just be a nightmare because it's 11SIX24.

[01:31:14] Yeah, that's like an Elon Musk style thing that they're doing. I don't know. So wild. I had to put 11624 in the dictionary of my talk to text as well because it would always get it wrong, obviously. And so I have finally trained my phone and my computer to spell it out the right way. But, you know, shout out to them. I've used the name so many times because people ask me what paddle to get and I always recommend one of their paddles. So it's now officially in my dictionary. Congratulations.

[01:31:44] 11624. Guess My Duper. Okay. All right. Well, BYU against James Madison. I'm going to go ahead and say these guys are... Is this Ryan Morneau? Is this Pickleball Breakdowns? Is that who we're looking at? I think this is our boy. Okay.

[01:32:13] Interesting little flick. Oh, big left. We're a big left. Does not trust his partner. I like that. We should Pickleball Breakdowns. Pickleball Breakdowns. We should break him down. Oh! Okay. Okay. Oh, lefty. Oh, nice. Oh my gosh. And the celebration. Oh, yeah. I'd be celebrating like that. That was a good point. All right. Here he is in mix. Let's see if he takes the same role. Oh, no.

[01:32:42] He has more faith in his mixed partner than he did in his men's partner. My man. This guy plays a big middle. He's going to ATP that. Oh, it goes full bag. He's out of there. Ooh. Okay. My boy Ryan. So here's the thing. I feel like he's one of those guys that's played like weaker competition. So he's good.

[01:33:11] But his duper is not going to reflect it. You know what I mean? The only guy to win a match at the mid-season tournament for the collegiate all-stars. So I'm going to go 6.1 level. I know he's not going to be a duper 6.1. I bet you he's like a duper 5.73. But his duper should be 6.1. 6.1. All right. And for reference, Zane, what is your duper? I have no idea what my duper is. All right. We'll have to do a guess Zane's duper here in a bit. We should do a guess Zane's duper.

[01:33:43] I am going to go ahead and say he's a 5.875. Okay. All right. And the reveal? My God. Wow. I'm right again. I'm on a heater. All right, guys. That's the Pickle Pod. If you made it an hour and 40 minutes into this episode and you haven't hit the like button and you haven't subscribed, honestly, go f*** yourself. I have been here with Nico putting up with his ass for an hour and a half for you.

[01:34:11] And you can't even hit the subscribe button. What are we doing here? Join the Pro Pickleball Talk Discord. Pickle Pod. I'm sick of it. Pickle Pod.