Jack Sock Gets the Last Laugh after BRUTAL Bodybag

[00:00:00] To be fair, Nico is in my phone still as PBTwitterNico I didn't know what your last name was, I know you play Pickleball, I know you're on Twitter, I know your name was Nico, so PBTwitterNico Yeah, so you're in my phone as Jack Sock Alright guys, welcome back to the PicklePod

[00:00:28] I'm back in my studio for the first time in a while and we have a lot to talk about We've got Nico's professional Pickleball debut, we've got more line calling drama We've got My Bodybag on JackSock and what led up to that and everything Tama Shimabukuro crushing it at the PPA and everything else that went down We've got a lot of stuff going on, I feel like it was a sneaky ton going on last week

[00:00:56] Week? I don't know, what do you think Nico? Yeah, I agree, I think like it was the week where content like created itself Like there was some outside things happening but For a tournament that had a relatively boring Championship Sunday Everything else but was extremely entertaining From crazy upsets to a 15 year old dominating to getting blocked on Instagram For me and some other people to starting a support group

[00:01:24] It was a wild week Yeah, yeah, well I don't know how much of that we can actually get into So yeah, we'll see about that I was actually thinking to myself If it was a good Championship Sunday and there was like an upset or two Like it was on pace to be like one of the best PPAs ever I would argue it was the craziest Tuesday through Saturday PPA we've had 100%, 100%

[00:01:52] And then Championship Sunday I think was complete straight set dominations by the one seed Maybe, I don't think there was even a single four gamer I finished my recap video by like 2.30 It was crazy I finished scripting I'm like what am I going to do with an actual Sunday evening now? Yeah, I just waited to tune in to Tama playing in his singles match And then I kind of just like mailed it in for the rest of it So you might have to Did you see the first point of that match? I did, I did And I was like oh my gosh This kid is going to be, he's insane

[00:02:21] So if you guys didn't watch this Tama Shimabukuro played Chris Hayworth in the finals Lots of spoiler alerts I don't know If you're listening to the Pickle Pod And you're going to be like Dude, spoiler Just stop listening And if you don't care about that Because you already watched Subscribe If you hate spoilers Unsubscribe There you go That's what we do But yeah, he makes the finals And the first point was like a 15 ball rally Of Tama just all over the court Like just no warm up

[00:02:48] Like just straight into like unbelievable gets And Chris Hayworth Very first point is like What is going on? And then he got, you know Proceeded to get worked after that But yeah Shook his head So where do you want to start? You know what? Why don't I We'll kind of We'll talk a lot about the pro game On the PPA Tour But let's take a detour And talk about APP Sacramento Zane's favorite city His favorite tour Nico took a pit stop To play Pro Pickle Ball Yeah

[00:03:18] And the pit The emphasis on pit The armpit stop You know there's a I live in So I live in Reno And there's a city called Battle Mountain Nevada That's like four hours east on the way to Salt Lake It's in the middle of nowhere And it literally has a billboard That's like their claim to fame Is we are the armpit of America So Battle Mountain Nevada already has that Zane's looking to change that with Sacramento Yeah I'd rather go to Battle Mountain Nevada Or wherever the hell you say it was I'll take you over there So well first off The tournament is actually in Roseville, California

[00:03:47] So that was a plus side It's at a great facility Johnson Ranch It was fun I went I think I might have shared this a little bit Last week But I played a money ball tournament In Reno With this woman Laura Who Basically Doesn't really play a ton of pickleball But played college tennis And apparently she has Three other sisters That all played D1 tennis Like they went to Indiana Wisconsin Notre Dame And I forget the other one Like legit

[00:04:17] Tennis players And one of them's like Hey I love Nico On the pod I love Nico On TikTok Instagram Etc Will he play with me In APPSAC And I was like Look I am not good enough But she insisted So Chrissy Thanks for playing with me She's like a You know 5-5 duper I'm like At this point I'm like a 4-5 duper And so I was in for You know Tough sledding And It happened on Thursday And If I were going to Backtrack a little bit I was at PPA Atlanta And

[00:04:46] They I was leaving on Tuesday To go home to Reno Which is like 2 hours away from Sacramento Five minutes from the airport I get like an alert on my phone That says Your flight's been cancelled I was like Oh that's weird Like It's not delayed Just There was no delay Just immediately cancelled So Were you flying Spirit again Nico? No I was flying American Airlines And so I was surprised Right And so I pulled into Like the Cell phone waiting lot And tried to contact them And they're like Yeah I would be happy To rebook your flight

[00:05:16] As soon as we can get you out Is Friday I'm like That's three days from now Like what are you talking about Like this I was like That's crazy What happens Like maybe later tonight Worst case scenario Tomorrow morning But like Friday Was the earliest And Out of Atlanta Atlanta's the busiest airport In the world man They didn't have anything else Exactly I couldn't believe it So They said What we could do If you want to leave Man it sounds like Everybody hates Sacramento This was actually even going to Reno So I don't know But So what happened She eventually gave me an option Of You can fly They're like Oh we have a great one for you

[00:05:46] You can leave tonight You can go from Atlanta To Miami And then go from Miami To Phoenix And then You have an 11 hour Overnight layover And then you can fly From Phoenix to Reno And I was like And at what point Do you just say Hey look American Airlines Go fuck yourself I'm going to get a Delta flight Exactly But I was like I didn't want to pay For any of this I was like You got to put me On a different airline They weren't going to do anything Because apparently It was due to Air traffic control Restraints You know There's been a lot of Issues with airlines

[00:06:16] So Basically American Like passed the buck And said We don't give a shit And So I said Why don't you ship me Directly to Sacramento And so They were able to do that And the downside was I couldn't go home To get like My pickleball stuff Right So I went to Sacramento And I had a paddle That I was testing Not the paddle that I play with Shoes that I was testing Not the shoes that I play with Like Zane have you seen the shoes From Selkirk That are like Half pickleball shoes Half

[00:06:45] Like walking shoes Honestly Nico It doesn't make a difference What the fuck shoes you wear Like You don't move It's true It's true You and Dylan Fraser Could play in Crocs Yeah I could have played Barefoot you know So So I played in those shoes I played with an Aereo Cyclone Not my RPM paddle I didn't have any Overgrip I had to like Borrow one from somebody That I warmed up with Anyway So The deck stacked against me Not just the fact that I'm a 4-6 Playing a 5-9

[00:07:13] This is crazy excuse making But okay Continue I'm interested But I think the worst thing That happened was My partner She Played Women's doubles Pro women's doubles And played against The same woman That was That we were playing against In mixed Right So she was playing The same person I think Madalina And I don't know How to pronounce her last name Starts with a G Wait And is this qualies Or what No this is There's no qualies This is main draw You got into the Fucking main draw Yeah Main draw Yeah That's crazy Yeah So

[00:07:44] She So they're playing Again Like her and her sister Are playing against The person I'm supposed To play in mixed And they win Like 11-7 11-7 And I was like Dang I was like This is actually I was rooting for her But at the same time I was rooting for her To lose too A little bit So that It wasn't very obvious That when we played mixed The reason we lose our mixed Is because of me You know She already beat this girl In women's Right And of course We go out First game 11-0 We lose So We play Play great You know And I'm nervous

[00:08:14] I'm You know Probably dump three returns Into the net Second game I think it was like 11-7 11-6 Like We held our own Definitely way better than me But That was my pro debut If anybody else That's like a 5-6 Wants to try and carry me Give it a second go I'm more than willing But I will say It's expensive To go Without a sponsor Spend 300 plus dollars To get waxed In 15 minutes And then go home Oh Is there not a back draw either? No back draw No back draw If there was

[00:08:44] I didn't know You know I saw I saw Ken What's the name of the The president of APP Ken Herman Ken Herman Yeah I saw him afterwards And he was like Oh Nico Hey You know So glad you're here I know you're a PPA guy But like Let me get you a towel Like thank you for doing This stuff on the pod He was like So nice And so happy Yeah Ken's a great dude Yeah He was so nice He was like Super nice And my partner was like Can you ask him for a back draw Right now Like it sounds like He'd do anything at this point So Unfortunately we couldn't Get a back draw

[00:09:12] But we probably would have got waxed in that too But no Honestly I played okay I think like After like another like Six months of lefty reset Some movement drills Like I have the hands I just don't have the movement And I can't dink That's my biggest problem Like you've probably seen it Like hey Hands aren't bad Can't dink or won't dink Both What's a dink Fair enough Yes Fair enough So Anyway All of the above Yeah And you know It's so interesting APP They do a great job For amateurs I honestly The pros experience

[00:09:42] I think is It's weird because like They play the round of 64 The round of 32 The round of 16 All on Thursday For every single discipline Oh wow Then they play quarters on Friday Semis on Saturday And finals on Sunday And so like Wow So that first day Is like a gauntlet Yeah exactly They're all gone after day one So you can be playing like Nine matches on that day If you're in all three divisions Yeah You said 64, 32, and 16 Across three different divisions

[00:10:12] That's nuts Yeah There might have only been a 32 And a 16 So it might have been two each I don't remember But definitely Up into the quarters All on Thursday For every division Yeah So Interesting experience And like Because if you guys like Amateur pickleball Like it's awesome It's definitely not the same Pro experience At all And I also noticed That like It's just like A whole other click too Where like All the pros there Are all friends They know each other None of them know Who I am at all Because they don't care At all about PPA You got a PPA And like You know

[00:10:41] There's like one group It's like a different universe But It was fun It was good No complaints about APP Next time I'll try PPA So you got more clout At a PPA event Than an APP event That's what I was like Do you not know who I am? Like what's going on here? I showed I you know As a In the pro draw I got access to the Pro player tent And I never felt More out of place In my whole life That's wild shit And they're like What are you doing here? They're like They're like This guy's just coming in here And eating the Cheez-Its And the You know The honey buns And that's I was like

[00:11:11] No I'm actually here Because I'm a pro They just thought I was stealing the food But yeah Got a chat But funny The last story About this is Bao Duong Was like He posted Maybe like Three days prior ASAP I need a partner For men's dubs At APP SAC And so I sent him a DM I was like Let's do it As a joke You know I was joking But also kind of serious And he was like Alright As long as you can Take up 80% of the court I'm like I think we're fucked But we'll try it out

[00:11:42] Yeah you might find Your equal With movement From Bao Bao doesn't move either So we both Kind of laughed it off And then I saw him And he's like What are you doing here I'm like I'm playing Mixed Pro He's like Oh you were serious I was like Yeah And I was like Were you serious He's like Yeah And so We didn't sign up It was just like A legendary miss here I think next time We have APP I'm going to tell Bao That we have to play For the content But that would have been Epic So we missed my opportunity Yeah that's an all time fumble Kicking myself Would have been great

[00:12:11] So we have the same Nasty mentalities No footwork Similar shapes Yeah The middle is cooked Bao would probably have to Play left and play righty Huh I think so You know Speaking of no movement Though what was great Is I'm chatting with Bao In the middle of Thursday And he's not playing And then somebody from APP Comes up to him And is like Hey Can you do play with the pro He's like Oh yeah sure Okay And they're like Alright we need you on In 15 minutes And basically what happens Is they spin a wheel And then you get some

[00:12:40] Kind of like Nerf Or like some kind of Like you know Handicap And then you You play Against the other person And then he's like Okay They're like Alright we'll pay you 50 bucks an hour And he's like Okay And he's His dad comes by He's like Dad I'm going to play Play with the pro For 50 bucks an hour And his dad's like Oh my god He's like You're at least 100 bucks an hour son You're at least 100 bucks an hour And then Bao's like Wait What the fuck Is this singles You want me to play So he had to play Singles For an hour For 50 bucks While being nerfed Greatest Greatest 50 bucks

[00:13:10] APP has ever spent Damn Okay Well there was Some interesting stuff That happened At the At the APP I guess QD Didn't Didn't meddle In this one From what I understand No I think he like He went down to I don't know if it was Tanner And Like Amar Wazir Like in the quarters I think But yeah He Yeah he did not meddle They had like a Showdown on Wednesday For like 10,000 bucks That also donated Like supported charity Did not win that either So It's just surprising To see that Like he's

[00:13:40] He's not just like Rolling or even doing That well In APP So Yeah I mean like It's APP is You know Always super strong And in singles Especially And I just You know QD was never like Super elite In In doubles So Yeah it'll be Interesting to see If he If he rebounds Or Or what But Yeah We also had Somebody sent me this I got contacted By Two different APP players

[00:14:09] Who were also Very upset about Their hooking Going on On their tour And they sent me Several different Screenshots of Some rough calls That Sophia made In singles And yeah They were They were at least On championship I think she got Overruled On a couple Of them But Oh boy Yeah And it was Interesting Because obviously She had that That one with Megan Fudge At the US Open Where it was like A foot and a half In and you know Apologized And then gave the Emotional interview

[00:14:38] After Anna Lee And then back to Her old The exact same thing The exact same Thing again Oh my goodness So I guess The question is At what point Do you become A hook Like Is she officially Apparently now Is she in the Alhuni territory Or like You know Where You know I always wonder Like when do we Stop giving people The benefit of the doubt Like And you become A known commodity Yeah So like Here's the thing And we'll talk about You know

[00:15:08] Albie Huang's Instagram story And the three Brutal hooks That Leia had On her People make Mistakes Right Let's acknowledge that Everybody's made a mistake Everybody will make mistakes But When players Consistently make mistakes Only in their own favor At important times Of the match Match after match And tournament after tournament You are just a cheater You're not making mistakes anymore We've got to stop Living with our head In the sand And pretending Oh the ball is just Too hard to call

[00:15:37] When we're playing singles Give me a fucking break I don't cheat out there I guess I only play One round at a time But Like I'm not like Blowing these calls If you are really Making mistakes I'll say it I've said it before I'll say it again If you are making mistakes You should cheat Yourself As well as your opponent If my opponent Blows calls In their own favor That's actually Fine with me As long as they've also Been blowing them In their own detriment Right If you're making mistakes I have no problem with that But

[00:16:06] You cannot tell me That it's just a mistake When it's constantly Only ever In your own favor Like That's just Ridiculous It's ignorant to think that All right You know I think you You made that point Earlier this week Or maybe I heard it somewhere But I never thought about that Like I was like I always want to give people The benefit of the doubt But You know To Leia or whoever else Like I I don't see them Making Bad calls Or people go Oh my god I can't believe She played that ball Like I'll give you an example

[00:16:36] Like Kiora Kunimoto Watch her play She's made bad calls But she's also like Played balls That are like A solid inch You know Out I'm like Call that ball out So she's probably Just making mistakes Yeah exactly So it's easy to tell That she makes mistakes But Yeah I think I don't know Like I think Some of these players You know Unfortunately They get this You know Reputation of being a hook And maybe that's a good thing And that's That's the punishment That they need Like whether or not $250 Is going to make a difference Or whether or not The fact that Everybody calls you a hook And then it

[00:17:06] Tanks your Semi-final match The next day Like You know Maybe I don't know Like what the Correct punishment is But Yeah well First and foremost I feel like You know We haven't had anything Public come out About the actual fines I really think We need to publish The fines Right Because like Then people know Okay it's real I'm going to get You know If you're Leia You're getting $750 Taken out of your paycheck From that Single match Right From those three calls Like we've got to Publish that I feel like The PPA has got to Come out with

[00:17:35] Those fines A so that the Players know Alright This isn't just Some thing That the Karen committee Says that they're doing No this is This is for real Players are Getting fined For these bad calls And I think I find it so funny The people who are Most vocal about Disliking the The Karen committee Or the people You know The fining committee The cheating policy They're the people That are consistently Making bad calls Like No wonder I talk to the players Like You know Maybe they're Like

[00:18:05] Realistically There's probably Some bias When I ask people About the policy Right They're going to Be nicer They're going to Say nicer things To me Than they would To some other People But I have Yet to speak To anybody Who doesn't Like Anybody who's a Fair line caller Who doesn't like This policy Right Like They're like This is finally This is a step In the right direction We need more of this Right Like so I would say I'd have to If I was guessing I would say That that's got That policy The cheating policy Has got a 90% Approval rating Yeah

[00:18:36] Like I said I think it's also A step in the right direction I think eventually You have to just Kind of take it Out of their hands And you know We'll talk about The $225 million investment And maybe that helps In some way Move this along But yeah I think it's To your point Is we need to Absolutely have The fines public Because to me I think that the shame Is more valuable Than the $250 Like you don't want To be seen as the person That had to pay $750 Because You hooked three times So Yeah I think I think that's the thing Is like

[00:19:05] We've tried shame Right Like there are Some people Who just don't have Any and continue To do it And so I think it's like $250, $250, $250 And at a certain point When you've hit A threshold Of those bad calls You just gotta Have a suspension Like you gotta be Suspended for 30 days Or whatever that is We haven't determined What that What that mark Is gonna be But like There's gotta be Some amount of Of blown calls That leads To a suspension Yeah You have a multiplier Or something

[00:19:35] It's almost like A sales quota The more bad calls You make The worse the punishment Is Whether it be Or like In the NBA I think after Your 15th Technical foul You get suspended For one game Right And there's like Plenty of leeway You know Draymond Green Gets suspended Once a year For hitting his 15 on the nose Right before the playoffs And maybe that's In your budget Right And you decide It's worth it to me I don't know But yeah So I like The multiplier effect But yeah You know Maybe with that

[00:20:04] New 225 million dollars That we've got Coming into Pickleball You know Maybe they Pay some more Good refs Some more Maybe they I am very curious To see these AI line calling Systems I am Very skeptical Of them Still Unfortunately I would I beg That I'm wrong But I am Very skeptical Of them I would Absolutely love To be proven wrong But I think We have Owl AI Coming in For Major League Pickleball Starting in May Or at least That partnership Was announced

[00:20:34] And Yeah So You know Maybe we need A second referee On the On the side courts Instead of just A single one But Man Even in singles Like I just The referees Are there The players Are at the Baseline They're Lined up To see it And they just You know Don't overrule Anything unless It's egregious Like People are like How do we not Have line judges How do we not Have line judges They just Are not good Enough yet Like And they don't Get paid enough To be good Right So they get Paid shit So

[00:21:04] Yeah I Still think Unfortunately Line judges Is not a Realistic thing At the moment But Yeah So I don't know Where do you think This 225 mil Is gonna go That's a great Question I think that Well we should Actually back up And we should Explain what this What this is Yeah All right So Basically what Happened Was Back in February Joe Joe Pompliano Put out A piece I don't know Who this is But he's like Apparently somebody Who's important That That the UPA

[00:21:34] Was looking to Raise I think 175 million Dollars To basically Combine PPA MLP And Dundon and Pardo's Sort of Holdings Into One Thing Essentially They got That money From an Existing MLP Or UPA Owner In Al Tylus But instead Of Tylus Personally Tylus Brought in Apollo Sports Management I believe Which is He's the CEO of And I Think he I think he Might have been The founder Of that Or obviously Like very

[00:22:04] Very heavily Involved So The long Story short Is Basically Everything That was Owned by Tom Dundon And Connor Pardo And MLP And PPA Anything That those Guys had In the Pickleball Space Now is Under One Umbrella And They have Some Cash to To Basically Play with But I Think A good Portion Of cash Went back To MLP Owners And you Know Buying out Certain

[00:22:33] Other types Of Stock So it's Not like They are Sitting now On a 225 Million Cash Injection I don't Know what The number In the Bank Account Is But it's Not 225 That's Good to Know I think That's Important I think Everybody Just Immediately Thinks That there Is 225 Million Available To Spend And where Are we Going to Spend It Is Nice You know Apollo Sports Management Or Apollo Global Management The Kind of Parent Company Has Like a Trillion Dollars You know In assets Under Management

[00:23:03] And this Kind of Values Pickleball Inc. At Almost Billion I think Is Either 750 Million Or 800 Million I'm Not Sure Exactly What The Number Is So I Just Think Like You know The Valuation On Pickleball Also I think Helps When it Comes to Sponsors And deals With Other Big Names In The Industry So For Me I Think It's More About The Brand Recognition And the Power Of Pickleball Than It is About What They're Going To Do With This

[00:23:33] Additional Money If They Have Any In The Account I Think It's More Like We Want To Work With Nike We Want To Work With Edward Jones Or Whoever It Is Like This Is Who We Are This Is How Our Industry Is And We Control So Much I Think To Me I'm Not Exactly Sure I Don't Know Everything About Monopolies Or Antitrust But They've Got Basically All Of Commercial Pickleball In One Umbrella Under One Company They Can Do A That's Interesting Right Yeah I Be Super Curious To Talk To Somebody About That Because Yeah Maybe You Could Argue That It Is

[00:24:02] But It's Not A Billion Dollar Company Right Is The I Don't Know Who The Hell Would Like Who Would Be In Charge Of Litigating Something Like This Or Bringing A Suit Or Whatever But Like Do They Really Go After Monopolies In With A Company That's You Like Look A Billion Dollars Is A Lot But Compared to You Know Any Other A lot Of These Other Companies Like Google Is A Multi Trillion Dollar Company And We're Not Even Looking At A Billion Dollars For

[00:24:32] This Is This Going To Be Large Enough To Catch Some Attention In The Meantime If This Becomes MLB Side Of Of Course But Even Then Right There's A Weird History Of Monopoly In American Sports Where The MLB Monopoly Is Like There's A Congressional Act That Like Establishes That Right They've Obviously Let MLB NFL NBA Run Their Monopolies

[00:25:02] And That's Exactly What They Are Yeah That Makes Sense And My Question To Do you Do You Think It's A Good Thing That All These Companies Are All Under One Umbrella Now Yeah I Mean I Think It Depends What They Do With The Money Right Like I Think There's Still Plenty Of You Know Market Share And What Not To Take And I Don't Think They Plan On Just Taking This Money And You You Know Squeezing Everything I Don't Think Yes They Have A Lot Of Stuff Under

[00:25:32] Management But If You Look At Their Individual Assets The Pro Tours All Right They Don't Really Have That Much Of A Competitor There's The APP And There's The Global Stuff But You Know They're Still Trying To Improve To Get Their TV Deal Right If You Look At Dooper

[00:26:02] There's A Few Other Rating Systems Right None Of Them Are Quite As Good So I Don't Know I Think Each Of The Different Investments That Pickleball Inc. Now Owns Has Some Competitors It Just Is I Think What Is This This Is A Vertically Integrated Monopoly Not This Is

[00:26:32] Where Tommy Would Be Helpful Yeah Exactly Yeah So I Think It's Positive Sign For Pickleball I Think That It Provides Freedom And Flexibility To Your Point Even Though There Is Also Competition From All These Individual Entities I Think It Also Strengthens All Of Them Up I Think To Me It's Important That Dooper Gets Better And That We Don't Necessarily Splinter Out A ton Of Rating Systems Every Time I See The Rating System That's The Veyer Or Something Like That I Want To Roll

[00:27:02] My Eyes Have You Seen That Rating System I You Give Them A Rating Based On

[00:27:39] Your Visual Are Dooper Dooper Dooper Always Going To Win Out Because Of The Sheer Number Of Inputs But Anyway That's What That System Is Yeah So What Is There Basically Just Like A Manual Like I Think So And

[00:28:10] These Kind Of Entities Whether It Be The Pickler The Duper Or UPA MLP Better Right And Gives Them Some More Runway To Make Cool Products And I Think We're All Waiting For Whenever That TV Deal Comes Same What I Guess My Question To You Is Do You See This As A Next Step In Getting A TV Deal When Do Is That Completely Necessary To The Long Term Sustainability Of The Tour Yeah I Think This Certainly

[00:28:40] Doesn't It Couldn't Hurt And I Think Part Of The Idea Is To Have All These Different Assets Sort Of Work Together Right Now That They're All Under The Same Umbrella You Can You Know Promote MLP Through The Pickler A Little Bit Better Or Run Junior Programs At The Pickler And Have Some Sort Of Affiliation With MLP Or Junior PPA Or Whatever I Think There's Just Now More Incentive For All Of These Scattered And Somewhat Related Companies To Work Together I Think That That Is

[00:29:12] Why Al Put The $225 Million In Is Clearly He Sees Some Opportunity To Do 2 Plus 2 Equals 5 With All This Stuff What Was Your Question If We're Getting A TV Deal I Would Imagine So Right I Think That Like We Could Almost Certainly Have One Right Now But I Think The UPA Which Actually We Should Talk About That I Think The UPA Is Now Done It's All Under The Pickleball Inc

[00:29:41] Umbrella Now So I Think That They Could I'm Sure That They Could Get A TV Deal Right Now They're Probably Just Holding Out For Something That They Want More Money I Think It Is Important Because If You Don't Have A TV Deal Or Some Way Where People Are Paying A Good Amount Of Money To Watch What's The Point Of Putting This On Right Unless Pickleball TV Is Really Crushing It But Yeah I Can't Imagine

[00:30:11] That They Would Be Doing All This Without The The Ultimate Goal Of Getting That TV Deal Yeah And I Think Once They Get A TV Deal It Will Also Incentivize Some Of The MLP Owners To Care Right Now I Just Feel Like There's Not A lot Of Incentive To Be A Good MLP Team Unless It's Just Personal Pride I Mean We Need Some Anti Tanking Rules Like They Just Are Talking About In The NBA Yeah I Think So Maybe That $225 Million investment Came With A Stipulation That Owners Need To Not Not Tank

[00:30:40] Or Have A Salary Floor Or Something I Don't Know But Yeah I Just Keep Thinking Not Just Revenue From The One Event That They Hold A Year So I Don't Know But Hopefully They Get The TV Deal I Mean Pickleball TV Has Been Pretty Great And I Had Somebody That Talked To Me

[00:31:26] Or Not But Yeah I Mean I I'm Sure Once It Becomes ESPN Or CBS Even Better And I Think The Saturday Was On CBS Right The Semifinal Saturday Good Steps That's Pretty Cool Yeah You Did Your Civic Duty Is To Watch On CBS Yeah I Mean I Think When We Get These Opportunities Like Yeah Try And Tune In

[00:31:56] That's A horrible Comparison But I Was Going To Say It's Like Jury Duty But It's Way More Fun Pickleball Is Like Jury Duty Whether You Like It Or Not You Have To Do It When Called Upon All Right So That's Yeah And To Your Point UPA Dead Even Though They Just

[00:32:54] Proud Regulation And Rules But The Rest Of It I Don't Know We'll Tell You Next Week But We Do Know Why Don't We Jump Back Into Pickleball Last Week Talk A little Bit More About The Atlanta Slam Where Do You Want Start I Want To Start With The Round Of 16 Matchup Between You And Will McKinnon And Jack Sock And Blaine Hogan We'll Set This Up

[00:33:25] You're Down 5 1 In Game 2 Jack Sock There Were Some High Balls Throughout The Match I Thought A lot Of Them At Blaine To Be Quite Honest But Jack Goes For A Full Bag At Will And Luckily Will's Life Is Spared By The Top Of The Tape Doesn't Hit Him And Then Zane You

[00:33:55] At Least From Somebody That's 135 Pounds To A Guy Literally Twice His Size Zane What Was Going Through Your Head And I Guess The Biggest Question Here Is Is Is Zane The Asshole For Going Full Bag On Jack Sock For I Guess Defending Your You're Defending Your Partners That That Was Going Through Your Head Yeah More Or Less I Mean It Was A Little bit Of Frust

[00:34:25] Something To You Know Is There's A Really Big Difference Between Going Hard At The Body And Going Full Bag Right Like Those Are Two Very Different Things Actually You Know Going Hard At The Body Generally Attempting To Make It Or Be Somewhere Near The Court But You're Not Going Like Just Obliterate Them Try To

[00:34:55] One Five I'm Like All Right You Know You're Going To Go At My Guy I'm Going To Go To You You You Too And And I Did You Know I Got To Give Myself A Little Bit Of Credit Like I Do Feel Like I Don't Know If I've Seen A Harder Successful Full Bag Like Benz On QD was Harder Obviously Didn't Connect But

[00:35:25] Hardest Tag I I've Seen So Next Time I Play Jack Sock I Am Showing Up In Full Bubble Wrap But Here's The Thing Like I Don't Know I Don't Know How Jack Feels About That But Honestly If Somebody Did That

[00:35:56] I Honestly I Feel Like If He Did The Asshole But I Think Given

[00:36:26] That I Feel Like He Started It I Feel Like I Don't Think I Don't Think Either Of You Are The Assholes In The Like Repeatedly And And So I Don't Really

[00:36:56] Even Think He Was Necessarily Out Of Line For Going Full Bag At Will Or Going At Me Like I Don't Think He Was Out Of Line For Starting It Either No And I Too Hard And The Pitcher The Next Time Has To Send A Message

[00:37:25] Like Hey You Can't Do That Or Your Guy Gets Hit Our Guy Gets Hit You Know I I Within The Unwritten Rules Of Don't

[00:37:55] Go For The Face I Think Those Are Fine I Think Jack Is The Perfect Person To Do It Against He Can Take It To He He's Not Necessarily The Most Sympathetic Personality He's Great He's Fun If You Did That To CJ Clinger People Would Probably Have Your Head But CJ Is Probably Not Doing That To You To Start So Good Friendly Banter Jack Wished You Safe Travels On Instagram I Believe After The

[00:38:38] Step Along The Way We Attacked

[00:39:08] Thing It's Not Really It's A Wiffle Ball I'm Not Afraid Of A Wiffle Ball I Drilled Him It Didn't Hurt That Bad It Was Funny The Funniest Thing

[00:39:38] Nasty Nelson Jack They Go They Get Match Point Jack Tries A Nasty Nelson Will I'm Like Fuck He Beat Me To It I Was For Sure Doing It Too And So I Feel Like Me And Jack Are Cut From The Cloth In That Regard A Little Bit Yeah Two Peas In A Pod You And Jack Sock You're Like The Bizarro Version Of Jack Sock Right Thank You Will The Question Is For The Listeners At Home At What Level Is This Type Of

[00:40:07] Tit For Tat Acceptable Like If I'm Playing In My 4-0 Tournament Someone Goes Hard At My Body Do I Also Go Hard At Them Is There Is A Pro Only Rule Or Where Do We Draw The Line At The Disgusting Behavior That You Have Displayed It's A Only If You Can Control Your Shit Pro Or No Pro Like If You Can't And This Is The Same Thing In Baseball Don't Retaliate Don't Try And Hit The Other Guy Even If They Hit Your People If You Can't Control Where You're Hitting Them So If You Don't Have The Control

[00:40:37] To To Hit In The Torso And You Miss High You Absolutely Shouldn't Be Doing And Honestly Never Do This In Rec Play Have You Know If Things Get Really Frustrated In Tournaments Like Maybe Or But I Would Say Don't Be The Person To Start This Shit Yeah That's Fair I Like It You Don't Have To Start It But As Everybody's Parents Always Say

[00:41:12] All So So That Was One Of The More Fun Experiences Of The Atlanta Slam There's Also Some Good Pickleball I Anybody Like

[00:41:42] Danny Had Probably The Sickest Ernie Did You Get To See The Ernie Highlight At All Oh My Gosh No Where Was This It's Insane I Don't Know It's Probably On Some Discord Or

[00:42:13] In That Lands Basically Like Two

[00:42:43] Feet From The Net But All The Way Cross Court Like In The Kitchen Like Right By Rachel's Side Yes No No No So Yes Yes Is it By Rachel's Yes By Rachel's So She Would Have Blamed The Left Side Right It was Completely Like Basically Six Inches From The Line Opposite Side In The Kitchen Middle Of The Kitchen And Hard Like It Wasn't Just Like A Push It Was Like A Snap Flick I Tweeted Immediately This Is The Best Ernie I've Ever Seen In My Life Did You

[00:43:13] Post The Video No I Didn't Post The Like I Don't Know A Year And Half A Maybe I Don't Know I Don't Even Know How That Came About But I Didn't Know What Your Last Name Was I Know

[00:44:03] You To The Lefty I Should I Should We'll See That That That That That Changed All My Family's Last Name To So Anyway Back To Pickleball Speaking Of Lefties Danny And CJ Look Fantastic For Eight Points And Then They Ended Losing That Game 11 Nine And Then They Lost I Think It Was Handily In The Second Game But Like The Upside Is There The Floor Is Really Really Low But Speaking Of The Floor They Came Back From Oh Nine Down In

[00:44:33] Game Three In The First Round To Regina Goldberg And Niko Acevedo They Were Down Oh Nine They Almost Went Out First Round I Only Saw I Was On Match Day Looking Up Scores And I Saw It Was Like Nine Nine Or Nine Ten In The Third And I

[00:45:09] Know Why Maybe Gabe And Kate Don't Play More Tournaments Together Outside Of MLP Obviously It Helps MLP I Feel Like That Consistent Partnership It Fun I Feel Like Energy I Don't Know Like I

[00:45:39] The Same Player That She Is Now So Fair Yeah Anyway I Like It That's Why I Like The Start Of MLP Season When All These Partnerships Are Like You Know Testing Things Out Playing PPAs Together You Get A First Look At What's Happening And Hopefully Good Things Happen All Right More Atlanta As I Wanted Zane One Thing I

[00:46:09] One Seed One And Every Single One Seed Swept Then I Did Some Digging If You Were To Take Out The Men's Singles Bracket The One Seeds Are 162 And One This Year If You Include Ben And Annalise One Loss That's Ben And Annalise One Loss Ben And Gabe Undefeated Anna And Anna Undefeated Anna Lee Undefeated Like It's Insane One

[00:46:38] That'll Never Happen Again But Two It Makes For Some Boring Pickleball I Think I Don't Like It Kind Of So You Just Can Pencil Those People In To Win Every Time And Everybody Gets That It's Just Like Fool Me Once Fool Me Twice Fool Me 11 11 Zero It Was I Had I Had Higher Expectations

[00:47:08] For Georgia And Tyra They Were Really Gelling Pretty Well At The End Of Last Year Obviously Beat Anna Lee And Anna Bright Back In Vegas But Man They've Had They've Had A Rough Go Of It So Far This Year Obviously Still The Second Best Team But A Distant Second At Lead Or Cheat The Draw To Make It More Difficult Because

[00:47:38] Even We We We Always Talk About The Serena Williams Dominance She Was The Best Player By But She Still Lost She Would Lose Four Times A Year Annalise Lost Once Ben Has Lost Twice And It's Been Three Times And Two Of Those Have Been Singles When He Didn't Care So I Don't Know What You Can Do The Top Two Players In The World Can't Be Partners Together Like What If Ben And

[00:48:08] Gabe Couldn't Be Partners Or What If Anna Lee And Anna Bright Couldn't Be Partners I Miss The Girlies I So I Think PPA Finals Is Is Gonna Look

[00:48:37] Kind Of Just Like Regular Old Semi Final Saturday And Championship Sunday I'm All For That I'm Sure That'll Never Happen Right Like You Can Only Play Five Tournaments Per And You Had A Different Partner For Each Draw You Had

[00:49:07] To Pick A Different Partner For Each Day Which Was Pretty Interesting So You Had A Whole Men's Doubles Weekend And You Would Go Through The Entire Draw On Friday Saturday And Sunday Different Draw Each Day Which And Yeah We Talked Last Time About Having The PPA

[00:49:37] Finals Be Where You Round Robin Play One Game With Each Each Of The Top Eight And You Alternate And Then You Have A Finals Or Semifinals And Finals Where Once Again You Alternate Partners And Then We Only Have One Winner As Opposed To Two And Then We See Is Ben The One Winner Is Gabe Or If You Split Maybe Ben Is Not The Best Person But He Definitely Has By Far

[00:50:07] The Best Right Side Player You Know On Earth Like How Do What If He Did This Right So You've Got The Top Four Get To Pick But They Can Only Pick Because There's 16 Men So Ben Gets To Pick First But He Can Only Pick Somebody From 12 Through 16 And He Gets Priority In That 12 12 16 Range And Then Gabe Gets To Choose Somebody In The 12 16 Range And Then Whoever Third Is Chooses Whoever Fourth Is Chooses And Then You Do The Same

[00:50:37] Thing Through 5 Through 8 But They Can Only Choose 9 Through 13 That 4 Would Get Screwed Though 4 Would Get Screwed Whoever Is 4 Would End Up With 16 That Be The Highest Total Number

[00:51:07] Unless 8 Plays With 13 What If You Did What If You Did You Didn't Actually Give Them The Opportunity To Choose You Just Had One With 16 Right So You Take One With 16 That's Ben Johns And Matt Wright Right Oh I Mean that's Pretty That's But Then Think About This Then You Have The 8 9 Seed In This Hypothetical Tournament Is CJ Klinger And Eric Onsens I Mean That Seems Pretty

[00:51:37] Good Too Like And I Would Much Rather Watch Those Two Teams Play Against Each Other Than You Know Have To Watch Ben And Gabe Just Dominate Everybody Then You Got Someone Like JW And Tyson Riley Newman And Gabe Tardio Like These Are Actually You Know This Would Be Fun No Way And Alshon Or Patrick Wynn Like All Right We Need To Make This Happen Like It's Some You Know What Nico Let's Raise 500 Million Sign All These Guys And Make

[00:52:07] Them Do That Shit All Right Go Thund Me Coming Soon Five We're Looking For 500 Million Dollars Yes If Anybody Has 500 Million Dollars Please Contact Us Yes Then We Can Do Whatever You Want You Know What Mean We Are Running The Tournament Exactly How You Like And There Will Be A Consistent Winner Ever Again There Will Be Changes All Right Where Else

[00:52:38] We Haven't Talked About I Can't Believe It We Haven't Talked About Tama Tama Yeah You Had A Hot Take About Tama Yeah So Okay This Is Going To Make Everybody Really Love Me For Sure But Here Here's My Thought Is I Think His Draw Was About As Ideal As You Could Make It And It Wasn't As Hard As People Made It Out To Be Specifically For Him All Right So He Had To Play I Think Jaume

[00:53:08] And Then Noe And Then Federico Fed And Then Noe Fed And Then Noe And Then Hunter Johnson And Then Chris Like That's About As Tough As You Could Probably Make It For Anybody Like That That's Insane Right I Feel Like Each One Of Those Players Is A Top Ten Player I Don't Know How They Ended Up On Like The Same Side Of The Draw Like So It's Like A Murderer's Row But I Think As We Saw With Chris Hayworth Like Tama Is I

[00:53:49] People That Can't Overpower Him And I Felt Like He Played Jaume Who You Know Is Similar In Like The Movement Category Same With Noe Same With Federico That If You

[00:54:47] You But You Know Beating Fed Noe And Jaume Is Is Pretty Freaking Impressive Especially With A Very Interesting Counter Punching Sort Of Style Like He Has Weak Ground Strokes In comparison To The Tour Right Like He Has

[00:55:19] And He Like You Know He's Always In Position So It Is Interesting And I Like The Idea That You Called It Cat Mouse 2.0 He Just Is Impossible To Get The

[00:55:49] That I Was Seeing Against Chris Hayworth But He It's Definitely Harder Than Tama But I Think It's Just Like The Angles That I'm Seeing From Those Guys Are Crazy The Rolls Off The Court Getting Those Other Guys To Move But I Mean Yeah I Think That That Ability To Hold Like The Backhand And Then Just Pull It

[00:56:19] Nine Maybe But Like He Also I Think He Has Long Arms But Like He Covers The Net Extremely Well And The Fact That He Slides Better Than Almost Everybody On Tour As Well Like Yeah It's Interesting Cause He Kind of Still Has A Maybe A Little Bit Of Awkwardness In His Motion Like He's You Know Gotten Much Taller Over The Last Just Year So And It Looks Like He's Going To Keep Growing So I Don't Know Man The Ceiling Is Pretty Damn High For Tama

[00:56:49] Yeah Like I Actually Genuinely Think That His Skateboarding Background Plays In A Good Amount Because He Is Always Perfectly Balanced As He Is Sliding Into This He Moves And Single Shot Even While He's At The Kitchen Line Everywhere I Think Obviously His Ceiling Is Number One Player

[00:57:19] In The World I'm Sure You Know In Let's Just Say Three Years Five Years But I'm Interested To See If He Can Sustain This I

[00:57:50] I Think They They Take A Step Back Before They Take Step For Again So I Would Expect John Lucian Goins To Have A Good Second Half Of This Year I I would expect, you know, Tama to maybe take a step back before another step forward just

[00:58:16] because the sort of the book gets out on their patterns, all that stuff. Nobody knows anything about Tama's game and singles really before this week. At least the top guys probably aren't taking him as a, or they haven't seen him. And, you know, if you haven't seen him, you're not taking him as a serious, serious threat immediately. But now, obviously this run, it's very serious. They're going to do some scouting on him. They're going to understand his patterns a little bit better, you know, strengths, weaknesses, all that stuff. So, it's not that his game is going to get worse.

[00:58:43] It's just his opponents are going to be more prepared now that he's, you know, and not to say that they weren't, but they're going to do a little bit more scouting on him for the next time they play him. Right. And everybody is, I think. Yeah. Singles and doubles. I mean, they took out, not only did he take out the number two seed in singles, but he took out Hayden and Christian, right? In men's doubles with Uta. Yeah. Yeah, they did. I mean, that's a, that's a real nice win. And yeah, I think that's probably the most surprise. I'm more surprised about that than I am about the singles. Right.

[00:59:13] Because there's been so few, um, like wins over the big four in, in, uh, men's doubles. And we had a couple. Yeah. CJ, CJ and, uh, and JW lost also early. Who did they lose to? Who did they lose to? They lost to Roscoe and Connor. That's right. Roscoe and Connor. A little surprising to me there. Yeah. Me too. I mean, I don't think Connor's done a lot for the, like the last year and a half, especially in doubles. And here he is. And it did good runs in, uh, in both.

[00:59:42] And him and Roscoe were just like having fun. So that was pretty cool to see. I think maybe conspiracy theory is that, you know, Connor and Tama, they, they up their game right before MLP just to say, Hey, Tyler Loom, you're not sniffing the court the rest of the year, buddy. Like Tom is here to stay. Connor's got a spot. Uh, the two of them, I'm not sure how they're going to play, you know, left and right, but, uh, they're trying to assert their dominance, uh, on the Utah black diamonds. Yeah. No, I mean, that's the, I think that's the only issue for them.

[01:00:11] Like I think, you know, Connor's kind of got to play the left. Tama is better on the left. So then do you throw Tama with. Loom instead. Uh, I don't know. That'll be interesting, but that is interesting. Something else that is interesting is we all, did you, uh, did you get to see any of the partners documentary? Did you go to that like launch in Atlanta? I did not. I have not seen a single, I've only seen the trailer. I am, I am not, you know, big time like you guys. I missed the premiere. I was so sad, but, uh, I hear good things.

[01:00:40] Surprisingly, I only hear good things. Have you, have you seen it? Did you see the premiere or? Yeah. Yeah. I didn't go to the premiere, but I, I got to see it. It is, it is really good. It's pretty, it's professional. It's a, it's definitely a must watch. They went there on, on some stuff that I didn't really think that they were going to have the balls to, to do. I, you know, I always think you can go a little bit farther. So I think that they could have, I, I'd have to give partners a B plus.

[01:01:09] And I think that they're on their way to an A for the next season that they end up doing. I think if they pushed 10% more on certain topics, it could have been an A plus. They left a little bit of meat on the bone with some of the sensitive topics. And maybe that's just because I know that there's more to some of these stories that was left out. But they also addressed some pretty big elephants in some, some rooms, but there were, there are

[01:01:37] plenty of elephants in the room, uh, in pro pig wall. And, you know, too many to choose from, but anyway, like it wasn't just like a PPA puff piece, which I was also sort of, uh, you know, worried about, like, you know, makes PPA not look great in certain circumstances, which I'm, uh, I'm proud of them for, for having the balls to do. I think that's, that was what I was, that's what I heard. And what I'm most surprised and excited about is that I feel like one of the PPA's biggest,

[01:02:04] like pitfalls is that they do not have thick skin and that they crush any negative voice about the tour, about them all the time. Right. They want to control the narrative a hundred percent. And I'm not sure exactly who did they make this, did they make this documentary? I don't know who made this documentary exactly, but the fact that like, the fact that, you know, there is differing opinions, or as you mentioned, it makes them look bad in some way. Like it's good.

[01:02:30] Cause I think that the more that the PPA is not just like high on their own supply that they actually, you know, learn and grow the better. So I, I think this is, this is a good step in the right direction. I can't wait to watch it. And Zane, where, where do you watch it? I don't, I actually don't know. I think you can watch it on Amazon prime. You can watch it on YouTube. I'm pretty sure it's just going to be coming out on the PPA's YouTube. And then you can also watch it on pickleball TV. So YouTube. All right. Yeah. I'm in. Yeah. I'm excited. Yeah. It'll be good. I think it comes out.

[01:02:58] Uh, if you're watching this on Tuesday, May 5th, it should be coming out today. Yeah. All right. That's what I'll be doing. Six part series. Is that what it is? Yeah. I think they're like 40 minute episodes. So yeah. All right. If you're done with secret lives of Mormon wise season four, you can go, go on to a partners. It's even better. Yes, sir. All right. Do we get another, but another person from duper college nationals or college nationals to do guests. My duper for, I think we do.

[01:03:27] Oh my God. Guys. All right. 5.15. 5.15. You know, I'm just going to stick with that. Okay. All right. Top corner. Here we go. She's watching. Okay. That didn't look great, but, uh, Oh, lob. Uh, good lob. Is that Zoya? That's Zoya out there for Texas, right? I don't see any tech. There's Utah tech in Florida Atlantic.

[01:03:57] Oh, okay. It kind of looks like the ball. Elite leaving the ball skills. Okay. A little, a little bit of a funky forehand over there. It's like, so was that a misdirect or was that a miss hit? Another lob. That's a good lob.

[01:04:25] I would have come across and poached that one. Yeah. You have to move your feet to do that. Okay. That's a shaky reset. Another high. All right. These are three bad resets in a row, but at least she's extending the point. She's a ball maker, dude. Relax. She's the Tyra Black of, uh, of Guess My Duper. All right.

[01:04:54] I started out as a 5.125 because I feel like all the guys that submit are like 5.125. I'm going to go 4.75, 4.75. Okay. I'm going to go 4.912. Time for the great reveal. Oh, what the fuck? You are so off. 5.333. Ella's officially good enough to play with me in an APP tournament.

[01:05:24] She's overqualified to play with you in an APP. Overqualified. She's like a full duper point better than I am. Oh my goodness. Wow. All right. I honestly didn't. Sorry, Ella, but I didn't see that coming. Just a ball maker. You know, high court IQ. I think that you can do, you can do a lot with high court IQ. So we're going to, she's obviously got, uh, got that wins a lot of matches. She must. So sorry. Sorry. I, sorry. I doubted you. I should have stuck with my 5.125. Zane hates women.

[01:05:53] He was like, all right, if the men are five ones, she's got to be less. It's got to be worse than the guy. I just, you know, those resets just, they sent me that those couple backhands. You know, she gets the job done. It doesn't need to look pretty. Uh, as Ben John says about Tyra's forehand, I think, uh, back in the day. Uh, just as long as you get the job done. The lobs were good though. I like, I will say the lob is like making, I don't know. I'm a comeback. It's probably the wrong word.

[01:06:23] It's just like, they're good. It's a lobby. Especially in women's or in. What's that? It's a lob Renaissance. It is a lobissance. Yeah. Hmm. Wow. All right. Well, uh, we'll see ourselves out after that one. Uh, pickle pod. Pickle pod. Uh. Yeah.