Should Kate Fahey Get a Point Penalty for Screaming?

[00:00:00] I know a video is like reaching a different demographic when people are like, did this guy just eat fucking powdered donuts? So. This is like, yeah, this guy just b****. But. I can't wait to see what the editors do with that one. Leave it in. Leave it in. That's a good one.

[00:00:34] Welcome, everybody, to another episode of The Pickle Pod. I am Nico the Lefty, as always, with your host, Zane Navratil. Zane is in Hong Kong, was in Australia, traveling all over the place. I don't know what time it is there. It is almost 9 p.m. my time here Sunday. So this is prime working hours for me. I'm just gonna go ahead and say it's prime working hours for Zane. He looks better than he did yesterday or last week.

[00:01:03] There was a lot of comments about what's wrong with Zane's face. We'll get into that as well as a few new gold medalists on the PPA tour. Should we have Screaming and Pickleball? Do we trust Owl AI? Maybe the most over and underrated players in Pickleball. This is all news to Zane because he's just trying to keep it together. But Zane, welcome to another episode of The Pickle Pod. Thank you. Thank you for welcoming me to my show. I've been up since 3 a.m. Hong Kong time, I think.

[00:01:33] Or maybe it was Australia time. I don't know. It's Monday morning. It's now 1130 over here. I was writing my recap video and everything. I just hopped on here. But, you know, the good news is this is kind of cool. I am not in a Holiday Inn Express or a Ramada or a Motel 8 or anything. I'm in a really nice hotel, actually. And that's the tournament venue. That blob looking. That blob, I was gonna say. Yeah.

[00:02:04] Wow. So, the commute won't be so bad. And this is actually a nice hotel. Now, they did give me two twin beds, which, you know, is not ideal. But it's actually a nice hotel, Nico. You'd be proud of me. I'm not slumming it over here in Hong Kong in one of the cage homes. I thought about it. I'm just glad you're not at the Hong Kong version of a Panera Bread. So, but if the cleaning lady needs to come by on this hotel as well, let them in.

[00:02:33] You know what? Actually, for giving me shit, the last two times I checked in, I've been getting into, I got into Australia at 6 a.m. I got into Hong Kong at 7 a.m. And I actually have just purchased the room the night before so that I can actually get into my room at like 7.30 a.m. and not have to wait and go to the Chinese or Australian version of Panera Bread. Because honestly, they would all just be a disappointment.

[00:03:01] You really can't match what Panera Bread has to offer anywhere in the world, I would say. Just at hospitals. Maybe the St. Louis Bread Company. Hospitals have reliable Wi-Fi and subpar sandwiches and smell like a cafeteria. Just like Panera Bread. Now, you know what? Don't miss me with that Aubon Payne bullshit, okay? That is not okay. Have you ever seen an Aubon Payne that's not in a hospital?

[00:03:28] I don't think Aubon Pains are like anywhere on the West Coast that I can think of. They're not anywhere but hospitals. Okay. I avoid hospitals. Yeah, fair enough. All right. Well, Zane, we got a lot to talk about with Virginia Beach, which is where I am. I am familiar with everything that happened there. But I am not going to lie. I did not watch a single second of live pickleball from Australia.

[00:03:57] One, I didn't know where to watch it. I think it might have been on YouTube TV. I don't know. It looked like it was awesome because it probably had steeper competition than Virginia Beach. So, Zane, why don't we start with your time in Australia? I would like to know how your tournament went. And then after that one day, how was the rest of the tournament in Australia? Hey, you know what, motherfucker? It was two days. It was a good two days. All right.

[00:04:21] So, first day I won my first round of singles and then I lost to one of the best Aussie players. I partnered up with an Aussie player, Bernadette, who was quite good. We lost to Judith and Tyson. And then Luke Pham and I played for the first time together. Won our first round. And then we lost to Quan Do and Hien Truong, a couple of Vietnamese boys who are playing good ball. So, yes, that brought me all the way to Thursday.

[00:04:51] Thank you very much. Hi. Zane, I have beat Quan Do before. I'm just kidding. I haven't. I have played Quan Do twice and he beat that ever-living shit out of me. But good player. Wow. Okay. How the turntables have turned. No. You went from I have beaten Quan Do before to wait. Hold on. Never mind. He kicked the living shit out of me. Okay. It's true. It's true. It's true. We played in a money ball once. He's very good. Very solid. Steady guy.

[00:05:22] You don't expect it. But the dude and the dude's like 40 plus. And I think like he also holds his own against like Ben Johns and singles too. So the guy is there from Vietnam. Good at pickleball. Yeah. Good. Good at picky. So, yeah. I mean, what do you what do you want to know about Australia?

[00:05:41] I do think that the field was actually probably other than I feel like that it was top heavy in in in Australia. Yes. But I think it was probably a much deeper field in Virginia Beach. Yeah. I think you're probably right. Like, well, actually, speaking of top heavy, let's like break it down really quickly. Like if we were to take the winners of each event and have them face each other, who would win?

[00:06:11] Who would who would win more golds? So let's see. And we'll go women's singles first. We had Andy Degasavlovich versus Kate Fahey. That's easily Kate. Kate. All right. Men's singles. You had Hunter Johnson win versus John Bishon going. Yeah. I mean, that's probably more likely than not Hunter, but that's a good match. And then let's see. Women's doubles. We had Tyra and Georgia versus Catherine and Sophia. Yeah.

[00:06:41] I think Tyra and Georgia win that matchup. Tyra and Georgia take that one. Although Catherine's been like, I mean, Sophia's playing well with Catherine and Catherine's been playing good ball. But I would say you got to say that Tyra and Georgia are the favorites in that one. Men's doubles. Yeah. Let's see. You have Hayden and Gabe. They're going to win. Yeah. They're winning that one. And then mixed. You've got Gabe and Jesse. No, it wasn't Gabe and Jesse. Gabe and Tyra.

[00:07:09] Gabe and Tyra against Kate and Eric. Yeah. I'd say Gabe and Eric. I think I'd take Kate and Eric. I think I'm taking Kate and Eric in that matchup. I don't know. So that's the closest one. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. That'd be fun to watch. So, you know, to your point, it might have been a stronger field or at least a more top heavy field in Australia. The biggest question to me is why have two events at the exact same time? Like. And the second and one of the event and a Hong Kong event right afterwards.

[00:07:38] Like there's a bunch of people who just if you played late on Sunday, you can't get here in time for a Tuesday morning match. No. No. You know, I don't. I think I heard this right. And maybe, you know, but I was waiting and waiting and waiting for semifinal Saturday to start because of weather delays in Virginia Beach. It started like six hours late.

[00:08:03] And they're like, and I'm watching the Helena Jansen match against Sophia Seving. And they're like, the winner of this match is going to face Kay Fahey because there was a walkover. Because I think they said that Zoe Wong couldn't make it to Vietnam or to Hong Kong on time if she played her semifinal match. So she forfeited to make it to Hong Kong. That's insane. Yeah.

[00:08:32] Well, did they move her semifinal match to Sunday morning? No. I wonder if that's what it was. It was just, I think, okay, one is odds that she makes a semifinal are probably normally low. No offense to her, but it just doesn't happen that often. Then the semifinal match is not in the morning. It's in the absolute evening. They don't start until 9 p.m. So she wouldn't be able to fly out for sure until Sunday.

[00:08:56] And so she just decided, I guess, I'd rather play my tournament in Hong Kong than play the semifinals of a PPA. Yeah. But if you're looking at it as a business decision, she's not beating Kate anyway. You got to weigh that, right? Yeah. But that's a hard conversation to have in here. Like, hey, guess what? I'm probably going to lose this match. I should just leave the semifinals. That's an easy conversation for me. You have to wake up first. She'd be like, oh, wait, I'm dreaming. What's happening?

[00:09:28] Oh, yeah. No, but I mean, like, if you're rational, you got to realize, like, yeah, she's probably winning that one out of 20 times generously against Kate, I would think. So, yeah, the combination of things like screwing up your entire thing. The only, like, I don't know if I'm in that situation. I'm probably doing the exact same thing as Zoe. So, yeah. I'd have to know, Zane.

[00:09:55] I mean, you get the same situation as Zoe. You're in the semifinals of singles, men's pickleball. It was crazy, right? Who is the worst player that you would decide to stay for? Like, at what point would you be like, ah, this might be worth it? Like, would you stay if it was no way? I think men's singles' weight is different. I think men's singles, you can get hot and anybody can steal matches off of anybody. But women's singles, you can't, right?

[00:10:24] There's no version of Zoe getting super hot and beating Kate. But, I mean, men's singles, I pickled Chris Hayworth. He double-pickled me in the same match, but I did pickle Chris Hayworth. Like, crazy shit happens at men's singles. What's that? There's gonna be like a tattoo of that scoreline somewhere, because that's... I know Zane is a double PPA gold medalist back-to-back or something, but that's for the highlight of the career, I think. Not the four MLP championships, the nine MLP finals, none of that.

[00:10:54] The fact that you're seven and nine against Ben Johns, no. Like, no, it's just the one match where it's the triple pickle, so... You know what? Put some respect on my name, Nico. I've done some shit, all right? Back in my day. That's true. This is before I knew that pickleball was a thing, or anybody else, for that matter. Oh, my goodness. Back in the dark ages of pickleball. The record-keeping, once it's any good, we've lost all of it. It's getting a great fire somewhere along the way. Exactly, exactly.

[00:11:24] Well, speaking of, you know, we have Zane passing the torch on. Now, we had three people get gold medals for the first time in Virginia Beach. We got Sofia Sevign, first PPA title with Catherine Parenteau. Catherine Parenteau gets her 55th gold medal, I believe, which is a lot more than I thought. I mean, that's impressive. Jaume Martinez-Vic gets a gold in men's doubles.

[00:11:50] Apparently, he was 0 for 10 in finals before this weekend. Gets his first gold. Wow. Yeah. I was surprised. Like, oh, Jaume is going to get his first gold. I was like, what? He hasn't won yet? But, you know, he's going to have respect on Jaume's name because he's made the finals with Tyson. He's made the finals with Nico. He made the finals here with Elliott, who is the third person to get their first PPA title as well.

[00:12:21] Yeah, dude. Elliott Shupp playing really, really good ball. Man, he's playing a chaotic right side. In my little pre-cap video that I did of kind of breaking down the new partners, I was wondering how those two would gel together, lefty-righty combo. But Jaume, I think, is way more comfortable on the left. He's been kind of pigeonholed on the right with a lot of partners. But, like, letting him cook and being creative on the left has been clearly money. Yeah, and he's finally healthy.

[00:12:51] Like I said, I'm interested. Jaume is dangerous. And then I was corrected also as a healthy Jaume. He's been hurt for most of the year. But, I mean... Wait, what's been wrong with him? I didn't know that. Ever since MLP, he's had a... I don't know if it was a hamstring. He's been injured. I knew that. Leanna had mentioned from the Atlanta bouncers that he's been injured for a while. And so I think a combination of being injured and then probably being frustrated that he's injured.

[00:13:19] And then you could just kind of see for the last six months, like, Jaume didn't seem like he was having a lot of fun. And I think it was probably because he was hurt. And now he's having fun and obviously winning with Nico. You know, getting to the finals with Nico. Winning with Elliot is going to make you happy anyway. But long overdue for Jaume. I mean, it's a... I still remember the first time. And I'm not sure if you remember this.

[00:13:43] The first time I ever saw Jaume play was at the Masters against Ben Johns and Colin Johns. And they're playing, like, in the first round. And it's, like, the most entertaining match. But, like, Ben and Colin are absolutely fucking with him the whole time. They're just messing around, doing silly shots and stuff. And Jaume's having a fun time because he knows he has no shot. I think he's playing with Ryan Ali from, like, Santa Clara.

[00:14:09] And then, like, now there's Jaume, the 11-time finalist, one-time gold medalist. So it's been a wild ride with Jaume. I'm glad he won. Yeah. Good for him. I forgot about that clip. And then, yeah. No, good for Jaume. That's awesome. I didn't realize he was injured. But I think that makes sense. Because he just definitely, through most of MLP, didn't look like he was having fun at all. So. But there's that. And then, I guess, just really quickly back to Elliot.

[00:14:39] My question for you is, what is his ceiling? Like, I think a couple things is, he's a lefty. And the lefty ceiling seems, and maybe it's in my head, but, like, is lower than a righty ceiling. I just haven't seen a lot of success with left-side players for the most part. At least at the top, top level. Does he have a chance to be top five, top ten player? Do you think he's going to be the best lefty?

[00:15:06] I think that's, AC Baby, Alex Crum said that within a year or two, he'll be the best lefty in pickleball. I think he could make an argument that he's already the best lefty in pickleball. Which is crazy. Like, he hasn't proven it enough, obviously. Right? Like, Augie Guh is probably his main competition. CJ Klinger. Right? But these guys are a little bit higher floor, lower ceiling. Because here's the thing with lefties. You said that lefties have a limited ceiling.

[00:15:35] Also true, every single lefty on tour is more of a grinder. Think about Loong. Loong's a counterpuncher. Augie's a counterpuncher. CJ's a little bit more aggressive, but mostly a counterpuncher. Elliott is the first lefty that is really just absolutely taking it to people. Taking on a ton of court. Playing chaotic. Playing aggressive. Speeding up backhands down the line.

[00:15:59] Like, I don't think the statement about lefties having a lower ceiling is true. I feel like players who are more so grinders have lower ceilings. And so far, you know, pretty much all of the lefties in pickleball have been grindy for whatever reason. But not Elliott. Shut up. That dude hates to dink. I think that's the key. You got to find people that hate dinking. I made a comment.

[00:16:26] I made a video last night about maybe my favorite pickleball tip I'd ever heard, which was don't dink until your opponents force you to dink. And I posted that. I thought it was pretty good. Shout out pickleball pigeon Luke Geyser who shared that tip. Legend. Oh, the legend. Oh, you know the pigeon too. Yeah. Yeah, dude. I did some lessons on my YouTube channel with the pigeon from back when he was like, he looked like Andy Milonakis. You know, Andy Milonakis? Dude.

[00:16:56] My favorite thing is, Andy Milonakis was like probably 40. And when you were working with a pigeon, he was 14. Yeah. Your favorite age. But he kind of looks like he's a shorter guy. And he's also got a mouth on him. He could chirp at 13 years old. I was going toe to toe chirping with the pigeon. I was like, what is going on right now? This guy is wise beyond his age. Oh. Dude. He reminded me of Andy Milonakis.

[00:17:26] I wonder if the pigeon knows who that is. But shout out to the pigeon. He's now, I think like 18 or so. And it's a great player too. He's taking your lessons to heart. But yeah, he mentioned that dinking tip. And I was like, I think you're right. Right? Like, you know, like the goal is not to start dinking. The goal is to figure out how to stop dinking and start being more aggressive. And like all the good players in pickleball these days, I mean, yes, they're good dinkers.

[00:17:53] But like Hayden is not good because he's the best dinker. You know what I mean? Or Christian Alshon. And so like, and I think that sometimes the things that separates like Hayden and Christian and Ben from like Fed, who I would put in like S tier minus is like more offense. I don't know. So. Yeah. Here's the interesting thing too. Being good at hands.

[00:18:17] So even if your dinking level stays exactly the same, being good at hands and speed ups makes your dinking better without your dinking have to be better. Meaning like if your opponents feel the pressure from your speed ups, you're going to win more dink rallies. Right? Even if you're not that great of a dinker. Right? I feel like, I feel like I don't want to, I mean, Christian's a very good dinker. I don't want to insult his, his dinking, but from the right side, right? Right.

[00:18:46] He's not hitting the most crazy aggressive dinks. He's either kind of hitting a dink to continue the point and a good spot, untackable, or he's speeding it up. But he does put so much pressure on you that like he's super tough to play against and you get a lot of dink errors. He gets a lot of dink errors against him. So I think being good at the other stuff actually helps your dinking without even working on your dinking. Yeah, exactly.

[00:19:12] And if you're at like a 4-0 level, like same thing goes, like you're good at hands, you're good at attacking. They're also going to stay further off the line. One time James Zinatovich was talking about the difference between pros and 5-0s and he's like, there's so much space. I feel like in front of me with a 5-0 and like the more that you can be intimidating, offensive, et cetera, the more these people are just going to almost like allow you to be a bad dinker. So yeah.

[00:19:38] Anyway, Elliot Shupp, not a bad dinker, but a great offensive weapon. And so I had also, Zane, here's a question is this guy's getting drafted in MLP, right? And he's going for a lot of money. Do we agree there at this point? Has the resume, is it big enough yet that we can confirm that he will for sure be drafted in MLP? Let me read you some of my text messages to Elliot Shupp.

[00:20:07] Elliot, I want to sign you on the Chicago Slice. Elliot, I know that you're 19 and I only work with 18-year-olds and under, but you could be a mentor. Yo, can you stop winning so that we can draft you to the Slice for cheap? Next year. He says, it's tough to do that when Kiora is playing so well. I said, good shit, bro. Keep it rolling. Another. So like a couple of days later, they kept that, they kept that rolling.

[00:20:37] I just texted him, fucker. He hit me with the ha ha. Ha ha ha. Um, let's see. And then after that, I said, I said, we're cooked. We'll see you in the auction. You'd be like, you should just, you should just, good luck on the fires. He's getting drafted by an MLP team for sure. Um, yeah. Yeah. And for a lot of money. He's, he's gotta be, he's gotta be number one free agent.

[00:21:07] I feel like, uh, is there anybody else that would you think would be, would go higher? Like in terms of players that have not played MLP, is he the number one most valuable player? Well, of players who haven't played MLP, yeah, probably. But also, let's talk about MLP. We don't know any of the rules. And we don't even know who is going to make those rules because we don't have a commissioner. And we don't even know what is going on with the commissioner. Right? Like, hold on a second. Do you have an interim commissioner?

[00:21:37] There's no interim commissioner, to my knowledge. Or at least that hasn't been announced. Like, yeah, it feels like we got a long time. But look, we are, you know, it's October. We got worlds coming up. After that is the holidays. December is a wash. You're looking at two or three months before the draft, which is going to happen in March. Right? I think that's typically where, where it happens. Like, we're not that far out from needing shit for MLP. And we have none of it.

[00:22:06] So, yeah, Elliot, maybe, who knows? Like, but who even knows what the format's going to look like next year? We have no idea. That's wild. I didn't even think about the fact that there's no progress on the commissioner. And I think if they want a good commissioner, that's like a three-month process. So, you probably need to have interim commissioner in some way, shape, or form. Like, I'm just, like, imagining it being like, you know, like when you go to places, like you're in the mall, and all of a sudden there's the sign that says we'll be back in, like, 15 minutes.

[00:22:35] And you're like, how do you not have one person demand the store at all times? Like, you literally shut the store down because you need to go get lunch. And that's like what the commissioner situation is here. We'll be back in two months. Should I check back in? We don't know shit. Yeah, but here's the thing. What MLP needs is not an internal hire right now either, right? Like, Tice is writing out these, like, best, you know, people for this job.

[00:22:58] I'm like, okay, these are good people, but we need somebody who has real sports experience in a different league or something or another. And so, not only that, but it's going to take a lot of getting them up to speed with the history of the league, with pickleball. They're going to have a ton of learning to do before they can even make informed decisions on some of this stuff too.

[00:23:21] So, like, I think we might almost be too late for this freaking commissioner already if we're going to get somebody legit from outside of the pickleball bubble. I think you're going to. And you are too late. And the question is, who's going to write the rules for this year? Because it's not going to be the commissioner. Is it going to be Ross? Is it going to be Chris Cantino? Is it going to be you, Eric Tice? Like, it's so funny. Like, I see the names that most people throw out.

[00:23:49] They're all great people who also all say, like, I'm underqualified. We need somebody else. But, yeah, I don't know. I feel like I don't know what you guys are going to do. The MLP Illuminati needs to figure out what to do while you get the commissioner. So. Yeah, I think it'd be. It's a very interesting position, right? Because it's a very, I think, political position as well. Um, so, yeah.

[00:24:18] Well, I think there are bits and pieces of it that would be. It almost feels like it needs to be split into a couple of different jobs potentially. Right? Like, talking about getting somebody to do media deals. Talking about rules type of stuff. Like, you probably just need, you know, a rules are for a little bit. And that can be somebody from the inside. Yeah. Yeah. So, this brings me to the next topic, which this is perfect.

[00:24:47] The rules are. I want to talk about Jim Kloss. The rules are. Who took it upon himself to propose a new rule while you were in Australia. I think you saw it. I was waiting for it to see if you would respond. Oh, yeah. Dude, I put out a 10-minute, 12-minute YouTube video on it already. Were you in the zoo? Is this your zoo video? This is my zoo video. Is it Zane recording from the zoo by himself in, like, his members-only jacket or whatever?

[00:25:16] You look like Mr. Rogers. I don't know if that was the one. I just remember seeing a jacket with you. I was like, this is a fucking Mr. Rogers-ass jacket. That was the one. Oh, my goodness. You know, don't disrespect Lululemon like that. Australian Lululemon has, like, the, it's got, like, the safari jacket-looking thing. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. So, Zane looked great. Just trust me on that one.

[00:25:42] But, so for those of you who have been living under a rock or at least not on pickleball social media, maybe missed the fact that Jim Kloss wrote an article suggesting some rule changes around unsportsmanlike conduct. Taunting, taunting, screaming, talking about Kate Fahey and Maria Ford as examples. This was kind of the impetus for changing it.

[00:26:12] Maria Ford played Jeannie Bouchard last tournament, screamed after every point. It, I didn't watch every single point, but to me, the majority of her screams were down and, like, just kind of more so to herself. But they were absolutely annoying. Anyway, Jim decides there should be a rule to ban some of these things, ban Kate Fahey's intimidation tactics or whatnot. And the internet went up in arms.

[00:26:38] I said, I think this is, this debate is so stupid that it's just here to distract us and make us realize and want us to go back to the debate on bucket hats because that's, like, a more reasonable debate. But, Zane, what are your thoughts on screaming and the proposed Jim Kloss rules? Unlike you, I think this debate is actually fascinating as long as you don't take it just as at complete surface level, right?

[00:27:07] Like, as you think about this more, if you don't just give a gut reaction to screaming good or screaming bad, I think it's a bunch of really interesting conversations to be had. And so some of the things I thought about and the reason why I rattled off 12 minutes of video from the zoo was I started off thinking, like, well, why do we care in pickleball to begin with? Right? There's other sports.

[00:27:36] NFL, these guys are screaming at each other. NBA, they're screaming at each other all the time. Baseball, they're, like, cussing and yelling at each other. You don't usually pick up on that, all this stuff. Well, it's because, in my opinion, I think we've got a couple different, I mean, we've got really, like, a melting pot of demographics in pickleball. So the first people that really popularized pickleball were who?

[00:28:01] Retirees in Florida and Arizona who picked this sport up after playing tennis, right? If you had to generalize who kind of the first wave of pickleballers was, I would say it's that. That group comes from tennis. They're not going to like the screaming. And I do think that this is supported. I think you ask anybody who's probably, like, 40 and under, and they're like, yeah, you know what? It's annoying sometimes. I don't like it all the time, but I think they should be allowed to.

[00:28:28] You ask anybody who's probably, like, 45 and above, they hate it, right? I think that's probably, do you have pushback on that as just a demographic? No, I would probably push the age up to, like, 55 versus 45. I'm 39. Like, 45 seems young. But I get what you're saying. Like, there is, like, to me, it's like, I think somebody posted boomer coded, blah, blah, blah, blah. Like, boomers for sure.

[00:28:56] And, like, you're getting, like, on the edge of, like, Gen Z maybe. Sorry, Gen X. But, like, yeah, I get it. There's definitely two sides of this depending on your demographic. Yeah, so from there, I went and sort of started to think, like, all right, well, we want different things, right?

[00:29:20] They, I think that the older generation looks at us, or maybe when they were younger, they looked at athletes more so as role models, people to sort of emulate, right? And I think that now, I think you see so much behind the scenes, behind the curtains of athletes that younger people know, like, athletes are the same exact flawed people as anybody else, right? You see so many stories of just what horrible people most of these athletes actually are.

[00:29:49] They're probably worse than your average person. So I don't think that, I think that you shouldn't look up to players as role models to begin with. I think you should understand that most of these players, especially if you've gotten to the top, top, are probably not super fulfilled people. Like, somebody like Kobe or Michael Jordan, like, you've got to kind of have a screw loose to be, like, the top, top.

[00:30:19] Tiger Woods. Tiger Woods. Yeah. So, I don't know, I think there's just so many fascinating things. I thought about, like, the, you know, a lot of the people, you know, shitting on cloths were like, you're only ripping on women. And I think there's some of that, right? I think that there's a double standard for men and women to a certain degree. But I also think if you look at it, men and women talk shit or express their emotions a little bit differently.

[00:30:48] The women tend to yell a little bit more, right? You have very few guys that just yell. But when they do, nobody likes that either, right? Nobody likes Christian just yelling. Nobody really likes, or at least let's say the older people don't like Christian just yelling. They don't like Julian Arnold just yelling. Somebody like me finds both of those funny, right? So, it's kind of the same breakdown. But you also have players on the ladies' side who talk shit instead.

[00:31:18] Like Zoe Weil and Danny Townsend. People love them. They talk shit like the guys. So, I think at least, you know, there's probably some double standard. But I think it's also like a style thing. People don't mind the shit talk. They don't mind the chirping. But they really don't like the just screaming. Yeah, I agree that they don't like screaming. And I think that it was interesting to me. I mean, you said, you know, like women have a different way of handling themselves. Zane, I saw you. You know, we saw you scream. You have the most famous scream of the year.

[00:31:48] But the thing is, Zane, you screamed. Nobody put that in an article. When you screamed, nobody suggested a rule change. And when they suggested the rule change, they didn't put your famous scream in the article. So, like, I think for me, I'm just like, I get the fact that, like, nobody likes Christian scream. But nobody hears Christian scream and go, we need to change the rules because of this guy. I don't think. But I get that nobody likes either. So, to your point, I think there is a little bit of a double standard.

[00:32:18] You know, it bothers me a little bit. But also, I do, I do, like, what's hard is, like, to everybody's point, it's like, Maria's forward screaming is so annoying. Can I just, you know, can I clarify? Like, I think there is partially double standard, but I think there's also more to it than that. Is what I'm trying. I'm not trying to say that there is no double standard. I'm saying that I think there is a little more to it.

[00:32:44] But, yeah, I mean, the fact that my scream didn't make the article, I feel like is, I feel like if there's one type of scream that should be, like, your case in point, it might be mine. I hit the guy. I screamed in his face, not once, but twice. But twice. Oh, my gosh. No, exactly. But, no, the hard thing is, like, I don't think you should police screaming.

[00:33:11] And what was hard is, like, I understand if screaming is directed at your opponent and is seen as taunting, maybe we have a conversation there. But what I was trying to express to Jim unsuccessfully on Twitter, and so I quit, was that, like, I don't think it's possible to create a rule where you can scream and then eventually you just scream too much and then you punish them.

[00:33:38] And he's like, well, sometimes it becomes unnecessary. I'm like, I don't know. Like, if one scream is. Was it ever necessary, though? I don't know. But, like, if I scream, yeah, and then one time I do it again and, like, you give me a penalty, that makes no sense. Like, if you can do it once, you should be able to do it 100,000 times, right? Even if it's annoying.

[00:34:00] But to Jim's point, though, is, like, if I scream F you or if I look right in my opponent's face and I get up to the net and I scream at them, that should probably always be a penalty if that's what you want to do, right? But I just think if you're going to police by, like, decibel level, because he, like, brought up the decibels, like, that's crazy. I think it's impossible to enforce. So, I don't know. I just don't think we need it. But I at least can understand people getting frustrated or upset, especially with the taunting.

[00:34:26] And I think my biggest thing is I find someone like Maria Ford is going to find out that people are going to hate her if she keeps screaming like that after every point. And she can decide whether or not she's okay with that or she's not. And, like, her and Zane can become the villains of pickleball if they want or they can change and it's up to them. But I don't think you need to punish them with a point penalty. Yeah.

[00:34:51] Look, I feel like we're at a spot in pro pickleball, and I think this is probably where I piss some people off, and I understand that perspective as well. I think we're at a spot where we don't want to shut away any eyeballs. Meaning, like, I generally think that even some of this bad behavior gets people to tune in. And I use the example. Do you remember anything else from MLP Dallas?

[00:35:24] No. I don't remember. Like, that was the entire storyline was me screaming my head off. Like, if I could take that back, I would. I looked like a fucking idiot. Like, I'm not happy with what I did. But I don't think you can argue that it wasn't at least engaging and entertaining. Like, if I could take that back, I absolutely would. Right? But I think we should have the ability to act like idiots.

[00:35:50] And I think that, you know, people are drawn to watching that kind of stuff. And we're still in a precarious spot in the league. We need to grow the eyeballs to support this league. If we top out right now in how many people watch professional pickleball, the UPA is done. Right? This entire business model is built on more people continuing to watch the professional game. And the metrics are good. Graphs. Up and to the right. Like, we're looking good.

[00:36:19] But, yeah. We need that. It's good. Yeah. I don't think we should discriminate against it. I don't think we should make this sport quieter right now with all the momentum we've got. Maybe when we're already established, right? But right now, we're the scrappy underdog that needs to claw for attention. But maybe when we're established and we have tens of millions of people viewing every single, you know, finals or something like that, like the U.S. Open. Yeah, maybe we can rein it in then.

[00:36:49] But right now, an eyeball is an eyeball. Yeah. I think that's good. I like that. And, I mean, people already, like, immediately think pickleball is the most boring shit. If they don't watch it, you know, if they're not playing, they're not watching, they already have a perception of this is boring. So, if we can liven it up for the masses, like, I'm fine with it. A little bit of bad behavior didn't hurt anybody. And I don't think we're at a spot right now where pickleball is out of control. It's not like the XFL. It's not. I don't know.

[00:37:18] Like, right now, do you find that pickleball in any way, shape, or form is, like, out of control compared to other sports? No. I think it's still probably more tame than most sports, than the vast majority of other sports. Like, it's more tame than baseball, basketball, football. Those are the only sports I really watch. Yeah. Baseball's got a culture where if you talk shit, the pitcher literally hits you with the ball as hard as he can. Like, I mean, like, that's crazy. That can kill you. That can kill you. Yeah, exactly.

[00:37:47] He's throwing an object that can kill you at you. Yeah. Let's put this into perspective. Yeah. In hockey, they literally just start fighting. Like, and people just clear out, and they drop their gloves, and they just start hitting each other. You know what I mean? Like, I think we're okay. Obviously, we're never going to be hockey. But, uh... Hey, but you know what? That brings up Jordy from Barstool Sports. I feel like you act like an idiot. You do kind of deserve the consequences.

[00:38:14] And if you start talking shit to AJ Kohler too much, you know what? If he wants to, you know, take it outside, you probably went too far. You got to know your enemy. Yeah, exactly. And Federico knows his enemy. But yeah, I agree. All right. So we'll just leave Pickleball as it is. It's fun. And if we find it to go too far, I think we'll know when it's too far. And I think right now we're just kind of, like, forcing something. So, you know. I don't know.

[00:38:44] I found it very interesting to do a deep, deep dive into. Zane, I have another proposal. It's not a rule change. But I want to get your thoughts on this. I came up with it last night. And I think it's the best idea that I've ever had. I came up with this because I was arguing with somebody online. Because, of course, I have nothing better to do at this moment. Because what happened... So, backstory. Yesterday, Virginia Beach gets the... Delayed. I think it's delayed and delayed and delayed and delayed. And it's starting at 9 p.m.

[00:39:12] And because it's starting at 9 p.m., they play... They move men's doubles and women's doubles to Sunday. They play mixed doubles and singles on Saturday night. On Sunday, they play all four... I think they were scheduled to, like, play all four gender doubles, like, on four separate courts, something like that. They played one mixed doubles match on center court. And then they played one women's singles match and one men's singles match.

[00:39:40] And I was just like, if I only have, like, two hours of pickleball experience to watch, I don't want to watch two singles matches. And so here is what I said. I said, we should change the amount of pickleball on center court or on championship court per discipline based on the percentage of point value for WPR.

[00:40:06] So, for those of you who don't know, your pickleball ranking is broken into three components. Singles, mixed doubles, gender doubles. Singles is only worth 15%. Mixed doubles is worth 35%. Gender doubles is worth 50%. I think we should only have 15% of games be singles, 35% of games be mixed doubles, and 50% of games be a split between men's and women's doubles. I think that's a perfect ratio.

[00:40:37] Huh. What do you think? Instead of equal, I don't need equal. That actually makes, like, a ton of sense. But you wouldn't do that on championship Sunday, would you? No, I mean, on championship Sunday, you have to play all of them. But, like, when you have quarterfinal day or whatever. Yeah. So, on a Tuesday, you've got, like, one men's, one women's singles,

[00:41:06] like, three mixed and, like, five gender doubles or something like that. Yes. Give me something like that. Instead of two men's singles, two women's singles, two mixed doubles, two women's doubles, and two men's doubles. I don't want that. I was like, give me one women's singles, one men's singles, and give me more doubles matches. I think everybody would probably be more happy. I mean, not everybody, but obviously, that's the value that the league puts on singles.

[00:41:36] I would also like it to be translated to the viewing audience, and I think everybody would be happier. Yeah. That's interesting. So, you'll get a kick out of this. First off, I actually, you know, for once in your life, Nico, I feel like that's a pretty good idea. Connor Pardo, if you're listening, another rule change. Thank you. We, I don't know if you ever saw this in our Discord, in the Pro Pick While Talk Discord. We actually created, like, a subgroup that went through,

[00:42:06] somebody wrote some code to go scrape how many views showed up on the PPA Tour YouTube channel for every single different event, based on round, based on players. We normalized, we, I sat there as the data nerds normalized for players, and events, and rounds, and even stuff like how many points the tournament was worth,

[00:42:33] and whether that has any impact on data or on viewership. So, yeah. What, here, why don't I pull out? I do fine. I know, it sounds awesome. It's super nerdy. I'm pulling open the actual numbers here. Also, while you're pulling this up, Zane, I will say, we'll get to user comments in a second, but this is the perfect time.

[00:42:59] ZSCR said one day ago in our last pod, he said, I would genuinely rather put toothpicks in my toenails and kick a wall than hear you talk about your Discord again. So, this one's for you, buddy. This one's for you. Join the Discord. Hey, but hey, in the Discord, you get shit like this. So, okay, over the entire YouTube channel history,

[00:43:23] the median view of men's doubles was 12,000 views per video. Mixed was 11,000. Women's doubles was 8,6,000. Men's singles was 6,1,000. And women's singles was 3,6,000. So, singles with a total. So, if you do this that way, you've got gender doubles, 20,000.

[00:43:52] Mixed doubles, 11,000. And singles, 9,000. That's pretty interesting. So, yeah, gender doubles is a good amount more. I'm surprised mixed isn't higher in viewership. And I'm not surprised that singles isn't. Interesting. Yeah.

[00:44:19] What's interesting to me also is like, how far does this go back? I would have to take men's and women's doubles, combine them together. So, that's 12 plus 8.6 is 20.6. So, 10.3 is the average for gender doubles. 11 is the average for mixed doubles. And then 9.7.

[00:44:45] So, 4.8-ish is the average for singles. If you combine them. Okay. So, mixed doubles is the highest. Yeah. Mixed doubles. Yes. It goes, men's doubles, 12. Mixed doubles, 11. Women's doubles, 8.6. Men's singles, 6.1. Women's singles, 3.6. But when you start to combine them, if you just say gender doubles,

[00:45:13] you get gender doubles is about 10. Mixed doubles is about 11. Singles is about 5. Okay. Okay. Yep. So, I feel like that basically says what I was trying to say. I tried to do some of the same research, and I found mixed doubles actually had, like, the most from my, like, very limited scrape. But, like, yeah. I think, I mean, that makes sense. And also, like, half the time they show women's singles, it's Annalie Waters, and she's the biggest draw there is.

[00:45:41] So, like, you know, I guess that also inflates the numbers, I always feel, like, compared to some of the other stuff. So, get Annalie Waters' singles match. Get one men's singles match a day, and then we can move on to gender and mixed. So, I don't know. It's interesting to see. I'm surprised that they play so much singles. And, like, the number one complaint on the schedule, when they moved the schedule to, like, 2 p.m. start time, everybody just said,

[00:46:07] this is not bad, but singles takes too long to get through. So, mixed doubles starts at 9 p.m., and then I'm screwed. So, all right, I think we're in agreement. I think the data backs us up. You want to know something interesting, though? Yeah, I do. So, let's go through, we'll go through the actual top 10 most viewed videos,

[00:46:31] and it is men's singles, men's doubles, men's singles, men's doubles, men's singles, mixed doubles, men's singles, mixed doubles, men's singles, mixed doubles. So, that is 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 5 of the top 10 videos are men's singles. The question is, how many of those have Ben Johns in it?

[00:46:58] Ben Johns appears in all of them but one. Okay. The only one is they have QD versus Jack Sock from Mesa, round of 16 with over half a million views. That's got to be Vietnam. This is fascinating. We also, like, these guys just ripped into the numbers. So, fuck the person that doesn't care about Discord,

[00:47:27] because this shit's wild. This is awesome. They took out, they also normalized for the round, meaning, like, if you're in the final, you're going to automatically get more views than if it's a round of 64 match. They normalized for the round, for the names, for everything, and they came up with basically, like, marketability scores. How much certain players overperform the average player.

[00:47:56] I'm going to make a full video, like, deep diving into this stuff, but some of the players with the highest outlier score, guess who's number one? Outlier score? Not QD? QD is the largest outlier score. 5.2 times the amount that an average player would get

[00:48:23] in that size of tournament in that round. Oh, wow. Followed by Anna Lee Waters, Tama Shimo... Sorry. QD, Anna Lee, Ben Johns, Tama, Jack, Jeannie Bouchard, yours truly, Kyora Kunimoto, Hayden Patrick Quinn, Ben Johns, Anna Bright, Gabe Tardio. You say Ben Johns twice, though? Sorry, Colin Johns. Colin Johns. Okay. All right. Dude, this shit's fascinating.

[00:48:52] These guys are nerds. Are nerds. I'm going to break this down an entire video, but you know what? Join the Discord. Fuck that one person. That's right. ZSCR. We're talking to you. Wow. That's awesome. That is good to hear. I was always wondering who was the most... And I... Maybe PPA made a mistake for axing QD. Maybe they got to bring him back. I haven't seen a single match of his since he's been gone,

[00:49:21] but it's because I don't watch the quarterfinals of the APP. Hold on. Okay. APP. Did you see the protests at the APP this week? I did. The data center protest? That's wild. So, match point in, I think, mixed doubles. It's like 10-6. They're about to win. This guy just starts walking on the court, and nobody is doing anything. They're just kind of looking at this guy. And then 15 more people come on the court, and they unravel this big tarp

[00:49:48] which says something or another against this data center. It was wild. My first thought was, this first guy? How has this first guy not stopped from just walking on the court? Yes. It's different. The Cincinnati streaker, he ran onto the court. That's difficult to stop. But this guy was walking like so slowly, just walked into the middle of the court. It was wild. And then like 20 more people walked.

[00:50:19] In every other sporting event on earth, that guy would have been blasted to the floor by some kind of security guard in a yellow jacket. Like, you know, like, geez. I saw that. And then I saw Johnny 5.0 was like, man, this might be a really effective protest for the 37 people watching the APP. It's, you know what? Good for them that they did this at the APP and not at the PPA Chicago in Bruno Folletto and Anwar Baram's match because I feel like those guys are just,

[00:50:49] those guys are just looking for an excuse to deck somebody. You know when you see like those, like somebody like go on to the football field and one of the linebackers will just like take them out. Oh yeah. They're like, I think I get to hit somebody. I'm going to hurt this guy real bad and everyone's going to call me a hero. That sounds like something that Bruno wants to do. And what a name. Bruno is the most Bruno looking Bruno I've ever seen in my life. So shout out Bruno. He did well this week too.

[00:51:18] So yeah. Wow. Zane, I bring this back to pickleball. I want to, I'm not sure if you saw this. I think I texted you about this, but I want to get your take. Maybe we talked a little bit about this on like the owl AI instant replay system on center court. So backstory here is quarterfinals, mixed doubles, Mari and Augie are playing Andre and Megan Dazon.

[00:51:48] And it is, I think nine, 10 or 10, nine. Mari and Augie are serving game three. Point goes on. Andre hits the ball that to me looks clearly out, right? Point game match, but it's close enough that you're definitely going to challenge. Andre and Megan challenge. The challenge goes on for like a minute.

[00:52:14] They do not show even one replay, you know, of the actual ball moving. And then you just hear Don Stanley get on the court and he's like, it's overturned. And then you see the owl AI. And what's crazy to me is like, Andre is like standing like two or three feet from the bay, from the sideline when he hits the ball. And the owl AI system looks like the ball is hit cross court. Paints the line. They call it in.

[00:52:44] We resume the match at three points later. Andre and Megan win. And I was just like, one, how do you not have like the actual replay of the ball once? Do I trust this? I don't think so. Maybe I'm going to get in trouble from the PPA, but like it doesn't look like the same shot. And like, I don't know. I want to get your take. I'm not sure if you saw it or you got thoughts on it. Oh yeah. I saw it and I got thoughts on it. It's brutal.

[00:53:12] These AI systems have been butchering calls left and right. There's no worse one than the Hunter Johnson, Eric Onseen's one where it was out by like three or four inches. And Eric challenged literally as just like a timeout. You know, when you're just like, all right, challenge timeout. Eric got overturned and Eric just said, no, give it to him. Like that was out. I was just. That was just challenging as a timeout. Like, so here's the thing.

[00:53:39] If we've got a video, let's not overcomplicate things. Let's use the video. Right? Yes. You watch the video that balls clearly out. And there's a reason that they don't show you the owl AI and the video side by side. Have you ever seen those two things side by side? No. No. No. That's I posted because right after like, uh, Mari and, and, uh, and, uh,

[00:54:09] Zoe lost their match and they challenged their match point. Ball was out by four inches. And of course they show that ball. That's clearly out. I'm just like, Oh, that's a, that's an unfortunate time to, to actually have the ball, uh, with like close call replay. But yeah, I, they're like, we're confident enough in this one. We'll show you this one. But for sure, like there's like the graphic. If anybody wants to do any kind of internet sleuthing, please go ahead. The shot looks like it's coming from the other side of the court. And I'm like, no, that's not where the shot was hit.

[00:54:39] No, that's not where the ball landed. If you look at the, I'm like watching. There's like almost like no point when the ball even crosses. It's like out the whole time bounces. And like, I, AI man hallucinates. Like everybody knows this, right? Like we've seen pictures of Zane with AI and he looks like a racist caricature. I have seen, if you guys, we talked about Husk, uh, AI. If you guys watch that on Tik TOK where he's like that video, or he's like,

[00:55:08] he's like, all right. He's like, I'm going to go run a mile. And then, uh, I need you to time me. Uh, and then when I come back, let me know how fast I went. He's like, they're like, all right, I'm ready. He's like, okay, ready, go. Okay. I'm back. And he's like, nice job. That was seven minutes and 35 seconds. He's like, are, are you sure? I think I went a little faster than that. He's like, ah, I know how to, you know, it might feel that way. He's like, I feel like it was like two seconds. Hey, hey chat,

[00:55:38] I'm going to go run a mile. Can you time me real quick? Sure. Yeah. I can count seconds out loud for a quick mile time. Say, go when you start and stop when you finish. All right. I'm leaving right now. Got it. Start whenever you're ready. I'm starting. One, two, three, four. You're not going to count the whole time. I don't want you to count the whole time.

[00:56:07] I just want you to tell me how much my, my time was at the end. I'm going to restart now. Okay. Got it. Quiet timer. I'll start now. Say stop when you finish. Okay. I just ran a mile. Stop and timer. Hang on. I'm checking. Come on, Hong Kong AI. Thanks for waiting. Just a bit longer.

[00:56:38] This is like a challenge. I want to see if this works or not. I want to see what they, what, what it had, what it comes back with. It is really thinking a long time now. Oh my goodness. This thing knows it's being recorded. I'm still checking. All right. Nevermind. We're done. Anyway, we'll probably have to cut that part out. Now that got, that went nowhere. We'll just leave the story in, but about husk. Oh, that's,

[00:57:08] that shit was so funny. Um, anyway, so that's what I feel. I feel like all AI hallucinates just as much as Claude or chat GPT or whatever. And, uh, if I was Mari, like the thing is, if I'm Mari or Augie, I'm thinking one, uh, you fucked me too. Now this is a system where I get paid on my performance. It's, that's not a guarantee. It's not just guarantee contracts. I probably lost a bunch of money because of that. I don't know the difference between quarterfinals and semifinals, but I'm sure it's, what,

[00:57:37] what do you, what is the difference? I mean, you wouldn't know, you know, the difference between round of 32 and round of 64, but like, I don't know who we ought to ask, but maybe Mari knows, but there's probably a good chunk of change. And then there's a lot of, a lot of rankings points. So. Yeah, no. And well, then also like a shot at the actual, you know, it could be much more too. Right. Um, look, Sophia and Catherine saved a match point against Mari three match points against Mari and Zoe.

[00:58:06] And they went on to win the entire thing. Right. So, you know, and it's, and it's also the, the what if or the expected value after that. Now they got absolutely royally boned. Can I say that? Um, yeah, well I did. Um, yeah, that feels, that feels brutal. And there's an easy solution. Just use the AI system. Um, only if something else isn't a better, like more conclusive version. If you've got a video, use a video.

[00:58:35] If you have a referee who says unequivocally that was in, or that was out. Great. If you have no video and the referee didn't see anything, use the AI system. I like it. All right. New rules. Zane, I, rules are, we are, we are on a roll right now. Like we should be paid for consulting at this point. So. I think so. All right, Zane, what else happened this week? I'm, should we get some, uh, we can do some,

[00:59:04] we can do some of, the comments from, uh, our last episode. Go through some of those. We'll see. Why don't we do some, why don't we do some comments? All right. There is one here that I liked, uh, speaking of AI and I got to find it. Uh, pigeon, this person, Devin TSI says pigeon forages the AI slop of cities. Which, if you have ever been, this is the most accurate description of pigeon forge I could possibly imagine.

[00:59:34] And I appreciate some AI slop. No, no, it's, I've never been. Nico, this person, OG slide one says, Nico, you should hate yourself for that drawstring disaster on your hoodie. People notice everything. It's insane. I was like, but like, what do you do? Here's the thing is like, what do you do Zane? When you have a hoodie and either part of the, the drawstring gets sucked into the other hood part. Like, are you screwed? Like, I don't know. I don't know how to get that thing out. Do you,

[01:00:03] do you just take the whole thing out? I think so. I think you just take the entire thing out at that point. It's done. Yeah. All right. I'll, I'll do that next time. Sorry. My bad guys. I didn't even notice. I just, hey, tip for all you guys. Just try not to actually watch Nico's screen. You're better off. All right. So we also talked about, uh, whether or not Anna Leigh Waters's dominance is interesting or not.

[01:00:32] Somebody commented to make the ALW single streak, even wilder. Remember that it was 307 days between when AL lost to Salome David's a and her prior loss to hurricane tire rack black. So as of 10 14 in the last 1137 days, she has one singles loss. Yeah. That's still pretty crazy. Uh, I think 900 or whatever days without a loss is,

[01:01:01] is a crazier one, but yeah, I mean, you add to it. She was dominant before this, this person, of course, super nice. Comments. K tree 470 says Nico. I'd like to bring back the word Lardass thoughts. Big fan of Zane. Why? This is just brutal. That's such a random shout.

[01:01:28] I haven't heard anybody say the term Lardass in so long. I feel like it's been since like the early 2000 you would watch like, but he wants to bring it back just for me. That reminds me of some shit. Uh, like, uh, like an, like you'd hear in an American pie movie, like Lardass. Lard. Anyway, I'm down for bringing it back. Okay. Great. So,

[01:01:59] Edward Miller says, Nico going five and one in a dream breaker is wild. He must've been playing a trash can, but that means he managed to hit the trash can once in those six serves. What does that even mean? And I guess then the trash can got it back. I don't know, dude. Oh, by the way, um, tales of Nico semi pro career. Uh, I played again this last weekend, uh, played yesterday and basically our whole team was out of town. So we like brought in.

[01:02:29] So I mentioned we're, we're sponsored by Jim boys, uh, Jim boys tacos. Um, anyway, that's awesome. The, the owner of Jim boys tacos, Peter, uh, Peter Francis, um, Jerry. What's that? Peter Francis, Tracy. Does anybody get that reference? No. Old commercial. Hi, I'm attorney Peter Francis, Tracy. Anyway, go ahead. Was that like, was that, is that a nationwide commercial or is that? All right. Well,

[01:02:59] our three Wisconsin listeners are going to eat that shit up. Shout out. If you, you have to leave us a comment. If you know the law offices of attorney, me, Peter Francis, Tracy, but anyway, go ahead. So anyway, so, so we got our guy, Peter Francis in who's like, I don't know, like a, probably like a, he's almost 60 years old and like a, like a three, five duper, three, three duper, I think. And he's playing in a semi pro league with a bunch of five, five. So,

[01:03:29] uh, I love Peter and he actually played a tournament with my wife once, but that's more so better for him. Anyway, shout out gym boys. Uh, we got demolished and at one point, and I'm, and I'm, I'm of course, once again, UPL, great league, Sasha's party. We have our one female playing our league. Our team has so many cells. We have three females playing. And so my team, me and my partner are playing the one lineup. So it's like the eight, a team versus the B versus a team B versus BC versus C.

[01:03:59] And it's me and this other female Shana, and we're playing the eight teams and we're playing two five, five guys, right? Like I'm playing Kwon Do's ex partner, like no joke. And like, anyway, so it's, it's real tough. We get to a dream breaker. The guy dropped shots me and I'm chasing it down as hard as I can. And of course, because I am just in the worst shape ever. Uh, I pull my, my quad immediately, like, and it hurts so bad. Right. And then the next point I win standing still, right?

[01:04:28] I don't even move. And I'm just like, I'm a blast. He's in the corner. I get to my next point in the dream breaker lineup. And I'm, I basically walk out. Like I'm like hobbling on crutches. Basically I can barely move. I get out there. We play one point. I still stand in the same spot. I lose the point. Next point kid, 15 years old, shout out Brody playing against me. What does he do? He does like a drop. So like, he just short serves me one inch past the kitchen line. And I'm like, and everybody in the crowd's like, Ooh.

[01:04:58] And I'm like, you know, I basically look like, you know, just this, you know, like I can't, I can't even move. I think even his dad after, after the point, like was like talking to him, like, bro, that's a bad look. But, uh, I don't, I don't mind. Shout out Brody. I would have done the same thing. That's that. He's a killer. He is a killer. Hate the player. Hate the game. Good for him. I think I might've gone one in five against 15 year old Brody at that point. Uh, my one highlight in the weekend, but I'll have to put posted on Instagram. Um, there's like a,

[01:05:28] a tournament highlight, like, but there's usually like one highlight point from every team. And my highlight point is me getting a poach and blasting the dude right in the fucking head. Just, it's just me diving wildly poached, smacks in the side of the head. That's, that's my highlight. So. Oh boy. Yeah. That's my new move. Like, I don't, I don't know. I guess I'm not, I'm not above chin music or face music, but anyway, so that happened. Uh, and yeah, basically I couldn't beat a trash can this week.

[01:05:58] So. Okay. Wow. Shout out UPL. Um, shout out UPL, I guess. Um, all right, let's see. Oh, we got our boy Chad lactates, not how you actually say it, but that's just been, uh, the ongoing bit from the original pod from, uh, he's in the discord, everything. We're talking about Anna Lee. He says 500 will be easy. She plays 10 more years. That's only 30 a year. She essentially got,

[01:06:28] uh, 200 in three years. Those are a lot of what ifs. 10 more years is a good amount. And 30 per year is a very good amount. So I like, I like 500 as a line. Me too. And I like going under the line. So, uh, if anybody thinks it's easy, they're insane, but I, it's definitely doable. All right. We've got more Zane. I don't think you saw some of these. Um, they were once again, rude to me. This dude,

[01:06:58] Jesse Blanc says, Oh, is that the one that was like rattling off to have you get a trainer? I think that might be the same guy. you're probably right. This time he comments, he says, came back four days later to tell Nico to go to the gym. That's definitely the same guy. That's definitely the same guy. Then it says, you have such an L mindset. Be a winner, not a wiener. This is your sign. Lock in big fella. Like this guy sounds like my dad.

[01:07:27] So I like the guys that are like just brutally insulting you, but also somewhat like encouraging at the same time. Lock in. Lock in big fella. Sounds like we're buddies, but he literally says you have such an L mindset. I'm like, okay, I don't even know what we're talking about. What mindset? I was like, I don't know if you've noticed that if anybody wants to, like I'm not to toot my own horn and like shout out Merrick health, but like look at the first time I joined this podcast. I'm aging in reverse. I'm fucking Benjamin button on that shit. Is he? But like,

[01:07:56] I like I've lost like 40 pounds and I, you know, I'm doing it, buddy. I'm going to the gym. So I'm not a wiener. I am a winner, but I appreciate that words of encouragement. Wow. Brutal. You know what? I rip on Nico a good amount, but guys, we just like, it's different when you're buddies, right? Like don't be mean spirited about it. That's no fun. That's right. I like this one Zane.

[01:08:26] Is this mean spirited? The HGU. I mean, just says, what's up with Zane's face? Oh no. You know what? I, you know, I can tell how much a pickleball video of mine goes viral by how many comments I get. Like what's up with this guy's face or, uh, did he just drink milk? Cause I got vitiligo, right? So I've got this stuff right on the corners of my mouth. It's an, an autoimmune disease.

[01:08:55] It's the Michael Jackson disease where basically your, um, your body starts like attacking your melanin cells. So I'm almost like, um, yeah, I lose all the, the pigment in these different spots, like on my hands. So I've got all these spots and stuff. So, um, yeah, uh, I've got vitiligo. And so I know a video is like reaching a different demographic when people are like, did this guy just eat fucking powdered donuts?

[01:09:26] So, this is like a, yeah, this guy just blow frosty. Um, but, but, I can't wait to see what the editors do with that. Leave it in. Leave it in. That's a good one. Anyway, no, the, the fight, the biggest question those in was, I think last week it wasn't even about that.

[01:09:56] I think it was the fact that your face was hella dark on the video. Maybe you just got a lot of sun. I don't know, but, Oh, I don't know. It was bad lighting in the, in the Ramada in or whatever you were in. Uh, dude, I don't even know where it was last week. I think I was in Australia. Uh, yeah. Oh, this one says used AI thumbnails of Anna bright because it's hard to find pictures of her uses AI thumbnails of himself Zane because he doesn't have many pictures of himself. LOL question mark. And, uh, to, to that,

[01:10:25] I say, uh, Zane doesn't make the thumbnails, but, uh, sometimes I need Zane to make a silly face and I don't, I text him sometimes. I'm like, Hey Zane, can you make this silly face? And, and I get no response. So I just make the silly face for him. So, but I can always make this silly face. I've got a good silly face. Have you seen my silly face? I can't, I know the face. I can't do it. It's just one. Show us the face. Yes. Yes. I, I'm glad I can't make that face. Yeah. Do you want to learn? I've taught people.

[01:10:54] So you go under by first, you go, and then you smile. And you stick your chin out while you're smiling. Cause you kind of have to like stick your chin out with an underbite. And then you cross your eyes and tilt your head. And that's how you, Nico, that was, that was honestly just scary. That, that was, that was tough. Um, by the way, I want to ask you, am I a bad parent corner real quickly for pickleball? I'm a bad dad.

[01:11:24] Speaking of scary, my daughter is like 20 months old and Halloween things scare her. So I make an effort to go around our neighborhood, like once a day to take her directly to all of the houses that have the scary things to try and like not to try to get her to overcome her fear. And it's not working. She's just fucking terrified every single time. Like we'll get on a walk. Now, now we start walking outside. She goes, no, no, no, no. And I'm like, I'm trying to help you build resilience.

[01:11:52] Cause we're about to go trick or treating and you're going to get fucked up. Uh, but, uh, I don't know if that's good parenting. Parenting or bad parenting, but I only have two dogs, dude. I don't know. I don't know what your dogs are scared of, but just imagine just taking them repeatedly there. It's, Oh man. But my dogs are scared of the most random shit that dogs are afraid of. Yeah. One of them is afraid of rain, rain and wind. He doesn't like elements.

[01:12:23] So if it's too windy or raining, he'll shit inside. He's a diva. He's like, he won't go outside. He'll be so, so afraid. Yeah. My dogs are afraid of some weird, weird stuff. So. All right. Well, his dogs are all right. So is there anything else in the world of pickleball that we need to talk about here? Why don't we miss it? Anything? I don't know. I'm sure the comments will let us know guys.

[01:12:52] Honestly, this has been a lot of fun reading through the good comments, but yeah, I think we're going to stop reading through the ones that are like clearly asshole ish comments. Like, like you can be an asshole as long as you're joking with us, not at us. That's right. That is right. All right. I appreciate that. Nico. Bro, we had enough at me guys. For sure. You'll get the comment. If you,

[01:13:20] if you blast Zane for sure, you get on here. Like I need, I need the one. So give me at least one a week. You'll be my hero. So it's gotta be like a, a 10 to one ratio of ripping Nico to, to ripping me. Although, you know what? People do comment on my inability to make Thursdays. So, um, they, they do. I, you know, I, I just did a video with Chris Olson. You guys can check that out. One of my channels coming out later this week. And why?

[01:13:52] I don't know. Any of me, my enemy is my friend. I don't know. Um, but it was, it was, we talked to, I actually don't think that makes sense, but we talked a lot about different paddle stuff. And then we talked about doing a tournament together and having you be the coach. Like, this is kind of the dream. It's like, it's, it'll be fun, but also a punishment for you. But Chris made a very good point. And he said, we probably have to do it in a PPA tournament that happens in Austin because we play 5-0 on Saturday.

[01:14:21] And Zane is gone on Wednesday. That's from Chris Olson himself. And I was like, you're the nicest guy ever, but, uh, you make a lot, you make a good point. Zane's day. He's like, I think it'd be pretty expensive for Zane to stay at the holiday inn for four more days just to coach us. And probably end up getting kicked out of the match when he coached us too. So. Damn, I got roasted by Chris. You got roasted by Chris Olson. Unprompted. We didn't even plan it. It was just like, it came off the tongue. Just,

[01:14:51] it was perfect. So. I don't, I don't know what to tell you, buddy. I'm at a loss now. Right now, uh, on, so sometimes our wife, when Zane's out of the country, sometimes our, our Wi-Fi is, is, is poor and Zane freezes. And for the last minute, he's been frozen and he looks just like Steve Carell on the cover of the 40 year old virgin.

[01:15:21] It, I know joke is. Wow. Okay. That's what I've been looking at. Like, I can't, I can't even run this podcast because that's a, that's what we've got for the last minute. Um, anyway, Zane, uh, before we go, uh, of course we got to go, we got to do a guess my duper. JB, do we have guess my duper? The district.

[01:15:50] Where is this? Okay. That's a good flick. There's a lot of jumping. Okay. This is a good, Oh, that's a random counter attack though. All right. He kind of gets jammed a lot in his forehand side, but it works. Pretty out of position there too.

[01:16:20] He like chicken wings himself. Oh, that's a, that's a tricky speed up. Wow. That wasn't him, right? That's it. We're good. The other guy, right? Him. Oh man. I feel like these guys are talented, but have the court IQ of a turtle. Like, I don't know what is going on. Like there's so much like going on out there. Like these guys are good at pickleball. So there's just no way that this is what their average point looks like.

[01:16:49] Like that's a 5.4, 5.5 point. But like with the amount of random pulls and just out of position, this that they got bailed out of, I'm going to go 4.8. Okay. I'm going to go four, five, six. And I'm going to say the guy's 29 years old. Wow. Roy Wales from Canada.

[01:17:18] Y'all are doing some funky shit up there. That looked like a Canadian point. Like now that I think about it, I'm like that. That's not a Florida point. That's a Canadian point. And what I learned in the comments, a Florida 5.0 is different than a Canadian 5.0. That was specifically called out. So I'd like to say if you were in Florida, that you would be a four, five, six, just like I said. But that was a good pickleball. Yeah. That was an interesting point. Lots going on. Yeah. Yeah. Um, Zane, I,

[01:17:47] I do also, uh, we'll be remiss to, to not bring up the fact. And so I'll, you, you and I will, we will coordinate this at some point offline, but, uh, Christian Alshon played a doubles tournament with his four, five social media manager, Ben Bramblitt. And, uh, I'm also a four or five. I'm better than Ben. I know this cause I, I have actually beat him. Unlike Kwondo. Um, so I'm just saying,

[01:18:16] if you ever like, if your partner bails on you, just let me know. I will show up. I'll go play. Uh, I'll pull a Ben Bramblitt. We can maybe win just as many matches as you won with Luke fam. That was wild. Okay. So hold on. Ben Bramblitt's playing better than four or five ball. He's probably playing five, five ball. Did you see any interviews though? The interviews were wild. Like beforehand, Christian was like, yeah, I don't have high expectations. I'm like, that's a wild thing to say.

[01:18:46] Like it can be true, but maybe just like, don't say it. It's like, you don't have to say everything that comes to your mind. Even I filter out some of the shit that's going through my mind. Occasionally. Okay. Okay. Yes, but no. And he was playing good. Uh, he looked like the highlights that I saw, Ben was, was doing well. And the thing that's funny is poor bastard is playing the best pickleball of his life. And his duper is just going down, down, down, down,

[01:19:16] down, down, down, down, down, down, because him and Christian are playing close matches and losing to five sixes. And all they have to do is target this, this poor freaking, you know, four, seven, and, uh, yeah. And he's playing with, since he's playing with a seven Oh, uh, he screwed. So poor Ben, that was wild though. It was kind of, it was pretty entertaining to watch though. Yeah. I think they won two, they won two rounds, two matches, two rounds.

[01:19:44] So they won around his duper went down 0.044 or four, two in the round that they won. Um, so anyway, like I said, if, uh, Christian Alshon can do it, you can do it. I'm going to start, I'm just going to start like offering my services, like God visa issues. You need a partner. Do you don't, are you about to withdraw from a tournament and not get your event fee? Nico will show up. He'll be there on the spot. He'll play phone, phone and Nico. Exactly. Like, or I told,

[01:20:14] I told Blaine Hoven here, I was like, you're walking with a cane. You can barely play. You need a minor league rehab. Like throw me in. I'll play. I'll let you feel good. You can be like the dominant left side alpha. And I'll just sit there in the corner and, uh, hit counters and probably speed up every single ball that comes to me. Like Elliot Chup. I don't like dinking. Pickle pot. Pickle pot.