Cynthia Schwartz PebbleCreek Pickleball Club players are back on the tournament circuit. In October, 451 players participated in the Arizona Open at the Mesa Tennis Center in Gene Autry Park. This event was a Pro-Am tournament, drawing some of the top professional players in the sport and amateur players from Alaska to Florida. Thirteen members…
Cynthia Schwartz The Amateur Athletic Union (AAU) is an organization dedicated to the promotion and development of amateur sports and physical fitness programs in the United States. The AAU philosophy is “Sports For All, Forever,” and includes pickleball in the list of 44 sports that it supports. The AAU recently sponsored a pickleball tournament, the…
Cynthia Schwartz On Oct. 31, PebbleCreek pickleball players celebrated Halloween at the courts. Players dressed up in costume and decorated the common areas with blow-up ghosts and pumpkins. Everyone had fun as they tried to guess who was behind the mask. Comments heard on the court: * “We are fun people and love to dress…
Cynthia Schwartz Steven was born and raised in Seattle, Wash. Growing up, Steven spent summers at his grandfather’s cabin in the San Juan Islands. He enjoyed scuba diving, hiking, playing ping-pong, waterskiing in 45-degree water, flying homemade kites, and fishing for salmon. Steven was a pole vaulter, played soccer, and embarked on his journey to…
Cynthia Schwartz Beth Kelly is the PebbleCreek Pickleball Club Player/Volunteer of the month. Beth is an artist, a teacher, dog trainer, and an avid collector of Major League Baseball memorabilia. Born in New Jersey, Beth received a bachelor’s degree from Colorado’s Women’s College, with a major in art and minor in education. Beth was an…
David Zapatka When your opponent hits the ball high in the air, above your shoulders, think overhead smash! The smash is one of the most fun shots in all of pickleball. It ends rallies with an exclamation point. Execute this fun, rally-ending shot, using these seven steps. 1. Use many small steps to position your…
Cynthia Schwartz Tony Wells is the PebbleCreek Pickleball (PCPB) volunteer of the month. Tony grew up in Prince Edward Island, in the Maritimes region of eastern Canada. He graduated with degrees in psychology and english from the University of Calgary, located in the western Canadian province of Alberta. While attending college, Tony played on the…
David Zapatka Are you getting tired of playing the bangers? They have one strategy, hit the ball as hard as they can. They rarely hit third shot drop shots. What can you do? There are two options. The first is the punch volley, a volley hit hard and deep. The second is the soft volley,…
Cynthia Schwartz Joanne Burch is the PebbleCreek Pickleball Volunteer/Player of the Month. She is a teacher, international traveler, golfer, sailor, and a pickleball lover. Joanne was born in Canada, where she taught physical education in a junior high school in Vancouver. Looking for an international adventure, Joanne signed up for a two-year teaching position in…
Kathy Aalto As the pickleball courts opened up with playing restrictions in place, the ground rules changed on how pickleball is played at PebbleCreek (PC). How the game is played and keeping score didn’t change, but how to get a court and how to find other players to play with changed. All PC Pickleball Club…