Well, this is an overdue post. Last weekend, I attended the Dododots Pickleball Cup; the tournament fee was RM250. It was my very first pickleball tournament. I partnered with my friend Jason for this tournament. Unfortunately, we didn't pass the group stage for this tournament but with good reason. The day before the tournament, my partner injured himself by stepping on glass because the door in his shower randomly shattered. On top of that, there was a buaya (sandbagger) in our group who should be higher than a 3.5 DUPR rating (DUPR rating is an elo rating system for Pickleball). This buaya team ended up winning the whole tournament. Lastly, we weren't used to the skiddy court; the court surface was terrible and not maintained well so it was a bit unfortunate here.
Above is all the matches submitted to DUPR. The first match was against the buaya team. We were actually able to get 11 points off them. Honestly, I thought we had a chance to win because Nai qiang goh seemed a bit nervous in the beginning. There was a point early in the match where Jason and I were leading the game. In the end though, Meng Tat Choo was super stable and was able to calm his partner down. If not for him, I think we could've created an upset against them. Despite losing to them, my dupr went up like +0.8 for this match.
I'm not sure why it's not in order of the matches we played but the second match was against Junhan Chan and JunLim Chan. I believe these two were either brother or cousins. They were both very tall and quite skillful. They were really good and stable in the kitchen and that's the main reason we lost. In addition to that, Jason was a bit off this game. Surprisingly, despite losing 8-15 my DUPR still went up for this game.
After losing the first two matches, I knew there was no way we would advance to the next round so I just changed to a decathlon paddle and tried to have fun. We ended up losing 12-15 and my dupr actually went down this game as this was the second lowest average dupr in the group. I think if I used my normal padde, we probably would've won.
Post Tournament Feeling
I realized I wasn't as clean in the kitchen as I could be. Dinking is somewhere I need to work on but I also want to blame the court a bit because of the ball skidding it made my timing off. Before the tournament, I got a bit bored of pickleball. I felt like I kind of plateaued since I was playing more social games than I should have. I guess a part of me wanted to be more competitive and after having this experience, I have suddenly grown more interest into the game and have a new goal of winning at least one tournament by the end of next year. I won't try to sandbag my DUPR lower to try to win a tournament though.
I have applied to this big dink energy training program. They will have a day for a "tryout" and hopefully I'm selected. It will be a 3 month commitment for me but if I get selected, all the training will be sponsored and I believe the tournament they enter me in will be sponsored as well.
Aside from wanting to join tournaments in the future, I will start coaching in the near future. I will most likely be getting a PPR certificate (this is the highest standard certificate for pickleball coaching) in this month or the next coming month and will teach kids and adults around the beginner and advanced beginner levels.
Looking forward to what's to come. Hopefully, I can share my first tournament win here soon on Hive~.