63: Tournament Prep PART 2!

Welcome to four point. Focuses on a single shot. pocket size Mesa, Arizona. Mircha Morario, also in Mesa, Arizona, one of our rare occasions where you're sitting right next to me as we do this show. Hello, sir. How are you? I am doing wonderful, Michael. Just really happy to be here for an incredible event. We are here for the Pickle Brawl, yeah, which is a uh charity sort of pro am slash celebrity.

event at the amazing Dink and Dine Pickle Park here in Mesa and just trying to raise awareness and some money for fentanyl addiction and treatment. for the same. So we've had an amazing crew here. Quite a cast of characters. It's been quite to say the least cast of characters. We uh got uh got the honor to

you know, be on the court uh with Rick Berry. Yeah, that was cool. Really cool. Super nice guy. Really good player. At eighty two years old. I mean still incredible. Still rocking it. Incredible how, you know, agile he is and he's got really good hands. solid player and very, very competitive, which I love about him. Yeah, unbelievable. You could tell too, if you miss a ball

He was very unhappy about that. You could tell that there was a world class athlete in those eighty-two-year-old bones who just was mad at himself if he missed even a single easy shot. And that's how he got to be a world class athlete by being a perfectionist.

He would shoot free throws underhanded. That's what he sort of became famous for. Oh really? In the NBA. Yeah. He was the and he would make'em. He was very consistent. But he would shoot, you know, kinda between your legs like you'd teach a little kid to do and nailed it.

He was fantastic at it. Very cool. I did not know that. You of course were on the final court. One thing that was really for me the highlight of the weekend, and it's been again the most amazing people watching I've seen in quite some time, but I've never been on court, not once. with juniors, young, good pickleball players, and there were so many great young, you know, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, up to maybe seventeen.

players that uh I got to play with this weekend and that was super fun. Yeah not only was it fun it was remarkable to see their level of skill how high it is. It's just incredible. And they were all really nice kids, very earnest, wanted to learn. And let's just say that the future of pickleball is very bright. looking at A the players and then B the venues. Yeah. The facility that we're at is just one of probably fifty to a hundred

in the country. Yeah, and they this is uh very similar to something like chicken and pickle, but more pickleball forward than top golf would be to golf. This is a little more like a real golfer would go, you know, in this case a real pickleball player could play here. Always some challenges with with lighting and court positioning and things like that, but but definitely you could see that they could have like a

you know, uh NPL or whatever they're calling it now, challenge series event or something like that here and it it would probably be pretty good. But I will say if you want to have some fun, play some pickleball. at a great venue and you're in the Phoenix Scottsdale Mesa area. This is a great place to be. And a shout out to

Smiley Riley who's the pickleball director here and all the staff who treated us incredibly. We were honored to be here, honored to be here for the charity. One of the things that I do want to bring up also is all the veterans we met.

There are a ton of veterans that are afflicted with addiction and mental health issues after their time in the service and we are so grateful for them and if you're out there listening Just wanna express our gratitude for your service, all the service members and their family also sacrificed.

their time with their loved ones. We are most, most grateful. This is part two of our tournament prep. If you caught last episode, we talked about well what is it like to do a tournament for the first time. It can be very intimidating. We saw that over and over today because we were with a lot of people that, even though they were famous in other sports, playing professional baseball or professional basketball, still very new to the pickleball world and

When it's your first time playing, we had we had real actual refs on court. Some refs that you've had at the US Open, like they were the real deal kind of refs. Absolutely. Calling it.

like a professional game and some of the people that were still very brand new at pickleball were v vastly unprepared for what that looks like, which means you have to like You know, what why don't you talk a little bit through what it's like to play with a ref, because a lot of people listening have never done that.

Yeah, it's definitely an experience and I have to say that the referees are overall just amazing. Yeah. They're out there giving their time, you know, it's not like they're making tons of money. I mean, they're probably losing money at all like

You know, they're maybe getting a lunch, but they are out there standing there in the heat, you know, putting up with, you know, quite a bit of grief often, especially if there's some sort of conflict. But they're amazing people and please treat them with respect. and appreciate them. They do a great job, you know, invariably. They really are out there doing their best, just like we all are. But it is something that you need to get used to and you need to be familiar with.

The biggest thing I would say is one getting used to the score being called and two is the foot faults. Yeah. And it is incredible how often in rec play people footfall. Especially people that don't play tournaments. they're in the kitchen an amazing amount of time if you're actually paying attention. Yeah. And just the way my brain works, I tend to really focus on observing the other side of the net in terms of how people are positioned with their hips, their

feet, their body position and I often catch footfalls. And you know, a lot of times I I don't call'em but When we're playing high level rec games and people are stepping in the kitchen, it's the equivalent of calling a ball in or out. Yeah. If someone steps in the kitchen, just so you know the rule, if you are in an unreffed match,

If you see your opponent step in the kitchen when they're volleying or after they hit a volley and their momentum carries them in, if you call them on it and they disagree, which they often will, you just play the point over. So that's the rule. But when you have a ref, obviously they're going to call footfalls. That's one of their primary responsibilities. So it's your responsibility to call the lines.

It's their responsibility often to call short serves and to call foot faults and similar types of faults. Another example of a fault which was called today when someone hit a volley and they didn't step in the kitchen yet their paddle hit the ground. Yeah. That's another But one of the biggest mistakes I see people make when they first start playing tournaments is they'll serve as the ref is calling the score or just before. Now that used to be a fault.

A lot of the times and sometimes it still is in the appropriate context, but That's something you really need to get used to. So you can probably comment on this, but Do you guys ever watch any matches, you know, on YouTube or uh pickleball TV or PPA or whatever, and you you can comment Mircha on pro matches, the odds Of them getting a footfall call wrong are infantesimal. Agree. None of us think we ever footfall.

But inevitably if they show the video replay, there's a foot fault. It's one of those things like nobody in jail is guilty. Nobody that foot faults actually footfaulted, but everybody footfaulted. And One of the things that I would recommend as tournament prep is set up a camera by the side of the court, focused on the kitchen line, and record yourself and then watch it back. Yeah.

And see how have a friend. Have like if you're in a group, have somebody stand there and be the ref and say, Hey guys, let's let's call footfaults this time. Just watch.'Cause it's like you said, they don't call lines, which that's another whole show in and of itself. But their pretty much only job is to call the score and call footfaults. It's the only thing they're really looking for during gameplay. They generally tend to get it as right.

a as they can. They do. And one of the things you really want to know about is the scoring. So when you go to a tournament you want to know What the venue is going to be. Is it indoors? Is it outdoors? Is it gonna be cold weather? You gotta check the weather. You wanna know the ball you're playing with, the scoring format. Is it a game two eleven win by one? There's sometimes

Some round robin formats where that's the case. Is it again? Yes, yeah. Exactly. Which is a huge deal if you're not aware of it, okay? Right. So you w need to know the scoring format if you're winning by one or two. Don't forget the timeouts. A lot of times people forget the timeout rules. For example, in NPL it's only one timeout.

traditional tournaments it's two timeouts. Right. The other thing you want to know is about switching sides, so you want to think about whether you're picking serve or receive if you win the toss or whether you're picking N. I can tell you what I do. What do you do, Michael? Yeah, you've mentioned this before that you like to pick the good end so you always start

on the opposite side. So when it's game three and you have to switch sides, you're on the good side for game three. So that's generally how you do it. I do the same thing. It it really matters like and we're in a great situation right now to to illustrate this. They've got courts here, even though this is mostly an indoor facility and most of the courts are facing the right direction, their championship court is facing the wrong direction. So you got

big open light on each side and it's very difficult to see. And even when we are on the the opposite, the ninety degree facing quartz, if you happen to be on the left hand side on, you know, the far side of where we are right now and someone went cross court with a speed up, it just got lost. I mean, I completely lost the ball.

So those are the kinds of things that I would try to notice so that if I end up getting In this tense eight eight game three, I want to make sure I'm on the right side and I can actually see as well as I could. A perfect example is Pickler Universe. That place is amazing. It doesn't matter which side you're on for the most of the courts there at least. But there are other venues where they have very light background in the walls.

And when you're facing that it's really tough and you really want to be in the best position you can in the last portion of the game to close. You could be down six zero in the third, turn around and get on the good side and end up winning the third. And that's what you want to be. You want to be in the best position to finish the match. We have these great local tournaments in California called Cappa, which is the California Pickleball Association, and one of the greatest things they do

is you just know if you're AM or PM. So they'll have an eight to twelve and then like a a twelve to four and you just need to know that. But they are so great at their all round robins. And you get all of your pickleball into that four hour span versus what you might see in the APP or PPA, which is a traditional bracket, and you might get up at, you know, get there at eight and you're still playing at four, depending on how your bracket went.

It's really helpful to know that because most of us when we're playing rec play Are there nine to twelve or eight to eleven or whatever it is? And your body might not be prepared to be on a court for night I mean I've been here today for eight hours. You take a break, get up and go, Woo muscles are a little bit sore after, you know, playing a few games and stopping playing a few games. So it's really helpful to know

Is there a come around in your local tournament where if you happen to have lost the first round, can you do what you did in your first uh singles tournament and make your way all the way back in the backdraw to the gold medal match? That still exists at a lot of tournaments in the country.

Yeah, another thing about that type of format that you're talking about is there are a bunch of tournaments that are now doing round robins to start the tournament and then doing the draw or brackets afterward. So for example, if you have sixteen teams, perhaps you have four groups of four and then you're playing three fifteen games. And there are some tournaments that are also doing rally style.

scoring. So that's a totally different ki kind of scoring. Remember that every point counts with rally scoring. So that's the one where it's even more important to make consistent shots. You're not gonna go for serves quite as much. You're gonna make every return.

'Cause when you're missing the serve in rally scoring you're it matters losing a point. Matters a lot. I was just gonna suggest that if you have a regular group that you play with, it's worth it, you know, when you show up on that particular Tuesday to say, Hey guys

What do you say about doing rally scoring today? Just so you have some reps with it. And or what if we just do one game to fifteen? And do your r normal round robin like that that you might do, but The dynamic of a one game to fifteen Feels very different than two games two eleven. I mean it's a totally different feel to it. And the ball, you really have to know which ball they're using. Because that's a huge difference. Yeah. You know, between the Franklin and the Lifetime ball.

Some tournaments use other types of balls. They just certain events have ball sponsors, so you really want to use the ball that will be used during the tournament. Another thing is you want to know which type of paddles will be allowed. Mm. If it's a USA P This just happened to you. This just happened to me. Exactly. I talked to the tournament director before and he asked me to help him with the format and do a bunch of things.

you know, help'em out the tournament, which I did. And one of the things that was thought thought was nice is the NPL, which is now the Champion Series pickleball. So when when they did a tournament style with brackets, they put a tournament style event what they did was they allowed both UPA and USAP approved paddles to be used. And I suggested that in this event.

And he said, Yeah, that's no problem, let's do that. So he announced that in the morning each day and then when the refs went out there there were USAP refs and they said, By the way, we we can't have you use a UPA only approved paddle because Wow. So which was appropriate. They you know they hadn't discussed it specifically with the turnover director. So I had to switch the other. Which isn't a big deal, but

Again, it's something that you want to know these days because there's a little more confusion in terms of which governing body is approving which paddle. You spent the weekend with your uh brand new out-of-the-box carbon barrage four, which is what I've been hitting. Yes. I've not hit the one yet. But um I'm really loving mine so far. I have to say I was really impressed with it. It has the best sweet spot of any carbon paddle.

so far it has quite a bit of pop and power, yet it has very good control. Yeah, it depends on it. It's gonna take some time for me to, you know, get used to it just like it does with any paddle. Yeah. That's what it is for all of us. But I really enjoyed it and it really has an amazing amount of spin that you can generate on drive.

Yeah. That is something that was really noticeable. So I'm excited to test it out a little bit longer and wait it up. Thank you to Carbon uh for that. And by the way, if you guys want to get your barrage. when it comes out very shortly. Carbonpickleball.com, C R B N pickleball.com, use the promo code 402P at checkout for 10% off. And I highly recommend you pick up some of their soft goods. They've got great bags. They've got great clothes. They got great hats.

They work with Florence Marine on a lot of their stuff and to me it's the best wicking, lightest pickleball gear I've ever worn. And You forgot the new goodies that you gave me this weekend, which for those that you that ever seen me play, I wear a sleeve on one side. And it's funny, people always ask me why they think I I have an injury, but it's not the injury, it's because I started playing in Florida, yeah where it's very humid and I started in September.

And so I was sweating so much that it was going through my wristband and someone suggested sleeves so I've been wearing the sleeves on my right arm. And thank you very much for look for the new sleeves.

I don't even know when they're for sale. So uh they'll have some cool sleeves. One thing I will say about tournaments, especially, you know, if you guys play singles or doubles, singles definitely, but there's a lot of mental game required for tournaments. When you're playing a another team. All they're looking for is a chink in the armor. They are looking for an opportunity to get you in your head and start making m some mistakes. And I point today I I I hit a

slightly higher speed up. These are good kids. They're very good juniors. Slightly higher than I wanted to. Kid was not real happy about the location of it. His parents were there and they were like, it's fine. But he was in his head for the next three points and made three quick mistakes.

'Cause he was just trying to basically retaliate and I was like, I'm so sorry, man, but it was an accident which just hit a little higher than I meant. But man, is the mental game important in pickleball? I and I I can't think of anybody that's more stable than like Ben Johns. on a court, he's just a rock. And that combined with the nerves which are almost impossible to train for. I'm curious about this. When's the last time you felt nervy on a a a a

a game or a match. Actually I'll have to say that I get a little bit of butterflies every morning when I start the draw. It improves after the first match. But it actually makes me a little nervous when I don't get the butterflies. Mm. And that's when I know that I'm I'm a little bit off

funny, like the butterflies are comforting to me now because I know it's meaningful to me. Right. And there's always I like that little element of the unknown at the beginning of the day where you don't know you're playing. I typically don't look at the draw, that's just my thing'cause I can't really change it and I I don't really worry about it. And players are so good now at

at almost any tournament level that no match in my opinion is just a gimme. And if you look at matches like a gimme, just a walkov, you think, Oh, we're gonna crush these people. I don't think that's a good way to approach it. I think you always need to respect From the very first round on.

leeway because it's not a double elimination or even a single elimination so you get to play into the term a little bit. That's why it's nice to have that little mental prep before so you know the format. But I always get some butterflies before the draw starts. And as I start playing, they go away.

And towards the end of the day, I really don't have any. How about you? I got the very first tournament I ever played, which was about a month after I started playing pickleball. I got the Yips. Just never happened to me again. The Yips being and Hand of God, I could not put a ball into the service box on my serve. I just I was like

looking at my paddle going, what is going on here? I couldn't have been trying to hit a more basic serve. I still, by the way, was competitive, but I missed twenty-seven serves. In my first two games. And I hung in there. I lost eleven nine, eleven seven or something like that. But holy moly, I just got the yeps.

And I played a lot more competitive racquetball to this point than I had pickleball. So I was very new to that whole thing. One of the things that I I could do in racquetball I I copied from one of the top players, which was the second the point, I think Paris Todd does this. The second the point was over, racquetball's a a box, you usually have a door, I would walk back, tap my paddle on the door.

Like right at the handle and then I would wipe it physically. I would tap wipe. And that physical manifestation was me wiping the last point away and starting this point. And it was a really nice mental prep. So If you guys ever see me on court, I will often walk back and I'll tap my paddle on the fence or something and that is my

Mental reset for the next point. Yeah, there's quite a few ways to do that, whether it's before you're serving and some people tap their paddles on the ball or drop the ball on their paddles or like for example Georgia Johnson she'll touch the back wall or the screen or whatever it might be. Leah Jansen is probably famous for her routine. She has multiple paddle taps all over her body. And it's just a good way to mentally reset. Super A D D

on the court and one thing that actually helps me a lot and people think are like are like are you okay whatever, I'll just be staring down at the ground very often between points or I'll be leaning on my knees and just looking right down. And that's because if I look up And have all the input and all the noise from all the other courts, I get really distracted and I lose my focus very easily. So if you see that,

Don't be alarmed. I'm not hurt. I'm just trying to keep my head in the game as we play. Yeah, I mean I think we should talk about how to prepare for that. Ikea presenterar you da forendring.

Welcome to Likia. Let's talk about how we prepare that mental aspect of the game. And for me, at least the night before and the morning of What I really like to do is prepare all the things that I could potentially need over the course of the day. that's a way that it helps me mentally that like gear wise and all that. Exactly. Like I have all my clothes that I need, I have all the food, all the hydration. I have the paddles, my paddles are wrapped, you know.

They're appropriately weighted. So if something goes awry or if we have a long delay or whatever, I'm prepared. So that's one thing that won't distract you if you're prepared with all the stuff that you might need. Knowing the format and the scoring of the balls, we just talked about that. That actually helps me mentally prepare. If you can do this, really try to play a bunch of rec games with your partner with a very intentional.

churn them on style play. Right. You can't completely reproduce it. But what you can do is talk to each other in terms of how you're gonna communicate. Practice that style of communication, whatever works for you, and If you're gonna try certain things during a rec game, let's say you're working on speed ups and you're both aggressive players and you're working off speed ups off the bounce.

tell each other where you're speeding up, practice that. But if it gets to a really tight game like eight all, nine all in rec play. Make sure you're hitting the best shots. So that's Make the balls, but come up with the strategy over the course of the game, and then try to stick to the highest percentage strategy over the course of the game, especially during big points where you're practicing making your third.

If you're gonna make a drive, you make a drive over the net that dips that's not a hundred miles an hour. Sports Center top ten shots. It's more of a place for consistency in making the shots as much as you can. I mean I can't tell you how many times I've seen players in practice tell me, Oh yeah, I'm not gonna hit that shot in the tournament. I I'm not gonna hit that shot. Especially the NPL uh well now the C S P but

in the team format, I've seen people prepare and they tell each other, Oh, I'm not gonna hit that during the match. Mm and they get in the match and guess what? They hit that awful speed up. or the inside out attempting a winner on the line and they hit it out. You cannot reproduce good decision making in the heat of battle during a tournament. if you have not practiced it repeatedly during wreck games and during intentional tournament practice type wrecking.

I still feel like like if I have a two E role Cross-core dink, backhand to backhand. I still am very tentative to deploy that in higher pressure situations when I know that I can just hit a a slice dink that will make it versus trying to be offensive and aggressive with this two if it's not quite there yet. And if I catch myself in the part of a game, I'll just tell myself, dude, that's not there yet. This is not tournament ready yet.

I and im I might try it and just go, Oh dude, that's what are you doing? That's not there and then that'll be my I made the mistake. I'm gonna go back to at least being safe and making the ball the rest of the day. I mean, I will tell you the consistency and good decision making is gonna win you so many more tournament matches than the spectacular speed up or amazing down the line or inside out winner on the line. Yeah. Those kind of shots.

are not gonna win you they might win you a game. They might mean you win you one match. They're not gonna win you multiple matches over the course of the day. They're not gonna win you tournaments. It's really consistency.

And that's another way you can settle into the tournament by you and your partner talking before the match, especially if you don't know who you're playing. Let's just start off with a bass. Let's return down the middle. Yeah. And if we figure out the weaker player, we'll return toward the weaker player, but on the

Middle side of that weaker player. And what I mean by that is that you're not aiming for the sidelines. Yeah. Okay. What you want to do also at the beginning, you know, hit your third. towards the person that's moving. Yeah. Basic strategy that wins consistently. That's where you start. And then as you get more comfortable, then you can start more aggressive type play. And also don't lose the game before you've hit the first serve.

of the game. Meaning you might be facing somebody that's got a great reputation in your town or they're fantastic players. Don't just concede the match just because they've got this great reputation and play your game. Do your thing. And if you have to make a strategy within it. Make a strategy within it. But if you're able to make those balls and start getting a couple of points, you never know. Any given Sunday here on uh pickleball courts. Exactly. We just saw

Just this past weekend in the PPA, Hayden Patrick and Anna Bright lost I think in the quarters and they had just beaten Ben Johns and Ann Lee Waters in the tournament before. Yep. And and pretty soundly as well. Not soundly but I would say decisively. And they lost in the quarters next, you know, JW and Georgia also lost before the finals. They usually get to the finals. So yeah. One more thing I want to add is that everyone gets nervous.

I think I really think that everyone gets some type of nerves. Yeah. Except for the people that they're in the files every time. Yeah, I really don't care. Yeah. But the majority of high level athletes I'm pretty certain get that little bit of anxiety or butterflies or whatever you want to call it. And I actually look forward to that. I mean that's part of

why we play is to get that little adr adrenaline rush. Right? Agree. That's one of why we play. The first few times I would play with you I was always a little jumpy. I I'm a little more used to it now, but uh it's always fun. when you're f know you're facing somebody who's a really great player'cause it's a great test of your own skill and your intestinal fortitude. Shout out to young Rhett who I played with today, who was a great young up and coming player.

Who's got a diabolically angled two E roll dink, what I just talked about, got me at least three times during our match. With just an incredibly well-placed aggressive role. But we pull the trigger a little early, need a little more patience. with the rest of his point. We talked after and I said, Man, you're you're gonna be a real weapon just a little mo he goes, Yeah, I g I sometimes I try to get a little can't I said let it come to you. Your shots are amazing. They're already there.

So I think that happens in We aren't as patient as we should be or as consistent as we'd like to be in games and that's why we end up losing. Yeah, and one additional thing that I feel really improves your mental game is focusing on your footwork. Mm. So Which is tough for me when I hurt my knee so bad yesterday. So when it gets tight I always

really focus on my footwork. I think okay, let's stand on the balls of my feet, let's be on my toes for a return or when my partner's returning, make sure I split step. Make sure I focus on my footwork and that helps me loosen you know, people notice that during Really big points. when you get quote tight unquote, you don't move as well. Yeah. Your feet are kinda stuck'cause you feel tight. Yeah. And so I feel that getting your feet involved

sort of loosens you up from the ground up and I really think it does improve your mental skill set and helps you relax and do what you need to do. And I think a perfect example someone that is incredibly mentally tough is Annley Waters. Sure. And I really think that part of that skill set that she has starts with her footwork. Her footwork is so sound, it allows her to be in the right spot to really predict balls. to help set the mental tone by physically being there and being present.

And focusing on the footwork that allows her to plan those mentally tough games and get through those mentally tough times. I mean how many times have we seen Ben and Annalise down eight to one and they end up winning eleven to eight and that reminds me of what I was about to say, which is I was listening to Dave Fleming and Adam Stone do the commentary for the Newport tournaments going on right now as we record this.

And I can't remember what team it was, but they were down eight nothing and Adam said they just need two. They just need two on this they need to get on the board. Don't be afraid when you're Way behind just to notch a couple of points. You don't have to get it all in one shot, but there's something mentally that really helps.

when you just get a couple of points on the board now you feel like you're in the game. Even in the first game or say you won the first game and you're losing the second game, I really feel that it's really important for the third game or if if you it's still in the first it's important for the second game as well. if you're down eight zero to get two or three points. If you lose eleven three, eleven five, I feel that helps you

Settle in and get into the next game a little bit better. Yeah. As opposed to losing eleven one or eleven zero. Just have that mentality that even if you're way down, just don't tank the rest of the game. Just don't give it up. Try to get a little bit of traction. Maybe you you try a new pattern. If you're losing eight nothing, something's not going well. You're either missing balls or you're hitting to the best player or whatever. So just try something a little bit different.

to see if you can establish some patterns that are stacked reverse. Stack, mix it something, mix something up. Exactly. I also like the idea of going home with the date you brung. And what I mean by that is let's say you won the first game eleven to two and for whatever reason you've changed your strategy or something or maybe they adjusted a little bit or something But you got away from the thing that got you there in the first place.

Sometimes you gotta take a timeout and go, hey, this whole first game we did XYZ, the shake and bake was working really well for us. For whatever reason we got away from it game two. Let's go back to that and see if we can, you know, make some hay. Absolutely. And if you videotape your matches

That's another way that you can help yourself mentally'cause you can look back on it and when you have i the intentional rec play where you're practicing for a tournament so you're doing intentional style tournament rec play, you can take a look at how you adjusted, how you and your partner adjusted, what were the patterns that were working, what weren't. That's why coaching is getting to be more and more important at the pro level.

You have an extra set of eyes to help you out. And if you have that available to you, I strongly suggest you do that. Maybe ask a friend to come and just watch. maybe a knowledgeable friend come watch you play, you and your partner play and give you some advice during timeouts. Hey, I see that you were targeting Joe in the midcourt in the first six points and you guys won every point.

But now you're targeting Steve and you've lost the last six points. Right. Why did you do that? Well let's talk about a few common pitfalls, common mistakes that uh might get in our way. I guess we could probably volley these back and forth. The first one

And this uh just came up again today. I've pretty much only been hitting with the lifetime ball for the last month or so. And it was like the first game we played with a Selkirk and it was like A night and day difference in how that ball reacts and performs and I'm not good enough to just go cold and not need a couple of hits to go all right. I gotta modify my swing a little bit this way, this way, this way. So you gotta play with the tournament ball before you get that. Next one is

I'd say is really a poor warm up or poor planning. You get to the tournament, let's say tournament starts at eight o'clock and perhaps you get to the venue at seven forty five, so you haven't warmed up. You're in a rush to get there. So mentally you're not quite there. You're not quite prepared. You don't have the proper mentality. You gotta

have in pickleball you're often playing with a partner. Unless you're playing singles, you gotta make sure that you're there for your partner and you know what your partner needs for a warm up. Maybe your partner needs a longer warm up than you. Yeah. So if you usually get there at seven thirty and it starts today But your partner needs to get there at seven fifteen or seven o'clock. you have to accommodate your partner. So make sure you're there, you warm up properly.

You're hydrated and you've eaten properly and you're ready to go. Alongside with that, I've been known in my life to over prepare or overthink for tournaments. And sometimes I have to go, dude, just let it rip. You've been on the court enough, you've practiced enough. You've you're there. Like get out of your own head a little bit for these things.

Number three, do not change equipment. Last minute. Not a great idea. Uh Mirch has got this brand new paddle right now. I would not expect him to be playing with it this week. You adapt to paddles really fast, I've seen you. But it's really nice to put on your comfortable jeans and your comfortable boots before you go out and and and and uh go on your hot date, I think.

You know, in tennis tournament type style thing. So Yeah, that's a hundred percent correct. And make sure you b bring a backup paddle. Yeah. A lot of people forget that. You really need to do that. Another mistake is just playing really aggressive too early and trying to hit really aggressive maybe third shots where you're missing or really aggressive returns or really aggressive serves and you miss a serve, you miss a return. Those are the kinds of things that

are not going to help you settle in at all. Or you're just speeding up off the bounce too qu quickly. You know, if you get an easy ball, You have a controllable dink and you want to hit something aggressive, whether it's a lob or speed up or aggressive dink. Of course, definitely do that. Don't let opportunities slip by, but don't try speeding up when you're off balance or off the court or whatever. That's the kind of stuff that you really want to work on is the consistent patterns that win.

Next, do not let your nerves dictate your shots. What I mean by that, If you are afraid to let it rip, let's say you're a really great third shot driver, fifth shot dropper. But for whatever reason you're a little jumpy, your nerves aren't there. Maybe your drive isn't working the way you want it to.

Well you got a choice. You can either start working on a drop or you can drip or you can rip through a few of those drives until you settle it down and now you're in the sweet spot of your game. Don't let your nerves dictate. how you might change your shots or change your strategy if you're not using what's in your wheelhouse.

Oh yeah, absolutely. So that's one of the keys is really focusing on again the patterns that win. The consistent patterns that win. All right, next is being hydrated and having proper nutrition, being prepared for that and If you're not physically or mentally able to perform because you're not hydrated or you're not properly fed, you haven't fed yourself properly, that's just a recipe for disaster. And it physically can hurt you.

When you're dehydrated, that's when you're more likely to have an injury, strain something. When you're not feeling well because or you're not mentally there because you're starving or you haven't eaten properly or you've eaten too big of a meal right before the match and you don't feel good. Yeah. You know, those are killers. And they are very, very Easy to repair and prepare for. The last time I played a PPA was uh San Clemente lifetime

fitness and we weren't told when the senior pro I was playing singles when we were supposed to go. So I didn't get a text until the morning of the actual event and they said, Yeah, you guys start at seven AM and I went What? Okay. So it was I think I woke up. I just happened to have woken up at 6 15 or something that day, and I went, Oh my god. So I

got my stuff together and ran over and then I went to the thing, where am I? You know, I checked in, oh you're on blah, blah, blah. Some weird number. And I said, Well, I don't know. I'm look I did a f you know, have you been to there? It's multi levels. It's courts are all over the place. I don't know where I have to be. Well it turns out I was on the grandstand court. I was on G C G C One or whatever. So you got center court and you got grandstand grandstand court.

I didn't even know where that was. I showed up at six fifty seven with Wow for singles And the ref was already standing on the court and said three minutes. And I went to the U.S. Great. So n major tournament, zero warm up with a ref. So all I Pretty much didn't do most of these things on this list and you can imagine how that went. Uh yes, I can. And imagine that went relatively poorly. And one of the other things is not understanding the scoring or format and not being used.

So that's another thing that is gonna affect you negatively in terms of your mindset.

So again, prepare. Finally, stay solid. Steady as she goes. Do not have emotional o reactions to things. There's going to be some things. There's going to be a call that doesn't go your way. You you knew it was in. They hooked you on it. Whatever it was. They spit up, they got you. Really easy to get mad. I watched Connor Garnett get hit by an errant ball in the face.

at the PPA and he just laughed and went on to the next point. I was thinking, man, I don't know how many people I know that wouldn't have reacted incredibly negatively to that. But he was super chill and went on and played the next point and and that was that. And that was like yeah, that's that's what a pro does. Yeah, and if you are gonna get body bagged, which is a very good possibility in pickleball, remember there's one of two people that are at fault. Either yourself or your partner, okay?

So it's not the other side's fault. I really don't think there's anyone out there intentionally headhunting. Now sure, there are people that are doing full send on some balls or trying to tag people. Sure. But that's part of pickleball tournament play. If you're upset that someone's targeting your partner in a tournament, all right. That's

how it's supposed to go. Okay. And if your partner's struggling and you're not getting any balls, that's one hard thing to get used to. It's not easy when you don't get that many balls. You're not prepared or you're trying to do too much. And that's another thing you you gotta keep in mind is that that's part of a tournament style format under pressure that you may not get many balls if you're the better player.

Yeah, we didn't really touch on that much during this whole thing, but when your partner is isolated and they're picking on him or her and you've got to stay And in the point. I remember playing Mix once, Mircha, and I looked down and my heart rate's at like 140 BPM. I don't think I touched the ball. Because I was just doing calisthenics the whole time, having to cover back and forth and back and forth and back and forth and I'm like

She's I'm like, how am I this out of breath? And I did not even lay a single paddle on a ball in this point, but that was mixed. That's what happens when they go uh right at your partner. Yep, absolutely. We both enjoy playing tournaments. There's a lot of benefits to it. It helps you improve. It helps your mental game. It helps your

Strategy helps your decision making. It's just a good way to test yourself and improve. You get to play all different styles that you normally wouldn't. So we highly recommend you play tournaments. We want you to prepare because preparation is going to build your confidence. We really want to remember that. You know, when it gets tight, focus on your feet and focus on the simple most effective strategy. Don't try to go crazy doing super aggressive things or things you're not used to doing.

So kind of stay in your wheelhouse. Simplicity, if you aren't making the balls you want, then keep it simple. But he makes balls. He makes his thirds. He makes he doesn't make a ton of mistakes, unforced errors.

Which is what makes him you know, a steady as she go uh player, you know? Yeah, and consistency is gonna win out for the most part. Yeah. And there's nothing like it. You get on a court for a tournament, you'll be after the fact You're gonna be sitting at uh at a bar, having a drink, having a beer with the people you just played with. You guys all had a blast. You're all exhausted, and you can't wait to do it again. It's the best teacher.

Yeah, and you get to meet new people, which is one of the things we all love about pickleball. Yeah. Is the community, the people we met. We met some amazing people here. She met a lot of people. Pro wrestlers, yeah, Hall of Fame basketball player and uh baseball players in the Hall of Fame. I mean, just some amazing, amazing people. And that's why we love this great sport. So it's another way to get out there and improve your connections and community and experience.

Well guys, get out there, play some tournaments. It's a blast. If you've never done it and you're like, Well, I'm not that competitive. lights in your soul as it comes to pickleball and how quickly you go, ah, we used to say this in uh car racing, Mircha. I'd bring someone who was brand new to one of our autocrosses and they would get a case of the needs. And what I mean by that is they'd have their stock

like you know, BMW M three and they'd run it all day and they're they love their car and they couldn't say enough about their car. And at the end of the day, who knew? But they now they need new tires and they need wheels and they need shocks. Kinda happens in pickleball. Like if you want a reason to start drilling, go ahead and play a tournament and see how it feels.

And you go, Wow, a lot of my weaknesses got exposed and now I'm gonna work on that stuff and come back to the tournament and do it all over again'cause it was a blast. Absolutely. Just couldn't recommend it enough. It's really gratifying to kinda go through the gauntlet and You know whether or not you succeed, just think of it all as data points. It's a learning experience.

And that's what we're all here to do is grow, both with our game and with our experiences. So just get out there and improve your experience. Well, From Dink and Dine here in Mesa, Arizona, I'm Michael. That is Mircha. We hope you enjoyed this two part series on what to expect for your first tournaments. Get out there, get some practice in and get registered. I would love if you guys

Would write to myself or Mircha. You can go to picklehelp.com or wherever. Um, but we would love to find out if you have registered for tournament. Thank you for listening. Find us on Instagram at