About a year ago, Ben got really into pickleball, playing more and practicing to improve. This year, he and I have been drilling the basement (we have a partial pickleball setup in our basement) and have played with his family some. It has been a lot of fun.
Other than playing with family, I hadn't ever played any real pickleball games. Ben found out about a local tournament and asked if I would join the mixed doubles one with him. I agreed and before the tournament, we found a couple to play some real games with to get me more comfortable with the game. It was fun to play with them and gave me more confidence in my ability to play with Ben in the tournament.
The day of the tournament, we went over to the courts while Melissa watched the kids for us. They started the tournament with pools, to determine which division each team would play in (beginner to 3.5 or 3.5 and above). Ben is rated at a 3.5 (though is probably a little higher than that) and I am probably a 2.5 player (I don't have a rating yet), so we were wanting to play in the 3.5 division. For pools, they did a round robin in groups of four teams. We lost two matches and won one match, putting us in the lower division like we wanted.
While we were waiting for the other teams to finish their pools, Melissa messaged me letting me know that Rylee was crying because of her ear hurting. I talked with the people in charge of the tournament, and they assured me I had time to run home. I stopped at the store and grabbed an onion (onion poultices have been a lifesaver for Rylee with ear infections in the past) and took it to Melissa. I helped her get the onion poultice going and left back to the tournament. It was really hard to not stay home with Rylee when she was in such pain.
I got back to the tournament in plenty of time and we were ready for our first match. We won! The team was pretty easy for us to beat. Then we watched other matches while we waited for our next match, which took awhile. I spent some of that time on the phone with a few people, worried about Melissa with all the kids and a crying Rylee. The onion didn't work (we don't think the pain was from fluid, which is what an onion helps with) so we gave her some Motrin and that really helped Rylee calm down. Once I knew everything was calmed down and Rylee was doing better, I had an easier time being at the tournament away from her.
Then we had our second match and it was our first tournament match against a skilled team. I was very nervous. We lost our first game against them, but it was very close (we lost 9 to 11). Then we lost the next game as well (7 to 11). They were a fun team to play against, but I wasn't very happy with how I played. I know that being so nervous affected my play.
Losing our second set put us into the redemption bracket, with each set being only one game played to 15. We played our first game and beat the team pretty easily. I knew the next team was pretty good, so I was a little nervous, but I also had gained some confidence and I was focusing on dropping the ball into the kitchen when it was our serve (something Ben and I have practiced quite a bit). It helped us get some points and we were able to win the game.
Because we'd won both our redemption bracket games, we were back to the tournament, fighting for (we thought) third with the loser getting fourth, and up against the people that had knocked us into the redemption bracket. I was feeling more confident, happy that we had secured such a high placing in the tournament, and was a lot less nervous.
Then we found out that we were actually fighting for second and that the loser would get third! That helped even more with my feelings of nervousness. With this team, we were now focusing on drops and slowing the game down. We won our first game! We lost the next two games, but I was much happier with how I played (and they were targeting me a lot more after losing the first game, so we were happy with how well we played with that as well!
It was pretty late (the tournament was supposed to be 6-9 and it was almost 10:30 when we left), so we were happy to leave and get home to the kids while the last two teams played for first place.
We loved being in the tournament together and playing with so many great people, and we were so grateful to Melissa for watching our kids. It was our first pickleball tournament, hopefully of many in the future!
