Drama: UPA bans Joola, Fines Daescu and Drops Players | This Pickleball Life (Ep. 42)

The APP unveils a new format, the “Shuffle” and Jilly takes home the silver. Paddle Quest 2.0 has come to an end: tune in to find out which wand Jill has chosen. Which players are getting fired from their UPA contracts? Is the Gen 3 in or out? And does Daescu’s paddle tampering punishment fit the crime? Plus, a biodegradable ball?! Say what?

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Jill Braverman and Kristin Walla discuss timely pickleball topics, news, advice, and humor. Equal parts humor, entertainment, and instruction. If you love pickleball, you’ll love this podcast.

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Segments:
0:00 Coming Up
1:22 Paddle Gate 5.0
10:25 UPA BANS JOOLA GEN 3
14:45 Shuffle
21:58 APP vs PPA
32:30 Players Getting Fired
35:10 Jilly chose a paddle!
40:20 Balls balls balls
45:12 How to play w/ 1st time partners
52:40 Big Props & Flops
58:20 Shout outs

we have a crazy loaded pod we are talking all things number three pickleball player in the world being suspended for 60 days and a $50,000 fine what we know that the Gen 3s are banned from this PPA event happening right now we’re going to catch up on the AP New York and all things Shuffle the first ever Shuffle what is that plus how to play with a firsttime partnership ladies and gents it’s pod 42 do not spray on that glue and the paddle Quest it’s over new level unlocked tune in now to this tickle ball life I’m kid and beans my wife she’s the pro and I’ve got the filler she’s sweet to me but on the court she’s a killer unated and efficiently bringing you the best and worst things INB tell your friends and stay for us let’s go let’s get CRA things done let’s go let’s get this pickle ball life all right Kristen we only have one topic today on in case you missed it it’s a big one and I don’t think anyone missed it that’s right as we alluded to on our last pod Andre decu has been suspended for 60 days from the UPA and fined $50,000 which we’re going to talk about in a second so just as a refresher UPA now means PPA and MLP he is the leader of his Arizona Drive MLP team so they at least get to keep their position from what they did in Atlanta uh I guess that kind of makes sense because they found the illegal paddle there so they know for a fact that he played with a legal one at Atlanta but now for the next two months he will not be on his Arizona Drive team and what was he suspended for he was suspended for a foreign substance on a paddle so the big question is was this truly the first time he ever tried it or has he been using a paddle with a foreign substance all year well and it’s interesting because I heard from one MLP in Ider that he may have gotten away with this but there were too many different stories from him and his team about why this paddle had the substance on it how it came to be in his bag and how it came that he turned it in for testing yeah at the end of the day I think what it was on his paddle is basically like what you spray on concrete in wintry climates to make it not slippery so it’s a spray on Grit similar to what you might see on like a lux paddle out of the box but this was added after the fact which is what makes it illegal I mean this is crazy we’re talking about arguably the number you know two three uh player in the world here who’s been playing so well and one um highly respected individual came up to me in New York and said and she goes uh and she’s a she’s a coach she’s a player herself and she goes um I guess we know why he’s been playing so well this past year which I did not really don’t together it’s the same testing entity with all of the PPA and MLP events it is kind of interesting that it happened at the very first MLP of the year though so in the past MLP and PPA have been sort of using the same rules but the um the deflection standards were different so I’m assuming now that they are fully fully integrated that there are no rule changes um as far as the paddle testing well when I first heard about right we said on the Pod last week that I thought Andre was going to sign a striper appearance hello striper this is a very rare appearance from uh one of our cats striper so rare it’s been two pods maybe three now was not the appropriate time for cuddles honey so on the last podcast we touched on this that I felt like this was going to get kind of swept under the rug for him if he signed AA deal yeah a new deal and stop playing the AP so my sources say that he has signed a UPA deal so he’s done with the a which obviously affects me and the fact that I was supposed to play with him on the AP All Year and we’ll talk about Partnerships later um so it sounds like he did sign the deal Kristen the UPA deal MH but still received this massive fine and suspension so what could have been worse than this like a a ban $100,000 and where in our rules you know I’ve read the uh player hand B does it say anything about a fine being able to get that high well it certainly leaves ambiguity uh but what I find funny is it specifically mentions fine numbers in the like $2,500 kind of Zone yeah it’s quite a large jump to which I guess that when he signed a new deal they were like okay you’re basically top five you probably should have been paid way way more than this so we’re going to raise your salary and then call a $50,000 fine that we like gave inside of your contract brings you back down to your origal contract Andre is getting $225,000 more on a $75,000 raise that they F 50 for well we don’t know the I think it’s a good guess you know we obviously they really don’t owe him much at this point they have obviously incredible leverage with this going on but I presume based on previous uh Antics by the PPA um where we know you know with complaints of middle fingers and F bombs flying that there have been sort of like Hush Hush $25 fines that never happened in the past they’ve never publicly been like $50,000 fined for unsportsmanlike conduct or anything of that nature so is this the new guard is this the future are we going to start seeing fines of this nature for other future uh crimes in pickle ball we’ll see is this the up- a effect is this the Jason aspies era we’ll see what do you think or will it continue to be what it’s been which are rules for a select few some rules are implemented some punishments are implemented um and then other players are are protected definitely feels a little bit like the Sarah ansbury thing like oh here’s a convenient person we don’t really care about with a company that’s not in our pocket majorly let’s punish this random outlier of Andre Desu and proton that isn’t you know Ben analy cirk or Yola yeah super interesting I mean just ask question I mean Andre and proton to me don’t feel as similar as that like gamma and Sarah ansbury like it still feels like it’s Andre you know like there’s a little more gravitas there or gravity to the situation but I I appreciate the analogy you’re making quick is gravitas the Latin word for Gravity I never really thought about it I don’t know I think of I think of Gravitas is like someone has like a certain gravitas right like a Charisma like a like a impact a weight but it might actually literally be the Latin word for Gravity I can’t focus with with a cat’s claws in me do you think I feel every day oh my goodness you think after two years our cat would learn that we don’t want to be stabbed in the skin we have one cat that stabs us the other cats figur out um so I I would be shocked if that fine was actually implemented shocked well which is good for Andre and I hope it you know and you asked me something you said well how would you feel about this if this happened to a player you didn’t like you like Andre a lot you respect Andre and um I said I wouldn’t feel any any differently which is kind of like sad like I feel sad for players who feel like they need like a 1 to 3% Edge players who are already that good feel that much pressure to get good results are you really only as good as your last tournament sure feels that way in pickle ball when there’s you know 45 events across two tours yeah no definitely takes a bit of Um passion and and uh knowhow just to like mine through the previous results of pickle ball to find out how many medals does this person have and what’s their best result been like the stats are really lacking so you really have a short memory of who’s been doing what but um yeah two months what do that what does that put him at August June July he’ll be out so speaking of rules and paddles no oh and uh who will Gabe tardio play with we did uh I did uh look briefly at the list when I was like okay gab’s high and dry gab the best player sub with partner right for those Gard has been playing with Andre all year I was like y you know what it’s going to be it’s going to be uh Riley Newman and sure enough I just looked at Sacramento okay Oracle Riley Newman Gabe tardio okay Oracle I like it I like it lot I think they’re going to be good for each other Riley needs someone who’s like not trying to steal his Thunder Gabe just does his job was like okay you want me to do this I do this and um I think I think it’s going to be exciting so speaking of rules and Pattel uh I had on really good authority yesterday that the UPA was going to imminently ban Yola gen 3s and that would be implemented today Wednesday May 29th so being the researchers that we are we did text message good idea Kristen uh a player who’s playing in Dallas right now in men’s qualifying and I asked him are you going to play your gen 3 today and he wrote me back they are letting us play with them today and qualifying and they are saying they will not be allowed in the main draw so who will be the greatest downgrade from their Yola who will be the greatest defect effect of the Yola crowd is such should be interesting that is such a great question do you want to make any predictions uh I have to think about that but boy do a couple names come to mind saying this out of like anyone being not as good as just their play but people who have been really playing well this year more significantly than last year come to mind Millie Brooke uh obviously Kate fahe um de and Tyson deal and Tyson um so yeah it’ll be C interesting just to see how their games appear um as they transition back to a non- gen 3 non-alpha paddle uh if it’s true I say good for the UPA yeah so yeah what do you guys think I mean I had um a friend reach out to me reach out to me and say hey I’ve been playing the the gearbox Pro and I don’t really want to be that guy anymore at my club you know I’m already tall and strong what would you recommend I play with and and I said well if you want a power paddle go get the AO Thrive the Thrive aul it’s it’s an incredible paddle hits like a truck um sexy paddle it’s just it’s it’s awesome so if you want a power paddle that’s the power paddle I would recommend and it just won this really a great power paddle of the Year award and uh so he went and got it and absolutely loves it but this perception of I don’t want to be that guy I mean what do you guys think what do you pod listeners think like do you have any qualms being the person showing up to the court with the Gen three or the gearbox Pro yeah I mean not to jump ahead but uh with Andre out last week Jack Monroe subbed in a gearbox Pro Mario baros we love Mario we definitely had a few different people approach us kind of elbow us like oh gearbox um but you know at the end of the day Mario’s been playing that paddle for a while and it was the Jack Monroe effect too so I don’t think that’s a totally um um you know all or nothing but definitely look at like what makes you better with a paddle like that and I think the problematic part is how often it’s a person getting in the way of an out ball that that to me is the biggest kind of indicator of this is probably not good for the sport MH so we’ve obviously talked at nauseum about the paddles yep so speaking of New York let’s catch up for a second we went to the Big Apple we left with a little bit of hardware where I had two last minute Partnerships I made it to the quarterfinals with both pleasantly pleasantly surprised no I feel like you beat everyone I expected you to beat and had tough battles against the teams that you know really nothing so Andre pulled out at 3 p.m. on Thursday you know mixed as Friday at 9: a.m. 24 hours before the event less than 24 hours so was able to sub in Steven medona I think you guys will be hearing that name a lot he’s an amazing singles player he’s only been playing pickleball for six months yeah um plays out of South Florida guys tennis background really really good pretty tall pretty strong like he’s got power and um funny both my partners for New York had been playing the Gen 3 then it gets banned and I’m like I could have benefited for the first time with a partner with a gen 3 I’ve never had one and then they get banned so I guess I only get to lose lose to them in the uh in the finals like with Simone but didn’t get to benefit from it which is I’m just kidding I don’t think they should be played so I don’t care you saved yourself for Sunday so yeah two quarterfinal two quarterfinals one with Regina Franco and um one with Steven and then was so excited to play the shuffle so tell us what the shuffle is Kristen and how did Jenny come up with it and who’s Jenny so Jenny klitsch sister of Tim klitsch owner of the Texas ranchers Jenny we’ve known since 2021 also a former pro tennis player right mhm she’s the commissioner of the she’s the commissioner of the AP tour and she realized that when most people organize a group and go play pickle ball and wck play what do you do you play with one person and then you play with the other person across the corner and then you play with the third person so you play every mixup of those four people so what they did was they took the top 16 men and they top 16 women and they split them up into four courts and then you played with everyone on your court and the big winner and the second place uh person based on win loss record and point differential Advanced to the semifinals the one thing I would add to that is they they uh made sure the one through four seeds split up the one through four seeds and then randomly shuffled the remaining three which worked itself out because obviously there’s people like Jill in the field who are better than their points because she’s only played three events um so she ended up on a court with udit uh Castillo and um Allison Harris and uh car Carolina whose last name I will not Butcher and um so then you play they play through that Court you play through the semis which again they kind of take um and mix you up so you don’t end up with the same person who you whose Court you were just on uh with and then you advance to the finals so same system two players advance and the goal of the shuffle high level is to determine the best player on the tour exactly not just who who can medal week in week out when you have your perfect partner right grabs the best part and what’s funny is I never thought of it like this is going to determine the best player on the tour I thought it’s going to determine the best partner on the tour and I was so excited for this concept like this is my dream is my dream too um to be a chameleon to bring out to bring out the best in your partner yeah do you play on the left do you play on the right like I was lucky my first my first two pools had basically all right side girls and I was like oh perfect like I’ll be right here on the left no problem and then going into the finals with Megan fudge Susanna bar and chrisa gcha um Megan I was like you’re playing Amazing you want to start on the left and she was like yeah and to her credit I mean she was amazing and she deserved to win that entire Shuffle she really deserved so clean so clean so aggressive too but so aggressive that’s too clean and and and AGG and strategic to me she was bleeding confidence like her s smelled like confidence yeah yeah and um part of what got Christa gecha into the finals was that she was in the pool the semifinal pool with Megan and with Megan they crushed Mari humberg and karolina umh interesting 212 it was rally scoring you just cannot lose by that differential it almost guarantees you’re not going to get out of the pool you have to be really careful yeah like I was stressing in the first pool actually because I win my first with udate I go up I go with Alison Harris who I’m thinking like oh my gosh right side specialist I’ve been wanting to play with her I’m so excited and oh my gosh we were up 1917 and we lost 2119 a couple unlucky Le cords but then just some wild errors and then I go into the final game and I’m sweating I’m like if I don’t win a certain if I don’t win this game I’m out like like you’re really thinking about the the number of points you need to win while you’re playing so it’s a little bit of a mind mess want to stay in the present but also you got to know your job is what myal rule a small margin no literally my cardinal rule is like don’t think about the score and the whole time you’re thinking about the score cuz you know cuz like Susanna bar made Suzanna bar made it out of the semifinals by one or two points oh I didn’t realize it was that close yeah am Amanda Henry and her were neck and neck so in my semi-final pool Susanna it was like two points and four points Suna was lucky that you know she and I did a really good job beating Regina and Amanda Hendry by like a good margin otherwise Susanna wouldn’t have gone yeah yeah I I can’t wait to the to see them uh do it again I think they need to rename it though because it’s it’s hi Toby you’re not wet this is an improvement that’s great yeah by the way for those of you who did listen last week uh Toby fell in the pool I don’t know if we were ever clear about why Toby was soaking wet or what the what the interruption was yeah cuone was like we really we really need to explain why Toby was wet I’m like Kristen what do you think the Pod listeners are going to think happened to Toby but then someone asked me in person they were like so what happened to Toby you never said so there you have it now you know um I think they need to rename it I don’t think Shuffle is the right explanation for this I think it’s like partner swap King of the Court who’s Queen of the Court Queen of the tour like I think there’s something um top dog like yeah the head honcho you just kidding wow Kristen you should apply for a marketing role at the a the head honcho no I’m only saying that CU that’s the dinks thing they have like a whole tournament series called the head honcho um but point being uh it’s a super fun format so if you tell us is shuffle a good name what would you call this would you call this yeah um wizard the wck play wrecker no independent thought Jill and I have this ongoing joke where we have each other’s thoughts and when someone says something we were thinking about we say no independent thought do you guys have that with your significant other do you mind merge some people think it’s really healthy in relationships to you know have um separate jobs separate Hobbies um spend time apart uh have separate friends and then live separately Chris and I are just trying to be one person yeah same clothes work together same job when she’s gone for 10 minutes we’re texting super healthy yeah oh my gosh um Jill misses me when I go to the bathroom so yeah super fun Shuffle format um so yeah Megan fudge came out on top and Jack Monroe won the men’s um we had an awesome time in New York City in Manhattan staying in our friends apartment apartment super helpful shout out to Lindsay um and we went to amazing dinners every night what was your favorite meal probably Hearth I mean so nice we did it twice so nice we did it twice easy answer uh no seed oils grass-fed wild caught I like Lupa a lot too it’s all so good Lupa means she wolf in Italian um I’m continuing to be more and more impressed by the AP I get asked a lot like I was on DJ Young’s podcast yesterday uh which should release in a few weeks and he asked me you know what are the key differences in your mind between the AP and PPA you’re in a unique position that you’re you know you’re a gold card holder on the PPA last year now you’re playing the AP and I just told them I said like look you’re paid within 48 hours you’re paid pretty good money um like last week I made 900 per quarter final so that’s 1,800 2200 for second place in the shuffle the AP doubles that amount of money if you play in 12 APS if you play in six they give you 50% of that in bonus if you have one sponsor during prize money match you know you’re walking away with really good money on the AP and exposure so this was streamed on Fox Sports One I had a bunch of people write me saying oh my God I just saw you on TV the streaming quality looks amazing the announcers do a great job like the quality and the coverage is just incredible um they’ve got refs you know whether you’re three or 60 you have refs there were 69 referees in New York um and yeah the streaming and the streaming partners are world class the tennis venues are are iconic but I felt like they do feel a little empty at times and they did pickle ball United the roll out courts so we have a video of what that looks like it was the first time we had ever seen it actually being literally rolled out like carpet and I thought that was which was because they were so on top of the weather that they rolled it up one night knowing that it was going to rain in the morning and then as soon as the rain stopped they rolled them back out so it cut down on their dry time which I thought was was way ahead of it especially considering that little rainstorm was kind of um unforeseen I think there were dead spots and seams and I I think it’s maybe fine to do that for 80% of your courts but to have your Championship or your grandstand courts with like bubbles and visible uh seam yeah no I don’t think that was the right call and and I think they knew that I think everyone knew that right but but Billy Jin King wouldn’t the tennis center would not allow them to paint lines this year so I don’t think they’re going to go back they’ll go back there because yeah I kind of feel that way too interesting because obviously it’s at their expense they’re paying for the paint and then they’re going to have to pay for it to be repainted back to yeah um yeah tennis so I don’t know why they would have such an issue with it they’re getting fresh lines out of it but I know who knows who knows Kim K’s played yeah with our friend Caitlyn Kerr go teamas yes both are owners of K showed up in an MLP sweatshirt which was not allowed please remove um so yeah really cool venue but uh kind of the too big for pickle ball in a in a lot of ways and and a little hard to to but you know it’s cool it’s cool to be a New York event um there a couple years ago I did talk to Jenny I said you know are you guys considering uh gambling she said yeah of course I said well when she went well our partnered utr Sports and this is true they have a partnership with IMG so utr is really a a kind of a gambling specialist because they have their pro tennis tour where they sell matches um and they partner with IMG on that like I just said so they’re going to work with if I had to guess probably IMG um and utr to bring gambling to the sport and I said well what’s what’s kind of the holdup and she said a drug testing drug testing and policies around that and I really respected that like yeah you know the AP is very thoughtful they are not going to rush into something so in a lot of ways they’re just kind of the polar opposite of the PPA in terms of the mentality of you know moving fast and breaking things and I think in pickleball money does love fast right now um and I I mentioned her like why aren’t we streaming all these courts there’s no PPA this weekend so you have like potentially what a 100,000 die hards die hards who are looking to consume live pickle ball content and you’ve got one Court streaming for like what four hours a day like yeah I was talking to my dad about this yesterday as a you know pickle ball viewer and he was like yeah the coverage looked really great on Fox Sports but it is a little tricky to find when you’re used to the convenience of YouTube yeah and I said yeah that’s easy for you and I to say techsavvy people who are the die hards but how many more people are going to accidentally consume pickle ball because they’re flipping through the channels because they’re looking for baseball and they’re like what is this oh this is kind of fun oh yeah I’ve heard about this oh I played last week what a prole pickle ball look like so you are going to um have much greater reach uh doing the ESPN the Fox Sports versus pickle ball t i AG but why does it have to be an either or like I said to to Jenny um like God like streaming costs have gone down demonstrably in the past you know 3 years iPhone streaming quality is amazing like wouldn’t you rather have like 10 quarts at least streamed for the die hards and then as long as you have like one or two amazing quality courts you offer it as like bonus camera you know what I mean like no one’s going to look at that and think like the app stream is atrocious well and it is one thing and they disagree you know they want their product to be really high quality um but but I think it’s a missed opportunity so so maybe I’m not offering the right solution right like okay maybe it’s not an iPhone maybe it’s something else all I can tell you is there’s a there’s a big missed opportunity there because you turn someone said to me yesterday you turn on the the the TV and it’s the semi-final match okay well what was the road to get there where was The Journey for these players who who the biggest upset in the quarterfinals totally yeah and and uh PPA has increased their YouTube cameras by double I think this year because it used to just be one streamed grandstand one streamed Center and there bonus cameras four uh bonus cameras throughout the venue but they are definitely noticeably worse quality and as we saw with MLP the grand stand Court was pretty atrocious but um pretty much equal to what those bonus cameras are and we were complaining about it so you do have to be careful that you don’t create a product that leaves people going oh I know what the AP looks like and it looks like so I I do hear that um I do and I just hope that in the same vein as yes we definitely want gambling but yes we definitely want to do it after we’re doing drug testing that this is just a matter of time and they will have a an awesome second streamed Court in the near future but so far definitely been impressed by everything the has done and the way that they go about it the mentality behind it the thoughtfulness so next up we have some new Partnerships and tournaments coming up so we have June 8th you wouldn’t be you if you didn’t play with a new person every week well we’re going to talk about that too because I am finding some stability June 8th PPA Sacramento with the rattlesnake himself Travis R andm oh my God by the way did you see Travis and Graham reenacting the Anna Rachel photo shoot photo shoot it was hilarious on both accounts prop props to both of them for The Bravery I love it so much and then uh June 26th uh PPA San clementy my hometown I’ll be playing with none other than Jack Monroe I feel like this Jill and Jack thing has literally been Destiny in the making since I fell in love with him over a year ago when I learned there was this left-handed and right-handed totally ambidextrous young gun in Texas yep yep yep throw it back to the waterfall he was a waterfall Champion with his dad mhm and I cut him a check when I was CEO of duper he won the waterfall that was overlapping the 2022 Newport MLP this is super exciting you guys June 26th that same PPA San Clemy where I’m playing with Jack I’m going to be playing with my sister it’ll be her first ever Pro tournament so this is Natalie AKA Noy Rainey and she is in training you guys she’s going to be my right side Queen she Destiny Destiny she’s really sing I’m toine with she’s learning the transition zone and we’re going to have a freaking blast she’s like nervous you know she’s like texting every day like giving me progress reports on her playing so good so good I cannot wait um I I hope the version of Natalie that we see when this finally comes to fruition is the the Swagger take heads off version that we know and love like this nervous sight of her I’ve never seen she’s normally just like she’s a legend uh play you know NCA American from pepper um she is like so dedicated to like showing up like she wants to play well in San clementy yeah but you guys have sister ESP so she already has like a 30% Edge on the field people who might be your partner we’re going to have a blast and then July 3rd is a big AP major in Southern California in my backyard again and I’m playing that with Megan fudge and Eric anon’s a name you will very quickly start to hear more of if you haven’t heard of him already his his father is kind of a legend already in Senior Pro J another Brazilian apparently there’s something in the Brazilian blood that says pickle ball because you got Simon SH now son ER you got Mari hurg and so you know I had to scramble a little bit last week knowing I was losing Andre for the year on the AP so super happy to um be playing the rest of the year a little bit with uh Eric ryler deart Jack Monroe yeah it’s going to be really really fun it’s going to be great you know the biggest difference between Jack Monroe when we first met him and now uh three inches yeah shorter hair taller body but in case you don’t know that kid can grow a fro it is impressive um so on the topic of next up it’s interesting I think we’re going to be seeing more players actually moving to the AP I have been hearing rumors that the UPA is firing some of its Pro pickleball players who are on contracts um for material breach makes sense yeah I mean like we said from the day we learned that they were going to try and merge after they had the big bidding wars how are they going to try and get out of this so first was the reductions then was the buyouts then was now where we’re seeing people who kind of got left behind in the draft and they’re like what do we do with these people we actually turns out we didn’t need them so they’re finding nooks and crannies in their uh their contract I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that you know I don’t think you know these players are in material breach of their contracts like some are playing APS when they shouldn’t have been um some were supposed to show up at MLP and had literal job duties and they didn’t show up um I wonder how many have been supposed to do clinics with Johnny pickleball and didn’t and this is why you see some commentators like esel and Rob Cassidy so they were undrafted to play but they’re contracted players so the UPA is trying to put these players to work right you know job duties and descriptions were given to MLP signed players who didn’t get drafted and you know a lot of these players frankly haven’t been fulfilling those duties so super interesting to see who’s kind of getting released off of these contracts absolutely you want to talk about paddle Quest paddle Quest should we talk about Ketone first absolutely I did just have Ketone uh right before pod and I have finally gotten to the place where it tastes good I know I truly like sip it and savor it and it does remind me of the idea of someone telling you like this is really fine scotch or this is really fine tequila and you’re like really people like this what David Smith a senior Pro came up to me in New York and said because of the Pod he bought it and he likes it and feels the difference so I love hearing from people when they try it uh so tell us please in the comments or write us if because of the podcast you’ve purchased this and tried it and how it’s affected you and you know you don’t even have to like use my code which is Jil B by the way um yeah you can find it in you just go to Sprouts yeah buy one bottle for $4 and try it or maybe buy a couple buy like you know 12 15 16 bucks worth of stuff and give it a try for a week totally but it’s really life-changing it’s my secret I’m almost s to like give it away Pro players don’t listen to this it’s a calming focusing sort of feel so it pairs well with caffeine you like to do yours with your rainstorm yep and they just came out with a ketone plus caffeine product super exciting super exciting so Ketone up so let’s talk about paddle Quest you guys I have been paddle questing yes tried some really fun different paddles we have really uh been stoked about having a tough decision you know there’s so many great paddles out there and so many great paddles not all of them have a trampoline inside um so I played uh I played New York with a gamma uh air bender 13 mm and right now publicly available is the air bender 16 and I don’t know if I’ve like ever had so much fun with a paddle like I can drop shot I can lob um my hand speed is probably 20% faster because it’s head light and what’s funny is and it has holes in the middle so hands speed and those holes right less drag I I’ve been really like under this conception that I like a head heavy paddle and I think that’s been wrong and I think that’s been slowing my hands down it’s been a Band-Aid so long story short yeah I’ve just like felt so comfortable with it um had a ton of fun with it and here I am a pro who’s been testing a bajillion paddles and like I’m even learning about my own like he and what weights I like like I thought I liked head heavy but it turns out with like a little bit head lighter my hands are faster yeah it’s always uh kind of Catch 22 or a a mix yin and yang of if you make your head heavier you have more mass more Force so you can create more power in the sense of like a golf club iron right a heavy thing smashing into the ball but pickle ball is not just ground strokes pickle ball is not just serves so when you get to the net and you’re 14 ft away from a gearbox Pro smashing at your face with a little flick you want to be able to have the reaction time to get your hand back in front of the ball so fun to see something I’ve been able to do with this paddle cuz it feels so much lighter even though it’s still like 85 the way I let it up it’s just that distribution the the weight distribution in a paddle just makes such a big difference all of a sudden I’m having like one-handed counters which I’ve never done before I don’t know if you noticed that like three times like really fast yeah um so yeah let me know you guys in the comments if you’ve tried the Airbender the 16 basically basically feels like a lock but way poppier exactly way more speed yeah and I still see a lot of people playing the Lux on the uh wck quarts another cool thing that the air bender has is weight kits so there’s one weight kit that can go inside of the hole of the um the throat and then there’s another weight kit that can go in the butt cap yeah so you can distribute more of that weight into the handle if you want even more of a headlight feeling um and you can put a little bit in the middle for more forgiveness um and then of course you could still put some lead on the upper areas of the paddle if you wanted to distribute more weight that way so uh coting times um I had some friends hit the air bender too while I was at the courts and they were like oh my God how do I get one so the 16 is out now the 13 will be released in November cool so we’re going to make an official announcement June first but those of you who are pod listeners heard it first we are now gamma Family Team gamma gamma up gamma damama do so freaking excited so excited to align with um a brand that shares our values that wants to win and do it the right way and that’s really important GMA and I loved that have known um Jen and age and a lot of the gamma team from way back when we were on their our duper era and have always enjoyed working with um everyone involved in the team and and they support pickle ball they support MPL they support duper and AP tour yep and they just came out with the Chuck ball which I’m super excited about and it is like a Frankland ball with uh a little bit more speed um but a lot better durability than the Vulcan super um super excited for all that all that is to come so for 90 days I have a really deep discount code it’s Jil B 25 so you get 25% so if you want to try if you want to try the air bender 16 or if you want to get some Chuck balls or grips uh you can maybe you’re a hellbender person they have some really cool well that’s the other thing I don’t know if you knew this or not but all of their paddles other than the raw carbon fiber which is just the obsidian which is also another awesome paddle and the air bender other than those two models all their paddles are made in America super cool did you know that yeah I think I told you that oh sounds good but only because brandan long told me that and kudos to brandan Long who also had a great gam had a great weekend in New York yeah he made it to the finals in the shuffle I believe he finished third yeah all right Kristen let’s talk about balls cuz I’m super super curious what our joy Riders think about balls do you have a preferred ball do you even care care what ball you play Franklin unveiled a beta testing program for their new eco-friendly ball called the fs Pro Eco do you care if your balls are biodegradable I think it’s exactly one of those things where they don’t care until there’s an option and then they’re like oh yeah what are happening to all of these broken destroyed balls like are they filling up our landfills it’s the fastest growing sport in America so it’s the fastest growing growing form of litter and you know there is a lot of plastic waste in the world I just happened to on the plane watch this whole documentary on how little recycling actually gets recycled um so yeah the same thing happened to gol te’s where they they developed biodegradable teas and that’s why they’re kind of like bendy after a few days they kind of start to break down early oh so I wonder what the breakdown cycle is of an eco-friendly ball versus like already the balls crack after like three days so it’s probably fine interesting it’d be really cool if those golf tees were biodegradable in the form of like like a squirrel could run away with it and eat it and it could like feed the surrounding golf animal community oh you know that would backfire and then it’d be like oh the squirrels are overpopulating and now the trees are dying because the squirrels are eating too many of the leaves and the acorns okay well I have a ball that I really like genuinely and actually before I had even tried the gamma airbank vender paddle and fell in love with it and even started the conversation with gamma about paddles way before that I fell in love with the Chuck ball I know the Chuck is great and it’s a unique color too I think a lot of people disliked the dura like dull yellow color and the like neon greens can be too much for people so it’s kind of like an in between yellow um but I found it to be a really durable ball really fun ball to play where it’s a little more Franklin esque but it has a little more speed yeah so it’s a it’s a nice blend yep and I think the differentiator with the Chuck ball is they have tested it rigorously uh in cold and hot yeah that is the big thing like f any ball frank York City right with the humidity and 85° but it’s really like 95 the concrete Court like that ball just plays so differently yeah totally and and the cracking in the cold that’s tough I guess we’ll have to go up to Wisconsin and put it to the full test next January so yeah let us know are you a ball snob are you a are you like me show up to the courts and it’s like you have everything in your bag except a ball a ball like literally one ball like what is wrong with me this is my job I thought I was there a ball in here and just like digging for gold then I throwing everything out of your bag no then I come home and I’m like tripping on them I know I know they’re they they’re seemingly free until you’re out of balls 100% the other cool thing um The Librarian ball have you guys ever used a quiet ball there’s a librarian ball from gamma there’s other other brands too with quiet balls it’s a foam ball yeah I had played with a foam ball that was like a Nerf ball and it was really heavy and I was like w this totally changes everything like I want to know I want to try the librarian ball it’s like a lighter foam so I think it does spin more so you can do some crazy uh thirds and Drop shots and stuff gamma says despite being made of foam it offers a true bounce mimicking the performance of a traditional ball those are strong strong words I’m I want to try this I smell a viral video coming yeah no I am definitely going to try this and also kind of want to film a video of playing this in a library totally yeah but I I do love the name of the Chuck ball and uh the librarian ball like they’re crushing it everyone else is like VX 47 Darth Vader R2-D2 in the meantime you know cut to the PPA where every single player is like that was a bad bounce that’s the VB the Vulcan bounce oh my God yeah it’s that’s the the blanket blame it is totally the blanket blame at this point yeah well apparently they’re they’re trying harder so we’ll be uh interested to see what happens with the Vulcan over the next six months so there is another podcast you guys may listen to or you um you may enjoy listening to it is called 40 to Pro and one of the co-hosts is my dear friend Scott Felman and um oftentimes a coach I’ll text him and be like WTF did I do wrong at this point how did I miss this counter help me um and he is amazing and he has a co-host Michael who I met for the first time at New York City and congratulations to Michael he won his first ever Senior Pro main draw match and the pod’s pretty cool because it’s about Michael’s Journey from 40 to Pro and uh he asked me a really interesting question I kind of want to weave this question in like dear Jil B he said um you know what advice would you give me or anyone who’s playing with a firsttime partner and you guys are having trouble aligning on like the winning strategy the winning formula yeah that’s a really good question and uh I am curious to hear your answer first but I have some of my own ideas okay well what I would say is did you play right or left I like well we played straight up to which I’d respond well where’s the the logic in that right [Music] um you should have like like just playing straight up and being like we’re gonna let the score determine where we are like I think that’s right you want to go in and feel like yeah you know I’m how do you feel do you want to be on the right do you want to be left where do you feel like you’re stronger hey who do you think uh of our opponents is stronger cuz if that guy likes it fast well put him in front of me like I’ll handle that right cuz like if you think your strength is power well maybe get in front of the stronger person right but it’s important to maybe play a few points look at your partner and go hey how have we been winning points and ask your partner that literally how have we been winning points do you want to double down on that so that would be my answer what would be your yeah I think a lot of people play straight up because they don’t want to assert themsel as like well if I say I want to play left that means I think I’m a better player and I don’t want my blind partner firsttime partner to think I am like you know think too highly of myself or something and to which I say okay play right no but the truth is that like we all uh may have strengths on each side that are different even within ourself but if you at least start with a consistent position then can consistent data whereas if you’re running one point left one point right one point left and how do you get any data that way we we got um backwards on the return and then we wasted like we lost like three four points just being in the wrong you know position on the return and then I find Pros have trouble playing straight up like I have played with female Pros top 20 in the world who’ve been like look I don’t care where I play I just don’t want to move I don’t want to move that much like let my brain like n narrow narrow in and Zone in on what side I’m on and what my patterns are another great thing about rally scoring just having your side and you stay there and it does does bring up though I think there are some like right side left side misconceptions and Gabe tardio did the best post on Instagram about this last week and he basically said I play the right side in men’s and I play it huge do not believe for one second that the right side is dinking not missing resetting and maybe a counter here and there no way if you’re playing the right create the opportunities and play big and what’s interesting is I played right with Megan in the finals of the shuffle I played right with Georgia Johnson right in Sacramento in gender doubles I love the right I love it like you can actually really cause chaos cause utter chaos on the right side totally I can see that yeah and I think a lot of times what it comes down to is I can play left but I would totally play right if I trust you on the left to do the job equally or better MH and I think the other thing uh about that firsttime partnership is just being open and communicating effectively and and shutting down the middle I think the most confusing thing uh when you see first-time Partnerships is Middle who’s the middle and that is why I like to stack like I stack so much more often in wck games and people are like I think in wck games people have this attitude of like oh it’s just wreck I’m not taking it too seriously I don’t need to win and it’s not really about that for me it’s about confusion in the middle yeah if you play left the whole time I know the middle is by default yours unless you get pulled and then I’m there for you unless we have you know a Spazzy point and we’re playing defense but by and large we get a floater in the middle I am leaving you that ball if you’re constantly switching back in fourth then you have to constantly remind yourself like okay middle is yours no wait middle is mine no middle is yours no middle is mine so so I think that’s really the reason I would advise all of you to stack more in recck play because at the end of the day when you go play a tournament then you’re used to stacking well I also like it to practice the returns mhm you mean practice switching on the return yeah yeah I really like that and Pros Pros will do that all the time so like when we have a warm-up game if I’m playing mixed doubles and um I’m playing with a right right-handed guy and I’m going to play the right all day will’ll still in our warm-up games all always um practice switching practice switching yeah yeah another thing I don’t see people do often enough that you’re huge on and has won me so many points without even hitting a ball is the fake switch fake the fake yeah basically that the person at the net should by default be looking for that ball every time okay so there’s even if they don’t switch so the two signs in pickle ball are what you’ve got open hand for I’m going to switch and a closed hand for I’m gonna stay and then wrong I always say there is no stay there is only fake okay yeah trick question trick question I I have I should have gotten there you were going to say and the third sign is fake no there is no stay there is only move around like a chicken with your head cut off and win free points yeah and so often when I’m looking like I’m switching to the right from the left it just funnels the ball so far to that right side that they just miss yep and I didn’t even hit it but I won the point because of my movement so never underestimate how you can influence a shot when you’re not touching the ball without even hitting the ball yep love that KBS who taught you that you’re the best you’re the best Jil B oh um so big prop should we move on to Big props and big flops [Music] yeah I wanted to give some big props to some Young Guns obviously if you follow the AP P you know they have a whole crop of nextg players but two of our Young Guns um Aaliyah and Lauren Aaliyah Brown and Lauren Marcado it’s brown right uh were playing together and they had a tight 1012 loss to Amanda and Kelsey on on Center Court that I was watching a few points and uh I’ve had extensive conversations with both of their moms so I now feel feel like a second mom like an Auntie whether they realize it or not just just watching them and get big and and learn how to get outside of their shyness CU I think all all of us teenage girls kind of have that internal shyness meter and sports are such a great way of of letting it out and and finding that blend between like being a fierce competitor while also being a courteous uh Sportsman and I think sometimes that it’s a tricky battle to find but um glad to see them getting getting some good uh good points um my favorite Aaliyah story is I played her in Cincinnati in women’s and we won and then she came up to me a couple hours later and said hey Jill since you beat me in doubles would you mind giving me a pair of sweatpants I’m really cold and so I handed her my sweatpants that you know I’m sorry Leah I had worned them for a little bit earlier in the day but no harm no foul I’m done you’re still running around like a chicken with your head cut off you don’t need your give me your pants you don’t need them so great no but kudos to them they’re playing great and I I think one of my favorite part about playing a little bit more AP this year is the health of the ecosystem so what’s interesting about these events are you have a ton of NextGen young Talent uh at the events you’ve got senior Pros who are obviously crazy talented as well and then you’ve got pros and you’ve got Amat like it’s a really healthy ecosystem which I think makes for like kind of happier players actually yeah like everyone’s interacting in the Pro Player tent together regardless of like their age it’s cool no absolutely um I also wanted to give a shout out obviously to Jack Monroe yeah not only did he win a double gold but he had to sub in Mario bentos for Andre desio so he won men’s and then he won the shuffle so those were his his double Golds and I’m looking forward to playing with Jack at in Fort Lauderdale and bokeh both APS at the end of the year let’s go Jack yeah also really loving uh Amanda Henry who uh I I love her background you know you hear of the tennis background the squash background do they have a racket Sports background she has a background in field hockey yeah and she was a goalie so when you guys were playing the shuffle I was like don’t forget Amanda just play goalie like stay back there defend a ball until you like what you get and then just rip in and with that Lefty middle she whipped it behind you more times than I can count no she uh she really loves that shot she yeah the the game plan on her is nothing to her beforehand she has incredible defense I think she might hit the ball harder than any other female on the AP that would make sense she hits it very very hard she’s strong and huge props to um Megan fudge you know Triple Crown but interesting Triple Crown right the three out of four Crown the three out of four Crown so she won the shuffle she won uh women’s doubles and she won singles uh just massive Kudos her doing it with a family doing it on the road in the RV so fun to watch she’s such a class act and just was like I said bleeding confidence this week what a great event for her which just begs the next question who will be the first to achieve the quad the quadruple Crown wow I I do think they’re going to bring back the shuffle we don’t know for a fact it’s not been scheduled but I think it was a success and everyone seemed uh seemed happy with it oh you have two flops in here Kristen so yeah it’s like a double double prop flop because I was super impressed by the ap’s foresight in rolling it all up before Sunday for that blip of a rainstorm because when they rolled it back out they cut down on the dry time but definitely it’s not a perfect surface I mean we saw some you know seams needing to be repaired kind of all week and there’s always the bubbling so it’s like the best of the worst kind of situation so I don’t know I don’t know if it’s uh something to be fixed or just like a necessary evil but it definitely doesn’t play exactly the same as a uh as a real Court um and yeah the other flop was no rainstorm I was really dying without my rainstorm I was dying Megan fudge personally found me one I think she just bought a couple and had them totally yeah because I was dying without it they wanted like five bucks a can to be able to sell them there so they must have a deal with like Flushing Meadows must have a deal with another distributor isn’t related to monster in any way totally so that’s that’s what I’ve got for my flops and I don’t want anyone to forget or think we forgot that we have five more recovery hacks and we’ve just had so much like breaking news and pickle ball news that we have put on the back burner probably for next week will address the next top five recovery hacks as part of uh second part of the recovery podcast and we have some shout outs yes happy birthday to Evelyn MC Dall which was so funny because I got the email about her birthday right as we were passing McDougall Street in Manhattan I was like whoa It’s like McDougall everywhere thanks for listening to the Pod Evelyn happy birthday um yeah and uh thank you to Lauren for uh coming and driving us back and uh getting us some awesome pickle ball stickers I uh in new yor them up in the Pod yeah check out at flourish and fern on Instagram she’s got got some really cute um printable art and uh greeting cards and and really great stuff so Lauren is our good friend she picked us up in New York drove us back into the city from Queens and she also taught us uh she’s going to kill us for saying this it’s a secret it’s worked for her for years said we’re going to allude to it but we can’t give the full details of this secret but it is a failsafe Manhattan parking secret hack pocket listing W and I watched it work in person okay give us it has to do with what is playing on your stereo so I’ll leave it at that so if you play this type of music on your stereo you will within 5 minutes find a parking spot in Manhattan yeah one and a half songs that’s what it took wow okay well and uh we have a congrats congrats to Fergus Gould on becoming a US citizen Fergus we knew you had it in you we hope you don’t lose any of your Aussie accent you’re way too good for us definitely the best part of you is your accent Fergus yeah I don’t think he’s going to lose his accent but um hopefully he doesn’t lose his dry wit and his uh lack of ignorance you guys that is it you know we love hearing from you email us dear Jil be how two questions technical questions send us any birthdays celebrations anniversaries acknowledgements we want to acknowledge you guys you know we love you I’m your girl Jill B this is K dubs we out don’t forget pickle ball is Joy don’t let anyone tell you differently this pickle ball life