My US Trip: APP Atlanta / APP Dallas / Wichita, October 2023

Just two days after quitting my full-time job at Wimbledon I flew out to the States to compete in my first 2 tournaments on the APP Tour. 

Competing in America is different to competing in Europe for many different reasons.  The level of play is much higher than we are used to in Europe, when you enter at the Pro level you know every single match is going to be tough.  A large percentage of players playing Pro Events in the states are training for hours a day, multiple times a week, as well as competing at that level week in, week out.  Their lives are not only dedicated to pickleball, but they also have access to facilities and high level players to train with much more than we have in Europe.  The US tournament environment also takes me back to my days of playing tennis, whilst there are still a lot of friendly people, it is definitely more of a competitive dog eat dog world than the chilled, friendly environments we are used to back in Europe.  This comes with the territory where there is much higher prize money at stake and agents constantly scouting new talent.  ALL matches have referees (the hardest working people at tournaments) at APP events, no matter what skill or age category you play in.  These referees don’t take any prisoners.  You need to make sure you are watching the queued matches online to ensure you get to your court on time or risk being disqualified and once on court you better behave yourself or face warnings and point penalties.  Coaching is also forbidden other than at time outs, and by coaching I mean pretty much any kind of verbal or body communication from anyone you may have watching you.   

It has been a while since I last competed in the US, 2019 to be exact.  The 4 year gap meant going into both Atlanta and Dallas APP’s I didn’t know a lot of people.  This was an alien and intimidating feeling after having the comfort of so many friends around at European tournaments.  I had a few days in Atlanta before the tournament started where I stayed with good friends Jameson and Maya who had moved to England from the US for a year and had just moved back to Atlanta.  One evening myself and Jameson found a park with pickleball courts and free open rec play – something that is common across the States.  We found the “advanced” courts and asked if we could join in.  We were met with some frosty responses telling us these were the courts for the really good players.  We tried to join in but were told we could play on a temporary net someone had on one of the other courts.  We found it funny that at no point anyone asked what level we were, but an assumption was made by the majority of the group that we weren’t good enough to play on those courts.  We didn’t mind and welcomed the temporary net to do some drilling on.  After 5-10 minutes a couple of the younger players jumped on to play some rec with us.  Gradually once people saw we were good enough in fact to play on their courts people let us join in and actually asked to play against us.  It was an interesting experience and one I hadn’t encountered much at home but something I will keep with me to remember to always be welcoming to people on court because ultimately that is why we all love pickleball so much.  I have to thank Mark Price for connecting me with Alia Brown who I’d met back at the English Open.  Alia is part of the US APP Next Gen National team and couldn’t have been sweeter inviting me and Jameson to practice and being so lovely to hang out with at these 2 tournaments, one of the nicest people in pro pickleball in the states for sure. 

I didn’t have a lot of expectations going into these 2 tournaments as I knew I hadn’t been playing or training much in the weeks preceding.  For me they were more about getting the experience of playing in the States and gauging the level having not played out there for so long.  In Atlanta I had some really great matches that I was so proud of.  I ended up finishing 7th in Women’s Pro Singles, losing out 13-15 in the match that would have guaranteed me prize money as a top 6 finisher.  In Women’s Pro Doubles I qualified with my awesome partner Rachael James before losing in the first round 11-13 in the third set.  Despite the loss I was so happy with the way I played and we gelled as a team.  Paige and Sarah who we lost to were also 2 of the nicest girls at the tournament and I had a great time hanging out and getting to know them.  In mixed we lost in the qualifying draw but I had so much fun partnering up with the up and coming 17 year old Porter Barr (son of Susannah).  Mixed at the Pro level is definitely the toughest draw to do well in, there are so many great players and teams in the draws.  Dallas followed a similar pattern, I finished 8th in Pro Women’s Singles, in Women’s Doubles we won an epic 3 set battle in the first round and mixed we lost in the final round of qualifying to 2 MLP players, Roscoe Bellamy and Emily Ackerman.  All in all my first 2 weeks in full time pickleball were so beneficial.  I got to know many new players, played some great matches and learnt so much. 

My US trip ended in Wichita, where my pickleball journey had begun 5 years earlier.  I’m very lucky that my lovely friends who are like a second family to me (and introduced me to pickleball in 2018) are good friends with all of the top players that live there.  In my time there I got to practice with Lucy Kovalova, Jocelyn Devilliers, Pat Smith, Ling Wei Kong and Evgeniy Kim – not a bad concentration of pro pickleballers in one place! Credit to these pros, they also welcomed me in a much friendlier way than the players in the park had a couple of weeks earlier!