US-Based Pinoy Zack Muñoz Keeps Proving Age Is Just a Number as He Continues to Excel at Pickleball
Try pickleball they said. It’s for everyone they said. Young and old can play, they said.
Apparently, 73-year-old Zack Muñoz of the Philippines got the memo.
Known in pickleball circles by his moniker “Zack Attack,” Mr. Muñoz isn’t your regular pickleball hobbyist. He doesn’t play just for fun, although it’s certainly part of it. He actually plays competitively and has racked up over 50 podium finishes in amateur tournaments in the US and other countries where pickleball is a thing.
Yes, Mr. Muñoz is that good. He’s so good, in fact, that he once ranked no. 1 among amateur picklers in the US in the 70-above age bracket.
Zack Muñoz Gets into Pickleball and the Rest Is History
That Zack Attack has gotten so good at pickleball shouldn’t come as a surprise. He once was a tennis player, and he only pivoted to pickleball four years ago—or at the ripe, young age of 69.
“One day, a former tennis buddy who had shifted to pickleball after his knees began to give coaxed me to try it. I thought, why not,” Mr. Muñoz told The Manila Times’ Fort Yerro.
The transition was smooth and seamless, and after just two months, Zack Attack went on the attack right away, joining a singles competition and winning it with five unanswered points to rally from a 9-6 deficit against an opponent who, according to Mr. Muñoz, several levels higher.
Since then, Zack Attack has been full throttle, excelling at competitions left and right and all over the globe. He won two silver medals at the Asian Open in Thailand a few years ago. He partnered with Philippine Pickleball Federation president Armand Tantoco in 2019 to win a men’s double crown in the Philippines in 2019. Just last September, in Indonesia, he bagged in the 60-plus advanced level in singles and copped a silver in the 60-plus mixed doubles.
In other words, Mr. Muñoz is pretty good in pickleball. And he just likes winning.
“I like to push myself as a player. Winning motivates me,” he told Yerro.
That’s a winning mindset no doubt, and it has served Mr. Muñoz quite well, especially as an older pickler playing with a smaller right foot compared to his left after being born with a right clubfoot.
So, if you’re looking for an inspiration, not only in playing pickleball but in winning the game called life, Zack Muñoz, a.k.a. Zack Attack is most certainly a great start.
