In a quiet suburb just outside Kuala Lumpur, a friendly match took place a few days ago aimed at settling the ongoing argument over whether tennis players can pick up a paddle enter a court to take on and beat die hard pickleball players.
Team captain of the ATP (All tennis Players) pickleball group, decided to issue the challenge to Pickleball purist Melina Hwang, floating the idea of her putting together a team to take on his team of tennis players who have been bitten by the pickleball bug.
Captains Chan Chee and Melina Hwang kick of the friendly tournament in the quest to answer the question – Who is best tennis players or pickleball purists?
Melina, liked the idea, shook hands telling Chan Chee “Challenge accepted”. After all, she thought to herself these tennis players only know how to bang, we will out dink them. (Despite the fact that many of her team have a tennis background to!)
A few weeks of planning passed and on a slightly wet afternoon in July, two teams of 20 players descended on DinkIt purpose-built courts in Kota Kamuning for the battle to commence.
Captain Melina, grateful for the support and sponsorship from Dink-It indoor pickleball courts.
The owners of the DinkIt facility were so intrigued by the battle, they felt compelled to sponsor the event, giving up the whole facility for free for an afternoon. Co-founder Ruben Nah told us “We just had to see what would happen, we always hear that a good tennis player can pick up a paddle and in a couple of games start outplaying an experienced pickleballer, so we decided to support the occasion by gifting our state-of-the-art indoor pickleball courts so that the competition could take place.”
Chan Chee and Melina kicked off proceedings, noting that local gourmet burger chain KGB burgers had also been inspired by the challenge. KGB owner Steven Goh wanted no excuses from the losing team, so provided burgers for all throughout the challenge, ensuring no-one could complain that weren’t well fuelled for the duel.
The competition involved Men’s Doubles, Women’s Doubles, Mixed Doubles and a dreambreaker in an attempt to lay to rest whether tennis or pickleball would prevail.
ATP teammates Freddy Lee and Vincent Khong not prepared to go down without a fight!
As you would expect, off court the camaraderie was high between players from both teams, because despite the serious score to settle, the joy of pickleball is the how socially cohesive it is, and that was on display from start to finish.
Interest in settling the debate was high, with spectators enjoying the action.
But as players name were called to get on court to play their games, smiles and warmth turned to icy stares and desire to win, with no one wishing to let their team down.
Melina’s parting instructions to her players. “slow them down, bring them to the net, out dink them” seemed to work with the her temporary team “The Malaysian Heavyweights” edging the battles, withstanding the power drives and third shot dropping their way to a victory over the “All Tennis Players”
Malaysia Heavy Weights trying to subdue an aggressive ATP team firing from the net
The result was decided before the dreambreaker, but the players decided to play it anyway, with the format of every team jumping in for a few points, proving to so much fun, people nearly forgot about the result.
The argument was already settled, but spirits were not dampened as the teams went ahead and played the dreambreaker anyway.
Nealy but not quite. Because finally the question of whether tennis players can outgun pickleball players was finally answered. Tennis players came up short, it’s the Pickleball players who reign supreme – well……at least until the next time !
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