Saturday, January 16, 2010

Pickleball at MeadowPointe

We had a call last weekend from Tim Hatzenbeler, who resides and playes pickleball out in the state of Washington. He would be in Tampa, on business , for a week and was looking for a place to play pickleball while he was here. We put him in touch with our players at home in Meadow Pointe in Wesley Chapel, which is just north of Tampa. After talking with him, we did a little checking and found out that he was a 5.0 USAPA rated player. They don't come much better than that. Little did we know that he was probably one of the best players in the country, and very successful and the USAPA National Open Tournament this past October in Surprise, AZ

Rich wanted to meet Tim and get a chance to play a few games with him so we went up to play with the group on Wednesday evening and Rich called Gary Ball, down in Sun City Center and invited him to come over and play.


Here is Rich partnering with Chris from MeadowPointe playing Tim (left) and Gary. These four made plans to arrive early at the courts to get in some competitve play before the rest of the players arrived.

Here is Chris (left) partnering with Tim.
Rich and Gary, both in the ready position - waiting for the ball!

Resting between games is Rich, Renee, Gary and Tim

Back out on the courts. The rest of the crew has all arrived. That's Rich with Pat (far court) playing against Gary and Bill.

Couldn't resist posting this picture. "No Problem, Don..........I got it!!!

Some of the other players had already left but this is some of the group that played tonight. Back row: Tim, Bill, Steve and Renee. Front row: Judy and Chris.

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3 comments:

  1. That had to be a great group of players to watch. Wow! I see the weather is not being any kinder on that coast!

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  2. Great to see that Tim was out there in FL. He is a GREAT guy! He and I have won OPEN tournaments before. Don't know if you realized his backhand. He has one of the quickest backhands that I have ever seen! He is a great ambassador for the sport of pickleball!

    Mark "Yoda" Friedenberg

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  3. Have to agree with that backhand comment. First time I saw it, was amazed. Not just the speed, but the accuracy as well. Definately a great ambassador for the sport and a super nice guy! Everyone at MeadowPointe enjoyed meeting him and playing with him. We play on Monday, Wednesday and Friday evenings - and he was there all three nights. He's welcome to come back anytime!
    Rich

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