More Pickleball @ TN Senior Olympics

    Day 2 at the Chattanooga Convention Center

      Friday was Men's and Women's Singles for all age groups.

      Saturday was Men's and Women's Doubles for all age groups

      Sunday will be Mixed Doubles for all age groups

   I wrote about the Friday session yesterday so today's will cover Saturday. My partner, Jack Painter and I were playing in the 80-84 age group, which consisted of 4 teams, playing a round robin, with the best record winning gold.

   Teams were designated ABCD, and Jack and I were A. We had three game sets, best 2 of 3 wins the set. We began play against B, then played D, then C. We looked to be evenly matched, except for D, whose 2 players were both rated at a higher skill level.

   We won a sloppily played first set against B, then dropped behind 1-9 in the second set, but rallied and won that set 12-10.

   Playing the second round robin against D, we lost in straight games, 2-0. Our scores were on par with the higher rated players as we lost 11-5, 11-6. We were fairly competitive but lost.

   At this point, the scores were:

      A 1-1

      B 0-2

      C 1-1

      D 2-0

   Moving on to the third round, we were matched against C. They beat us the first game 7-11, then we rallied again and won the last two games of the set, 11-4, 11-3.

   So the final scores and medal placement.

      First: D 3-0 Gold Medal

      Second: A 2-1 Silver Medal

      Third: C 1-2 Bronze Meda

      Fourth: B 0-3

   This was a fun day. Playing some good Pickleball against players from other areas of the state plus winning the Silver.

   Another thing, and this I think is the reasoning behind the senior events. The games are friendly competitions and challenge senior adults to stay in shape and keep moving.We had around 350 men and women registered for the games, and Pickleball is only one sport of many. By the times these games are completed in September, no telling how many people will have participated in the different sports.

   Unlike the just completed "Big" olympics in Tokyo, there is no formal team designations that players compete for. 

   But I want to give a shout out to the men and women who play at the BX center of Brainerd Baptist Church. We play Tuesday and Thursday from 8:30 to noon. We not only play together and fellowship together, but we support each other. 

   Maybe 15 or so of our people played in the event, but just as many came to support Team BX as they played their matches. It was not unusual for 15-20 people to be behind a court, cheering their friends and fellow Pickleball players. People  came early and stayed late. They could be heard all over the arena.

   It was great to see friendly faces around Court 2 as Jack and I scored the last point and won the match that gave us the Silver. As we looked around, I noticed there was only one other match still playing and everybody else had gone home except those 4 ladies, and the volunteers whose job it was to run the event on those 21 courts. 

   So it was a good day.We had played 7 games, won one medal, been there for over 5 hours with our wives, and got to watch, and cheer for our friends in many more matches.

   Doesn't get much better than that.