Pickleball Tours Collide + Big Time Giveaway

Welcome back to The Pickleball Clinic Newsletter!

Pro tours clash, exploring the mental and physical side of pickleball, and a BIG giveaway.

Let’s dive in 👇

The professional pickleball world exploded over the weekend with lots of controversy!

Two of the professional tours formed an alliance back in November 2022:

• PPA (Professional Pickleball Association)

• MLP (Major League Pickleball)

The PPA would service a more traditional tournament style of play.
MLP would service the team entity in pickleball. Owners of teams would draft players for their respective teams.

MLP team owners include:

• Drew Brees

• Kim Clijsters

• Lebron James

• Tom Brady

Sounds like a happy family, right?

Fast forward to today, MLP and PPA are at war with one another in a battle to sign and restrict as many top professionals as possible to only play THEIR tour.

Both the PPA and MLP are awarding millions of dollars in exclusive contracts to top players.

Looks like the leagues need to be perpetuating the growth of pickleball and not their own CEO’s egos.

Here’s what former #1 pro Kyle Yates thinks about the tour battles ⤵

“I thought I had seen some crazy things in my 12 years of pickleball, but nothing compared to the pandemonium we witnessed live at the PPA Kansas City tournament this past weekend.

In the midst of the PPA event, players began to receive texts and emails from MLP with full-fledged contracts. Big ones.

The PPA caught wind of what had transpired and moved swiftly to each player at the venue proposing offers of their own. MLP had planned this, and they were ready. The PPA had nothing prepared, nothing in writing and they talked a big game.

MLP contracts were spelled out, well-written and the money was guaranteed; all we had to do was sign. ✍️

The question for most players seemed to be; who do we trust more?

It seems the players are certainly benefitting as long as both tours survive. Can the tours put their money where their mouth is? Only time will tell.”

If you find yourself hitting the ball into the net, it’s usually an easy fix 🔧

The angle of your paddle face at contact should correlate with how far above or below the net you are contacting the ball.

The degree of the angle depends on how far above or below the net you’re hitting, and having the wrong angle will result in a miss.

Beginners always ask why they’re hitting the ball in the net or out, and the first thing I look for is the paddle angle.

Keep these tips in mind:

• The closer you are to the ground, the more open the paddle face

  (“Open face” is when the paddle is facing up towards the sky)

• The higher above the net, the more closed the paddle face

  (“Closed face” is when the paddle is facing down towards the ground)

Ball below the net = open face
Ball above the net = closed face

This is a simple trick to become more consistent . 💪

No. 1 Community 🤝 No. 1 Ball

As pickleball’s #1 community, we’ve decided to partner with pickleball’s #1 ball: The Franklin X-40.

The go-to choice for players, coaches, and tournaments around the country, this is one of the finest pickleballs ever created.

Durable, perfectly-weighted, and EASY but FUN to play with, we are proud to announce the X-40 as the Official Ball of The Pickleball Clinic.

You can use code “clinic15” for 15% off on ALL Franklin pickleball products (balls, paddles, and everything else)!

Watch this for a glimpse of how pickleball should be played!

🚨HUGE GIVEAWAY ALERT🚨

We’ve partnered with 3 of the biggest brands in the pickleball space to give 3 winners a HUGE basket consisting of:

-Any JOOLA Paddle

-40 Franklin X-40 Balls

-a Splish Recovery Basket

To enter, click HERE or click the picture below.

‼️ Winners will be chosen on September 5th, good luck!

Let’s all be NICE to each other!

Interview

Aaron interviews top women’s pro player Vivienne David, who started working at her father’s tennis and pickleball retail shop, never thinking she would actually play pickleball.

A variety of topics were discussed including👇

• Her journey to becoming a top pro

• The mental and physical sides of pickleball

• The area’s of pickleball’s growth she’s most excited about

There are currently 63 countries in the world that are playing pickleball.

Including:

• Egypt 🇪🇬

• Iran 🇮🇷

• Nepal 🇳🇵

• Australia 🇦🇺

• Peru 🇵🇪

In order to get into the olympics, men in 75 countries (four continents) and women in 40 countries (three continents) need to be participating in the sport.

Thanks for reading!

- Your Friends at The Pickleball Clinic

Join the conversation below! ⬇️