The Court Jesters team: Phil Harper, Donna Harper, Julie Stover, and Hans Stover
Mark Kellam
On Mother’s Day weekend, Robson Ranch Denton Pickleball Club held our spring club members-only tournament, aptly titled “Not Your Mama’s Spring MLP Tournament.” Each year we hold two club members-only tournaments and two open tournaments bringing players from outside the Ranch to participate. The tournaments are fundraisers for our club and shine a spotlight on our community.
We tried a new format this time using an MLP-style rally-scoring team event. Teams were comprised of four players: two men and two women. There were four games in each match (men’s doubles, women’s doubles, and two mixed doubles games). If after four games the match was tied 2-2, then a singles “dreambreaker” game was played to determine the winner. All four players rotated through the tiebreaker singles game, swapping out after every four points. It was a great success and brought a nice change to our normal double elimination-style events.
Saturday brought fantastic weather in the 70s and was perfect, as we played a lot of pickleball. Two three-team brackets played double round robins. That may not seem like a lot until you realize that each match was four or five games, so six matches is 24 to 30 games! The larger seven-team brackets played a single round robin. Our goal was for the seven-team bracket to use the round robin to seed a single elimination bracket on Sunday. The weatherman had a different idea, and we had to cancel Sunday’s play about halfway through when the rain came down in buckets.
There is a long list of members who helped us manage the day, and we could not have done it without everyone’s volunteerism. We even had some non-club members who were experienced in the MLP format spend the day with us and helped everyone with rules questions.
Congrats to the winners of our first MLP Tournament, and great playing, everyone!
If you would like to know more about the Pickleball Club, visit our website at robsonranchdentonpickleballclub.wildapricot.org.