A Peek into UPA State Championships

Recent travels to UPA State Championships and community courts in New Hampshire and Maine add another dimension to what's happening in this game in towns all across the country.

It’s a big deal to have an immensely popular global sport being created before your very eyes, and that’s exactly what we’re all witnessing with pickleball. Recognizing this, I’ve been on a personal quest to “walk the perimeter” of this whole pickleball world and see it from all the angles:

Play pickleball on several pickleball courts around the country? Check. 

Visit dozens of other community courts to observe how they do pickleball? Check.

Play at multiple indoor, for-profit pickleball clubs around the country? Check.

Attend a national pickleball conference for industry and amateurs? Check. I was even a panelist about involving communities in the growth of pickleball.

I attended a local, large tournament in Denver.

Then I wanted to see what professional tournaments look like. This took me to PPA (Professional Pickleball Association) tournaments in Kansas City and Salt Lake City. I even took a pro clinic before one of them to see what that was all about. Then to see how “the other side of the house” does professional tournaments, I went to an APP (Association of Pickleball Players—the first professional tour actually) Tour tournament in Highland Park, near Chicago.

Next on my list was attending a couple UPA (United Pickleball Association) state championship tournaments. This last quest had me trekking out to New Hampshire and Maine to see what these types of tournaments were all about, and to observe pickleball in general in the Northeast. 

These state championship tournaments feed into a national pickleball championships hosted by UPA in November, with medalists at the state level qualifying for free or discounted registration. And I was thus expecting these to feel a little something like the APP or PPA tournaments I’d attended. They didn’t. And that was A-OK by me, not that anybody is asking for my opinion. They were very much local tournaments, hosted by a local pickleball association and a racquet club, and different than what I was expecting.

For your reading pleasure, here are some of my brief observations and highlights from these UPA state championships in New Hampshire and Maine:

1. Well-organized but low-key

These tournaments were well-organized but low-key. One advanced game was interrupted by one of the players stepping off the court for a full five minutes to attend to something at the booth she represented. The other players didn’t seem to mind, chatting amongst themselves, then resuming play when Player 4 returned.

In Wolfeboro, they made do with what they had, which meant some of the games were held on playground courts striped for every sport under the sun. When I arrived, the women’s singles division was underway. At one point, someone from every court was chasing down their ball on someone else’s court.

There were a lot more basketball shorts, regular sneakers, and t-shirts than what you see at even the amateur division of pro tournaments. There also seemed to be more smiles and laughs going on than I’ve seen at the “big tournaments.” At multiple points of one 3.0-3.5 women’s doubles game, all four players and the referee could be seen laughing with each other. 

2. Chill spectator and vendor scene

No tickets were required to watch. The spectator scene was very low-key. There were just a few supportive spouses, significant others, pickleball friends, and pups watching the play. Granted, I was there on Friday and Saturday, and it’s likely Sunday at each tournament was more widely attended.

Vendors were practically non-existent, two or three at each. This compares to several dozen vendors of all kinds at the professional and even large regional tournaments.

3. It’s the people that make this game

At particularly the Wolfeboro, NH tournament, I was struck by how much service is rendered to this game and all its participants by older community members. We should all be very grateful to those who’ve put countless hundreds of hours into getting courts, maintaining courts, organizing play, and putting on tournaments for the rest of us to enjoy.

In Portland, Maine, a couple local women were nice enough to let me tag along with them as they told me all about their pickleball journeys and the pickleball scene. Denise and Ann and Coach Anne could not have been nicer, and it was thanks to them that I got very invested in a women’s doubles match between four women I’d never seen before and suddenly cared a lot about their friends winning. More about them in a future column.

Summary

Along with attending the tournaments, I was able to play some pickleball with community groups in Concord, New Hampshire and York, Maine. Both proved to be what I’ve mostly found pickleball to be around the country—friendly, fun, easy to join if you’re brave enough to show up and ask to play. And these experiences, combined with experiences at the local tournaments, did a lot to reignite my own love of this game and the people in it.

Having a growing pro scene does add credibility to the game and gives advanced players something to aspire to. I’ve met awesome people at tournaments of all sizes. There are a lot of companies making cool innovations in the technology and equipment of the sport, and it is really fun to watch such talented players do their thing. But my recent, more local, experiences in New England have reminded me just how much of the magic of this game is happening in communities like yours and mine all around the country.

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