Pickleball Magazine 2-2 Courtesy of The Pickleball Guru | Page 42

Grand Canyon State Games
that makes the least amount of unforced errors. That’s the
mantra of our game – we just don’t make mistakes. We
keep the ball in play and we keep the ball down with what I
call ‘unattackable’ balls.”
Weinbach’s passion for pickleball and the GCSG stems
from his parents moving from Milwaukee to Arizona over
a decade ago. Since then, Weinbach, his wife, Dina, and
his three sons, Jake, Ryan and Sam, have all been bitten
by the pickleball bug. The Weinbach family started out in
the sport playing during winter breaks in Surprise, AZ.
By 2014, Dave Weinbach was entering tournaments and
added competitive pickleball to tennis and table tennis as
part of his portfolio of racquet sports.
“Pickleball came to me at a great time. It allowed me to
keep competing and satisfy that part of my sporting life.
I love to compete. I grew up playing against my dad and
brother,” he said. “We love pickleball so much that we built
a court in our yard and now my wife and boys are starting
to play tournaments of their own.”
Weinbach and Yates plan on defending their US Open
title again this year in Naples. You can look for the match
on CBS Sports. •
me take all the third shot drops and that enables us to get
from the baseline to the kitchen line, where we can play
winning pickleball.”
He added that Moore’s soft game has improved tre-
mendously in the past few years, which makes playing
with him competitively all the more challenging for their
opponents.
“Scott really worked hard on his dinking game and he’s
really improved. It’s taken his game to a whole other level,”
Weinbach explained. “Now he can compete with anyone in
the country, any age. I played the Men’s age division with
Scott, and interestingly enough, we played down into the
19+ age division, even though I’m 47 and Scott is 55, and
we won.”
But if there ever was a pickleball partner equivalent to a
soul mate, Kyle Yates is that partner for Weinbach.
“For me, he’s my ideal partner in pickleball,” he said. “We
share a similar philosophy in how we play the game. He’s
super athletic, has incredible speed around the court, has
tremendous quick hands and anticipates well where the
ball is going. We have an ability to outlast our opponents.
They’re usually going to make an error before we do. We
have minimal unforced errors.”
Weinbach added that the ability to minimize errors is
what high-level pickleball is all about: “At the highest levels
of pickleball, it’s not about hitting spectacular winning
shots. The team that wins consistently is usually the team
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