Louis Laville and Carlos Perez ( Team Rainbow ) versus James Chaudry and Daniel Roditi ( Team Solidarity ).
On Friday , the first Major League Pickleball English Style event outside the USA was played within the tournament , making pickleball history . Irina Tereschenko ’ s Team Rainbow won the event , meaning that Irina has now won all three MLP events she has played in . Irina said , “ There are a bunch of people with triple crowns but no one else has three MLP victories ! I want to thank my teammates , KaSandra , Louis and Carlos , for bringing incredible energy to the team — and the energy the crowd provided was exciting .”
She added , “ Many players , who were seeing the format live for the first time , said how exciting it was to watch . The livestreaming of the games on the championship court contributes to bringing this unique team format to the world . The scoring format meant a lot of games were close and made it exciting .
I didn ’ t think I was playing with amateurs as they all played well . Everyone contributed and matched us with skill level and intensity .”
Ken Hermann visited the tournament since it was the first APP event outside of the USA . Lauren McLoughlin commentated throughout on the livestream — we hope she found some time for lunch breaks !
South West Regional Director Richard Thoms manned a stall that was selling Franklin merchandise . Paddle sales might have been boosted by the fact that Chris Mitchell won four gold medals at the tournament after recently switching to the Signature paddle . Chris won the 60 + 4.5 + Men ’ s Doubles with Stan Johnson , 60 + 4.5 + Mixed Doubles with me , 60 + 4.5 + Singles ( all by himself !), and 50 + 4.5 + Men ’ s Doubles with Bill Evans . He had to make do with silver in the 50 + 4.5 + Mixed Doubles with his partner Louise Stephens ( thwarted by Steve Vozza and Penny Elfrig ). His favorite event , though , was the Pro-Am where he won bronze with Rob Cassidy .
A heartfelt thank-you to all the volunteers who made the tournament work so efficiently and were friendly and welcoming to all the players . Local players from Southampton and Gosport were joined by players from all over the country including London Pickleball and the North West . We finished virtually on time every day due to the support of the volunteers . It will be the support of volunteers that will persuade us to do it all again next year !
JULY / AUGUST 2022 | MAGAZINE 63