PickleballENGLAND
2022 ENGLISH NATIONALS
Four days of well-organized , brilliant pickleball , including 430 happy players with an age span of 12 to 79 , at Bolton Arena , Greater Manchester , NW England .
We usually start a tournament with a practice day for players . For this tournament , following the success of the three-team Major League Pickleball ( MLP ) English Style event at the English OPEN , we decided to use four of the 22 courts to stage an eight-team , mixed-age MLP English Style event . Thirty-two players pre-qualified for the draft by participating in an intense ranking weekend we held in Norwich in early September and finishing in the top eight in their category : Men and Women 19 + and Men and Women 50 +.
Sponsorship from eight brands ( 305 Wear , Drop Shot , Franklin , Newman Rose , Roehampton Club , Scan , UK Pickleball Shop and Zcebra ) was secured for team naming rights , and team selection was made using our English Style version of a snake draft . Player cards were created , showing each of the eligible players together with their position in the ranking exercise and their DUPR rating . After the teams were selected , team cards were created and shared via social media and a page developed on our website .
We started the day with two groups of four teams in a round robin : three matches per group , with the top two from each group going through to the semifinals .
For total DUPR rating , Roehampton Club ( 17.95 ) and UK
Pickleball Shop ( 17.90 ) would have been the favorites to get through to the Group 1 Semifinal , but Franklin Family ( 17.88 ) managed to get all three of their matches to go to a dreambreaker , and their singles strength came to the fore and they won two of the three dreambreakers , including the one against Roehampton Club . In Group 2 , Scantastics ( 18.17 ) and Newman Rose ( 17.93 ) would have been favorites . In fact , it was Scantastics and 305 Wear ( 17.52 ) who got through to the semifinal .
Roehampton beat Scantastics three games to one in their semi and Franklin Family beat 305 Wear three games to one , so there was perfect symmetry with the semifinals , and Roehampton Club and Franklin Family were going to meet again in the final .
We livestreamed from the Championship Court all day . We have developed a great relationship with John Molyneux , who was working with us for the third time . I think the quality of the stream for this event was the best we have had so far . We also had a video review system in place for this event . Ed Hares and team had set up cameras in strategic points and were able to respond to “ challenges ” within seconds , so that the flow of the game wasn ’ t really interrupted . This was a bit of a test for Ed and his team , and apart from the fact that we couldn ’ t connect their line calling equipment
By Karen Mitchell
DIRECTOR , PICKLEBALLENGLAND
to our livestream , it worked fabulously .
When Franklin Family and Roehampton Club met each other in the round robin , Thaddea Lock and Karen Farnhill lost to Antonella Giuliano and Rachel Kirk . In the final , the result was reversed , with a 21-17 victory for Franklin Family .
In the round robin , Jamie Basford ( 17 ) and Chris Mitchell ( 64 ) beat Louis Laville ( 27 ) and Mark Johnson ( 63 ), but that result was also reversed , with Roehampton Club winning 21-15 .
In the 19 + Mixed Doubles , Louis and Anty beat Jamie and Thaddea as they did in the round robin , so it was down to Chris and Karen to win ( as they had previously ) to force a dreambreaker . With a thrilling 23-21 win for Franklin Family , the scene was set for a dreambreaker to decide the winner of the event .
By this time , Scantastics had managed to secure the bronze against 305 Wear by winning a dreambreaker , and now all the participating players were watching the final dreambreaker of the day .
Franklin Family lost the toss and named their player order : Thaddea , Jamie , Chris , Karen . Louis decided that he would set up a “ battle of the sexes ” and played himself , Mark , Rachel and Anty . It was a very close game with the lead being taken by both teams several times along the way . Thaddea managed to take 4 points off Louis , Rachel took 4 points off Chris . In the end the youngest player in the event , Jamie Basford , hit the winning ball for Franklin Family to win 25-23 .
During the event , the team sponsors represented by Jared Franklin and Aaron Stahl watched