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Some pros’ new paddle deals are off to a promising start. Gabe Tardio, Chris Haworth, and Anna Leigh Waters all claimed gold medals at PPA Masters over the weekend while swinging brand-new paddles.

Speaking of which, Amazon has emerged as a highly profitable marketplace for a few select brands. And we’re not just talking $30 beginner sets anymore. Which paddle brands are making millions on the online marketplace? We’ve got the eye-popping numbers below.

In This Issue:
— Top seeds dominate PPA Masters
— How to learn from unforced errors
— Is Quang Duong returning to PPA?

And we’re off.

Ben Johns and Anna Leigh Waters took home mixed gold at PPA Masters, surviving a tense five-game thriller against Anna Bright and Hayden Patriquin. Their special sauce comes down to “just trust,” Ben said in a post-game interview. “I trust her to make the ball when it counts. I think she trusts me to do the same.”

When the guys from Friday Pickleball enter a major event, they do it in style. Take the MiLP National Championship, for example, where they played the entire 5.0 tournament dressed as the Founding Fathers… and filmed the whole thing.

Midway through last season, one-man electric factory Quang Duong was “banned” from the PPA Tour. And with good reason: the dude was in repeated breach of his contract. But rumors have been swirling about a possible return. And photos of QD and PPA Tour CEO Connor Pardoe from Masters are adding fuel to the fire.

Major League Pickleball announced some consequential new rules last week, but lost in all that excitement was this little tidbit: in late July, ten teams will hit the courts at Life Time North Shore in Chicago, a brand-new city for the tour.

The best, most legendary athletes across pro sports often have one mental trait in common: the memory of a goldfish.

Everyone makes mistakes. Or has lapses in judgment. The best players can quickly diagnose what went wrong and move on. Water under the bridge.

You've got about 6 to 8 seconds between points in an average pickleball game.

If you waste that time stewing after an unforced error, you're losing valuable seconds where you could actually improve.

APP pro Kyle Koszuta has a clever system to turn this into a learning opportunity rather than a fight to resist a paddle smash:

Whatever scenario led to that mistake is going to happen again. Guaranteed. Maybe you didn’t get two hands on your paddle for a hard reset attempt. Or you took your eye off the ball before executing an easy winner.

No sweat. Just breathe, assess, and don’t do it again.

This is just one of Koszuta’s tips for becoming a better pickleball player by focusing on less, not more.

➡️ See them all.

This is what consistency looks like.

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Use THEDINK for 20% off your order.

Pro pickleball’s first big tournament of the year is a wrap, and what a tournament it was.

The PPA Masters culminated yesterday in one of the most compelling slates of finals we’ve ever seen. The Kawamoto twins were trying to topple giants. A new men’s doubles team was coming for Ben and Gabe. Jack Sock was knocking on the door of his first singles gold. And Anna Leigh Waters was once again chasing podiums — and records.

Spoiler alert: ALW grabbed her 40th Triple Crown. A pretty nice way to break in her two new mega sponsors, Franklin and Nike.

Some of the matches went the distance. But in the end, the top seeds won out.

Here are all the winners:

Our pro writer Erik Tice breaks down all the action. If you opted for football yesterday and want to get caught up, the PPA Tour posts all matches to its YouTube channel.

➡️ Full recap: The PPA Masters.

Pickleball doesn’t just grow because of new courts or viral highlights. It grows because someone took the time to teach the game the right way.

As more players look to turn their on-court knowledge into coaching opportunities, one question keeps coming up: How do you actually become a pickleball instructor, and what separates a good coach from a great one?

That’s exactly why Professional Pickleball Registry (PPR) is sponsoring the Best Pickleball Instructor category at The 120/Life Dink Awards this year.

Their mission—educating, supporting, and elevating coaches—aligns directly with what this award is meant to celebrate.

After all, great coaching goes far beyond feeding balls and calling scores.

PPR’s standards are built on over 50 years of experience across racquet sports, with education models that continuously evolve to stay current with how pickleball is actually being played and taught today.

A few things that set PPR apart:

Everything PPR does funnels back into coach education and the growth of the sport itself. And getting started is easy and widely accessible.

If you’ve ever considered becoming a pickleball instructor, there’s no better time than now. And no better place to start than PPR.

➡️ Learn more.

Midwest Racquet Sports just kicked off a 72-hour flash sale, and a handful of pickleball paddles are getting an extra 15% off.

Which paddles? That’s part of the deal. You’ll have to see for yourself.

There's a serious new contender in the ongoing competition for your hard-earned pickleball dollars.

In 2025, pickleball paddle sales on Amazon surged, with roughly 687,000 paddles sold accounting for $43.5 million in revenue — that’s up 55% from the year prior.

Historically, many players have turned to Amazon primarily for budget paddle sets priced $50 or below.

Last year, however, that trend appears to have shifted; serious players increasingly bought brand-name, premium paddles on the marketplace, according to an article from Speak Pickleball.

Two major brands stood out on Amazon last year, but in very different ways:

CRBN sells a lot of its X-series of paddles on the marketplace. And Vatic Pro is the other surprise winner here; last year alone, they generated about $1.3 million in Amazon sales from their popular Prism Flash model.

It’s official: for players at all levels, Amazon is evolving into a legitimate destination for quality pickleball gear, not just budget paddles.

➡️ See the numbers for yourself.

A review from the Dink Fam...

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