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With Ben Johns out and Anna Leigh Waters playing only women’s doubles, the PPA Indoor National Championships saw some fun new teams take the top podium spots, despite a wave of illness that tore through Lakeville, MN. Highlights, storylines, winners, and losers… we’ve got it all.

And speaking of the pros, more and more are starting to adopt protective eyewear. Should you follow suit? There’s some slow-mo video you’re going to want to see, below.

In This Issue:
— The drop-serve cheat code
— Gabe Tardio, your new king
— Protective glasses explode in slow-mo

Duck and cover.

Pro pickleball is seeing a youth movement, and some of these fresh faces sure know how to put a fit together. We’re looking at you, Gio Morelli and Kiora Kunimoto. See all the best dressed from the PPA Indoor Nattys, right here.

Since last January, registered trademarks containing the word “pickleball” have steadily risen. Last month, we hit a new high: 529. And the number of those currently pending is well over 1,000. If you’re sitting on a business idea, you better act fast.

After battling illness through the PPA Indoor National Championships, twenty-year-old Gabe Tardio has leap-frogged his partner Ben Johns to earn the top-ranked men’s doubles ranking on the PPA Tour. It might be short-lived though. Here’s why.

A rec-play diehard took to Facebook to ask a common question: “What do you do when you’re just stuck?” Not improving. Not finding as much joy in the game. Pickleball plateaus are real. Sometimes — and brace yourselves for this — taking a break, even a short one, can do wonders for your progress.

Michael Loyd is a rising star on the PPA Tour and a beast in Major League Pickleball. The 27-year-old was also just named the Head of Development for the Texas Ranchers (MLP) Academy.

Suffice to say, he knows a thing or two about high-level pickleball. But right now, he’s more concerned with your serve. More specifically, with all the mistakes you’re probably making — and better yet, how to fix them.

Here’s a rundown of what he sees on the coaching court most often.

Struggling to hit the ball out of the air? There's a legal workaround. You can drop the ball from any height and let it bounce. Once it bounces, you can swing with any motion you want. No navel rule. No low-to-high requirement. Just hit it.

Loyd recommends dropping it at about head height, letting it fall, and swinging on the first bounce. It's a great way to dial in your contact point and build consistency before you worry about hitting it out of the air.

➡️ Take it from Michael.

Long rallies. Fast footwork. A lot more movement than people expect.

That’s why we love what Midwest Racquet Sports curates for pickleball players — breathable fabrics, flexible fits, and gear that actually moves with you on court.

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There are two things we know to be true about the PPA Indoor National Championships:

In the span of about 48 hours, the pros went from balmy Rancho Mirage, California, to Lakeville, Minnesota — and its historic cold front.

Debate all you want whether temperature had anything to do with it, but the fact remains that the event was riddled with players not feeling their best: Hayden Patriquin, Rachel Rohrabacher, Gabe Tardio, Chris Haworth… and those are just the ones we know about.

Still, they’re pros. And they had a job to do. And while some performances were certainly impacted, everyone came out and put on one heck of a show.

In the end, here’s who topped the podiums:

🥇 Men’s Singles: Hunter Johnson def. 🥈 Chris Haworth
🥇 Women’s Singles: Parris Todd def. 🥈 Lea Jansen
🥇 Mixed Doubles: Tyra Black and Christian Alshon def. 🥈 Anna Bright and Hayden Patriquin
🥇 Men’s Doubles: Andrei Daescu and Gabe Tardio def. 🥈 Christian Alshon and Hayden Patriquin
🥇 Women’s Doubles: Anna Leigh Waters and Anna Bright def. 🥈 Tyra Black and Parris Todd

If you’re going to go watch one of those matches, make it the men’s doubles final — a five-game epic full of fiery hands battles, impossible defensive stands, and one culminating paddle smash.

If you’re going to watch another (and trust us, you should) it’s the mixed doubles final. Christian Alshon and Tyra Black adopted an I-formation that saw Alshon taking 90% of the court and Black cleaning up anything that managed to squeak past him. It was unorthodox, but it worked.

➡️ As always, we break down all the excitement in our event recap. Check it out.

If you’re on the fence about protective eyewear, paddle reviewer John Kew has something you might want to see.

In his latest podcast, Kew put a handful of glasses brands through a series of tests involving a ballistic gel head, a ball cannon capable of blasting a pickleball at speeds in excess of 200 mph, and one very high-tech slow-motion camera.

The results are pretty sobering, even around 40 mph — a realistic speed for anyone to face on the pickleball court.

Some models fail catastrophically when tested with a direct shot to one of the lenses. The frames shatter into sharp shrapnel, the lenses pop out, and the shock wave transfers directly to the eye socket.

It wasn’t all bad, though: a couple brands they tested, including Brioti and RIA, performed impressively.

The key difference, the guys found, is the top-performing glasses are actually engineered to break apart in controlled ways, not explode into sharp fragments.

➡️ See for yourself.

Whether you’re heading to league after work or stacking games on the weekend, a good bag makes everything easier.

CRBN’s pickleball bags hit that sweet spot between clean design and real on-court function — space for paddles, shoes, balls, water, and all the little things that somehow add up fast. Backpack styles for everyday play. Bigger tournament bags when you’re carrying the full setup.

Comfortable to wear. Easy to organize. And good-looking enough that you won’t mind bringing it straight from the car to post-match hangs.

Browse CRBN’s pickleball bags and use THEDINK for 10% off.

The PPA Tour is testing narrower singles courts during the next four PPA Challenger tournaments to see if it makes the points longer and more exciting — and thus more spectator-friendly.

It’s a polarizing experiment. In fact, we polled you, dear readers, on whether you feel like this is a good idea or not. Some 65% of you said nope.

Decorated singles pro Chris Haworth is inclined to agree.

“I’m completely fine trying to figure out a way for longer points but I don’t know if this is the right solution,” he told us.

Chris has perhaps the hardest, most lethal passing shot in all of pickleball. But he’s a beast at the kitchen line too. His style of play utilizes every inch of the court. But when it comes to lengthening singles points, he’s got a different idea entirely:

“I think a great idea if they want more cat and mouse or more long rallies would be to have a singles-specific ball.”

Another salient point from Chris: if a narrower singles court were to be adopted at the pro level, would amateur tournaments, events, and leagues be expected to follow suit? Seems like a logistical nightmare. But that’s a problem for another day.

➡️ More from Chris.

A review from the Dink Fam...

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