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Booking platform PodPlay splashed onto the scene with its fun and intuitive “Replay” feature, giving players the ability to save a clip for all of eternity with the simple click of a button. Thanks to an $8M funding round, the app is looking to take its frictionless approach to pickleball worldwide.

In This Issue:
— The greatest men’s doubles match ever?
— Gabe Tardio: subtle but deadly
— Ask Zane Navratil Anything

Clip that.

The Pickleball World Cup opens today in Fort Lauderdale with an Olympic-style ceremony at the Broward County Cricket Stadium. Sixty-eight delegations will wave their flags proudly as the games begin. And if you spot The Dink’s own Alina out there repping Team Greece, give her a little extra cheer. Catch it all on YouTube.

A pickleball newbie and ping-pong convert posed an innocent question to Reddit: Is it poor form to slice nearly every shot? The comments section went predictably wild. Seems like a little backspin is awfully triggering for the purists among us.

Anna Leigh Waters was dominant yet again in Las Vegas, winning the 37th triple crown of her career. Fun fact: Between her singles, mixed doubles, and women’s doubles match wins on Sunday, she lost just one game. She’s now just one gold medal behind Ben Johns for the all-time record.

He can’t seem to keep his new paddle, the RPM, in stock.

When Ben Johns ended his long and decorated doubles career with brother Collin, he had his pick of who would be next. It could have been anyone. But for him, there was only one: Gabe Tardio, the stoic but deadly teenager.

The duo has now won six consecutive men’s doubles gold medals, including yesterday at PPA Las Vegas. Watch that match (or any of Gabe’s matches) and you’ll notice something subtle but assassin-like that sets him apart.

✅ Gabe is deceptive at the kitchen line not just because he’s quick, but because he’s truly deceptive. His secret weapon is the wrist. While most players keep things simple with steady, linear strokes, Gabe uses more wrist action than you’d typically see in a traditional volley exchange.

✅ Normally, we’re taught to push the paddle through the ball and follow through in the direction we want it to go. That’s solid advice. It limits variables and builds consistency. But that’s also what makes Gabe’s approach so unique.

✅ Like many younger players, he’s getting “wristy.” He’ll break his wrist to open new angles, similar to an inside-out forehand that bends away at the last second. By using the pace of his opponent’s shot, Gabe doesn’t need a big follow-through. The ball pops off his paddle quickly, disguised and heading somewhere unexpected.

✅ To put this into practice, start paying attention to placement over power. Look for opportunities to absorb and redirect pace instead of generating your own. Use your opponent’s speed to your advantage, flick the ball with your wrist into open space, and watch them freeze as they realize you’ve just changed the geometry of the point.

Your opponents won’t even know what hit them.

Inside the Adipower? TriFoam Edge Reinforcement for a steadier face.

A low-density core for control. Raw carbon fiber surface for grip and spin. It’s a high-performance setup without the “tour-only” price tag.

adidas athletes like Ava Cavataio and John Cincola are already swinging it, chasing that same clean, connected feel.

➡️ If you notice every vibration, every angle, every millisecond of dwell time, you’ll get it.

The cards are all back in the deck in Las Vegas and there’s a new crop of champions to crown.

New, but not unfamiliar. Yes, Anna Leigh Waters dominated the field again, winning her 37th career triple crown. And yes, Federico Staksrud is back in the winner’s circle in men’s singles.

But the match we really need to talk about is men’s doubles. Ben Johns and Gabe Tardio defeated Christian Alshon and Andre Daescu in a five-game thriller. We know we say this a lot, but this is must-watch pickleball. One-hundred and fifty minutes of pure cinema. An instant classic. Immediately in the running for best pro match ever played.

It had highs and lows. Swirling winds and bodybags galore. More game points than we can count. And honestly? We’re not even sure the better team won in the end.

PPA Vegas winners:

🏆 Women’s Singles: Anna Leigh Waters
🏆 Men’s Singles: Federico Staksrud
🏆 Mixed Doubles: Anna Leigh and Ben Johns
🏆 Women’s Doubles: Anna Leigh and Anna Bright
🏆 Men’s Doubles: Ben Johns and Gabe Tardio

Matches like this remind us why we love pickleball. For a deeper look at all the storylines from Vegas, Erik Tice has you covered.

Ever wonder what a pro pickleball player eats before a big match? Or what life on the road is really like?

Now’s your time to get it straight from the horse’s mouth. Zane Navratil is taking your questions in a Reddit AMA tomorrow night at 6 p.m. ET. Already, dozens of inquiries have come through, like:

Of course, if you can’t tune in tomorrow, you can always lob questions Zane’s way for the PicklePod.

If you’ve ever tried eating better, you know it’s not exactly easy.

From buying expensive organic ingredients and oils to prepping, cooking, plating, and tracking, so much goes into a high-quality healthy meal that it can all be a little overwhelming – unless you have Forkful.

Forkful offers the best of both worlds: A wide variety of restaurant-quality meals fit for any diet that are also made with the finest ingredients (think grass-fed beef, organic produce, and avocado oil).

Add to that the fact that every dish is fresh, never frozen, prepared by chefs, and only takes 2-3 minutes to prepare, and you’ve just discovered your newest healthy eating hack.

Ready to start eating better?

Sooner or later, America’s fastest-growing sport was going to need some tech support.

There are countless touchpoints between wanting to go play some pickleball and actually booking a court. The venue. The date and time. Who you’re playing with and at what skill level. The list goes on and on.

PodPlay exists to minimize friction and make the joy of pickleball as accessible as possible. Today, the company announced an $8 million Series A funding led by Frontier Growth, a growth equity investment firm based in Charlotte, North Carolina.

One intuitive, Apple-like app manages everything from reservations, memberships, coaching, events, payments, even 24/7 remote monitoring. Marquee operations like CityPickle and Pickleball Kingdom have already adopted their tech.

“PodPlay was built to make sports venues both more human and more autonomous,” said Max Kogler, the company's co-founder and CEO. “Our platform lets owners focus on community and experience while technology handles the rest."

For the consumer, that means better court-booking. And playing is a lot more fun, too, thanks to proprietary technology that adds goodies like video replays, digital scoreboards, interactive entertainment, and more.

The replay functionality in particular has proven incredibly popular; it’s been used more than a million times since 2023. With one click of a button, that epic ATP or failed tweener is saved for eternity, seamlessly sent to your email and primed for bragging rights.

The funding means growth across the board for PodPlay, all in the name of reducing the friction to pickleball fun for thousands more venues around the world.

A review from the Dink Fam...

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