By RICHIE HALL
WESTFIELD – You may have been hearing about pickleball for a while now, but you haven’t yet gotten a chance to see it being played in person.
If that’s the case, head to the Grand Park Events Center this week, where some of the best pickleball players in the country will be putting on a show.
The Events Center is hosting the APP (Association of Pickleball Players) U.S. Collegiate Championships and Midwest Open through Sunday. The Collegiate Championships began on Wednesday and finish today, while the Midwest Open begins on Friday and runs through Sunday and features 500 of the top amateur pickleball players.
Tom Webb, the Chief Marketing Office of the APP said this is the first year the organization has run a collegiate event. It’s also the first-ever pickleball tournament hosted in Indiana.
“This is a great place for us to come,” said Webb. “Some very high-profile sports call this place home.”
In addition, a group of different companies and organizations from Hamilton County, Westfield and Indiana worked to bring the event here.
“We’re very lucky that we have an incredible group of people who wanted to bring high-profile pickleball to Grand Park sports campus, which is why this is such a natural choice for us to bring the event here,” said Webb.
The collegiate tournament features 26 teams, all of whom must have between four and six players. Indiana University and Butler University both had teams at the event, in addition to teams for all over the country, such as UCLA, Texas and Ohio State. There is both a team competition and an individual competition.
Tickets for the college tournament are $15; visit the APP’s website (https://www.theapp.global/tour-schedule/the-app-signature-event-app-collegiate-championships) to purchase tickets. The college finals will also be broadcast on CBS Sports Network at 9 p.m. Monday.
One of the IU players, sophomore Jaden Sebastian, spoke to the Reporter in between matches. She is playing in the women’s doubles with her partner Mehvish Safdar. Sebastian began playing pickleball in 2020 and said she became more competitive after joining IU’s pickleball club this past fall.
“I played in nationals with my team and that was my first ever tournament,” said Sebastian. “So just getting more experience here and seeing a lot of the same teams has been a great experience.”
Sebastian said that her partner Safdar has played in other tournament and has “a lot of experience. And I think that having a really great partner but also a really nice partner has been an amazing experience and I love her. She’s awesome.”
Sebastian is originally from Marion and noted this is her first time at Grand Park.
“I have never been here before, and the courts are beautiful,” said Sebastian. “It’s crazy how many courts there are.”
All skills, all ages
The Midwest Open has events for players of different skill levels and age brackets; the age ranges are 6-34, 35-49, 50-59 and 60-plus. The men’s and women’s singles events take place on Friday, followed by the men’s and women’s doubles competition Saturday and the mixed doubles on Sunday.
The amateur is completely free for spectators, and a good way for pickleball players and those who are curious about the sport to see it at a high level.
“If you’ve played pickleball before and you’re thinking ‘I might want to elevate my game and come and see how they’re playing at a fairly high level in the amateur game, this is a great place to come and see how well it’s being played,” said Webb. “If you’ve not seen really good elite level of play before, the college teams will be putting on some pretty exciting matches on Thursday.”
For more information about the APP, visit its website at https://www.theapp.global/.