Dill-ightful: National pickleball championship runs this week in Regina

It’s shaping up to be a “dill-ightful” week on Regina’s pickleball courts.

The Myoflex 2023 Pickleball Canada national championship kicks off Wednesday in Regina and runs until Sunday.

Allen Carpentier, vice-chair of the tournament’s local organizing committee, said he expects the tournament to be five days of fun.

“People have so much fun playing this game,” he said. “You can play it socially or as competitively as you wish, so there’s room for everybody.”

Pickleball is a racket sport that Carpentier described as a combination of tennis and ping pong. It’s played on a badminton-sized court 20 feet wide by 44 feet long.

The game includes a seven-foot zone in front of the net called “the kitchen,” which is a non-volley zone. The ball has to bounce inside “the kitchen” before it can be returned, and players cannot hit the ball out of the air in that zone.

Games are typically played to 11 points, and must be won by two.

No actual pickles are involved.

For the championship tournament in Regina, games will be played in either a double-elimination format or a round-robin. It all depends on the number of registered players for each event.

If more than six teams are competing in doubles, Carpentier said the format will be double-elimination.

“If it’s less than that, they’ll do pools of round-robin games,” explained Carpentier.

There are 640 registered players at the championship, and more than 110 events for them to participate in.

There are so many events because the tournament is split into a number of skill and age categories, with players between the ages of 16 and 77 competing.

Determining skill levels can be a bit of a pickle, but Carpentier explained how they work.

“There’s criteria for what they call a rating. For example, if you’re serving, you have to be able to serve at least five of 10 serves in the proper court and return five of 10 serves to be a 3.0-rated player,” he said.

Ratings start at 3.0 and go up by increments of 0.5, with ratings of 5.0 and higher considered the professional level.

Players are coming from all over Canada to compete, including about 250 from Saskatchewan and 140 from Alberta. Carpentier said nearly every province will be represented.

He said it was an easy decision for the local organization to put forward a bid to host the national tournament, especially after hosting a successful Western Canadian regional championship.

“Last year, there was nobody that was actually considering to host, so we were asked if we would consider hosting as we had done a fantastic job at the Westerns. So we put a bid in and were awarded the nationals for this particular year,” he said.

There are more than 200 volunteers helping with the tournament, but Carpentier said the organizing committee is still looking for more to join the event.

Volunteers can help as court monitors, letting the operations team know when a court becomes available, or assist with first aid, check-in areas, player bag distribution, volunteer check-in areas or marking score sheets.

Besides the players and volunteers, Carpentier said he wants to see the venue packed with cheering fans.

“We very much encourage people to come and watch. There’s no cost to come and watch the competitions,” he said.

The event takes place at the Viterra International Trade Centre with 20 courts and the Queen City Pickleball Hub with 12 courts, all at the REAL District.