Tournament winner Glynn Lord (extreme left) with the finalists.
On Saturday June 15th we held the 3rd Annual Serge Planidin Dinking Tournament. Not to be confused with a drinking tournament. The Dink is a shot in Pickleball which essentially is a soft drop shot usually played from close to the net. A dinking game can be played by using only the 7-foot region either side of the net, referred to as the “Kitchen”. Our tournament involved a partial round robin of 32 players on two courts.
Serge Planidin was a mainstay of Pickleball at the SSAC. As an organiser and coach, he devoted many incredible years to the Centre, always having time to teach anyone who showed interest in the game. He was particularly insistent that the game should be a soft game with many dinks. Therefore, it is particularly appropriate that we named the dinking tournament in honour of his memory.
The 32 players were divided in to two groups playing partial round-robin games on each of the two courts. Each played 8 games with randomly selected and different partners each game. At the end of 8 games the two players with the highest scores from each court played in a 4 player 2 game final to determine a champion. Our champion was Glynn Lord, with co-finalists being Steve Clifford, Aldo Tacchi and Bruce Fraser. Each will receive a small, engraved glass trophy. The tournament went off without a hitch and was organized and run by Richard Ward, with the assistance of Gill Poulton and Chris King serving as court marshals. Chris Hadaway was again invaluable setting up the nets, tables and chairs. The tournament was a lot of fun for players and spectators alike, and four lucky players received a door prize of pickleball passes.
We will be holding a similar tournament in early December. This will be called the SSAC Picklemas Dinkathon, with pot luck food contributions by the attendees to properly celebrate the Picklemas festive season
