The Men's Open Harvest Tournament 2024

 I watched a lot of the open men's play at the tournament this year.  The play wasn't too much of a surprise as to style or skills.

I thought the ability to hit the ball was very good.  There even was a  guy who excelled at blocking overheads from the kitchen line.  There were a lot of fire fights, rarely started from the kitchen line, but usually close to it, we might call that the late transition area.

Almost all balls were attacked and hit hard.  

Only one guy, our Jimmy, actually dropped the third shot, others were quite content to just drive it.  More on this later.

I also saw a lot of intentional body bagging, including head shots.

A close reader of the blog will have noted that the style of play exhibited is not to my taste.  I must confess that it wasn't too long ago I was heading into that stylistic direction and realized I was turning into the player I didn't want to play against.  I turned away from it and it's one of the reasons I don't play at Downs anymore.  

So most of the matches were hitting with the occasional reset followed by more hitting until the points were over.  Not classical pickleball, but that seems to be a dying art at most playing levels.  

I wanted to return to Jimmy's play.  He seemed to be the only player who would hit a soft third shot.  And it was quite effective.  Frequently the points would evolve into overheads and hitting, but he was managing to score well with some soft play and his side was able to get to the kitchen line.  It is still my theory that at some point you have to get back to playing soft shots.  When all the players can hit and return, then you've got to change the play.

Another impression was that uniformly, the shots that were missed, were not drives, but shots that required some touch.  I think they are harder, but they are efficient.  All the players could return drives at that level.  Time for the old curve ball...

The women's play was also interesting, but for another reason.  I saw a lot of lobs.  (I was going to put in a joke about Larry giving lessons, but I won't.)  There were some older teams playing against younger ones and one of the older gals said that the lobs were needed to slow down the kids.  Hah!  Maybe I will have to reassess my view in re lobs.

And one of the older gals had some beautiful ground strokes followed by flawless court movement.  I really enjoyed watching her play.  Very much a classical style and esthetically pleasing.

It was a nice job putting on the tournament from my perspective.  I would have liked to have had a few more paddle vendors there, but I really don't need anymore.  The tacos were good as were snacks for players and volunteers.  I wasn't involved in the setup or tear down, but a lot of work went into that and it was well done.  Thanks TVPBC for a great event.