Hello, everyone! This is Picklewho, the GOAT of pickleball news sources, which means we’re like Messi, but with minimal competition.

These are today’s news:

• What do you mean there’s a pickleball island?

• Newcomers Cause Spectacular Upset in Florida Open!

• Pilates: a way of improving your game.

A pickleball island? I want to go there

As my neighborhood still debates whether to paint the old basketball court, Darien, a wealthy suburb in Connecticut, reinforces its status by purchasing an entire island.

The island’s name is “The Great Island'' (kind of redundant), and among its upcoming plans include building several pickleball courts. This means, as of now, Pickleball Island is not a reality, though I bet it would be 10000% better and make for better movies than Isla Nublar.

However, some state lawmakers want to use the land to make affordable housing instead of pickleball courts, which is preposterous. I mean, priorities…

Ok, affordable housing is cool too, so why not both? Just think about it, state of Connecticut.

The Florida Open had a serious upset

The Florida Open took place last Sunday, and we saw some of the usual stuff: Ben Johns won a triple crown and Anna Waters took two trophies home. What else can you expect from the number 1 players in the world? It’s like asking me “did you drink three cups of coffee with extra sugar this morning?”. The answer is always “Duh”.

However, we did have a few surprises. Collin Shick, one of the new faces in the Open, went from a 31-seed in the qualifier bracket to a Sunday showdown against Ben Johns competing for the gold medal. That’s some serious underdog movie stuff. He still lost against Johns, but he definitely won our hearts. Is Shick the new Rocky Balboa? I hope not, ‘cause that would mean in a few years a huge Russian might “accidentally” kill Johns.

Let’s not think about that ever again.

On the women’s side, Jade Kawamoto and Lacy Schneemann (number 6-seeded team) beat the number 3 and number 2-seeded teams to reach the finals against Waters and Catherine Parenteau. Again, an impressive showdown by both players, who were also new faces on the pro stage.

Seems like Waters and Johns finally have some competition, uh?

Pilates could make you win every game

The reasoning behind pilates as a serious way to improve your pickleball game is simple: it’s focused on the contraction of muscles, which increases your strength, flexibility and your proprioception (aka awareness of your body and limbs in space), which helps you fall less on the court. Plus, you’ll acquire extra bragging rights every time you win a point and say “all thanks to pilates”. If you want to learn more about pilates exercises, here’s a link!

And yes I took the prior paragraph completely out of ChatGPT because there’s no way I would have ever written “proprioception”. 10 minutes ago the most difficult word I knew was “Canada”. Think about that.

By the way, you might also like:

• The key to hitting a backhand volley.

• Pro tips for your footwork.

• Struggling with drops? Watch this.