Although most of the attention this weekend will be on the 2024 APP Sacramento Open, there’s also another important pickleball tournament happening in Kentucky. The first River City Pickleball Classic began in Owensboro on Friday and finishes today, Sunday. The tournament started two hours late because of a power outage, but the rain did not stop the fun.
Largest Tournament Yet
With 425 players registered, officials say this is the largest tournament by the River City Pickleball Club yet. The Merchant Centre Court at Russel Shifley Park is hosting the event.
The tournament kicked off with the 50-year-old and up division and is free to the public.
Today’s competition day began at 8 a.m. While Saturday was dedicated to gender doubles, today’s action was dedicated to the mixed doubles competition.
According to messenger-enquirer.com, Owensboro’s River City Pickleball Club is gaining a reputation for hosting first-class tournaments, as evidenced by a continued increase in participation. The River City Pickle Club’s President says players have traveled from around 10 states, including Texas, Arkansas, and Pennsylvania.
First Springtime Event
It’s the first time the club has hosted a spring event, but after the success of its fall tournament — River City Open — the past two years, the club was confident about adding another event.
“We’ve gotten good feedback for every tournament that we’ve done; they said it was top quality,” said Alex Ross, club president. “We just wanted to do it again. We’re probably going to cap out at two per year. But there has been such good feedback, and we’ve got great volunteers who help us make it a success, so it’s been great.”
Interest in pickleball locally has increased significantly in recent years. Ross said that when he joined the club’s board three years ago, it had around 200 members. Today, it has more than 500 members.
“Pretty Large, Exponential Growth”
“It’s been a pretty large, exponential growth with the number of courts that have popped up,” said Ross, who points out that Centre Court gives the club a solid foundation for hosting a tournament. “It’s definitely been a blessing having a high-quality facility that lets us do this.
“It’s not very often that tennis facilities will allow pickleball, and they’ve been great partners with us from the beginning, so we can host these high-quality tournaments here.”
Missy Wislocki of Louisville is competing in the tournament. She has been playing for three years and said the facility for pickleball is second to none.
Read our report on last October’s River City Open tournament here.
“I’m Just Like, Have Fun”
Ross told The Tristate Homepage that hosting their first-ever spring competition opens them up to more high-level players. The tournament’s cash prizes total nearly $2,000 and are dependent on the number of entries.
“We’ve actually got more registrants than we were expecting. So, that’s assuming we had 12 high-end-level teams. I think we have 24. It just kinda adds to the whole experience of the tournament,” says Ross.
Altaf Merchant, the 2023 U.S. Open Pickleball Championship gold medalist, was also in attendance.
“It’s kind of funny because they look at me for like this magic piece of advice on how to win. I’m just like, you know, just have fun, get the ball over the net, move it around. You’re going to be okay,” he says.
We featured Merchant in our recent article on the APP/AARP Master and Champion tour rankings.
