Submitted by Josh Booth
Jordan and I played in the Powerade State Games in Winston-Salem on 06/10.
It was an indoor tennis facility for the Wake Forest Tennis team, with 8 temporary pickleball courts set up. We played with the Onix II pure outdoor ball. Jordan and I decided to play in the 19+ division in order to try to play some younger, better competition. The 35+ draw, which Tony Quick and his partner, Franz Roland played in, was just as strong, and may actually have had more 4.5 teams competing. But, since Jordan and I had played all of those teams recently, we opted for the 19+ division in order to get a shot at the 2 time US Open pro doubles champion, Kyle Yates. We got our first chance to play Kyle after winning our first 3 matches in the main draw, beating some decent teams along the way. Two of our matches went 3 games. Yates and his partner, Daniel Parker, beat us handily 11-2 and 11-3. Jordan and I both feel we did not give it our best effort. We think a combination of nerves, and just plain over-thinking the fact that we were playing the best guy in the sport lead to a lack-luster performance. After the loss to Yates and Parker, we next played the winner of the back-draw, who we beat for another chance to play Yates/Parker for the gold. While we played them tougher in the next attempt, and got the best of Yates on several points, we were just not up to the challenge of taking down Goliath that day. We lost 11-0 and 11-6...finally starting to play our game in that last game, but of course it was too late. Yate's partner, Daniel Parker is a rising 4.5 player whose game is getting better every time we see him at a tournament. Overall, we had a great weekend. We walked away with a silver medal. Playing Yates was the highlight and lowlight, but regardless, it was good experience playing against someone of his caliber. We want another shot at him, and hope to get it soon.
