Submitted by Lawana Johnson (View the original article with images.)
The first Pacific Northwest Regional held last month at Settlers’ Park and the new Hobble Creek Pickleball Complex, was the last of the USAPA’s Regional Tournaments which were qualifying tournaments for the 2021 USAPA Nationals to be held at the end of the year. Several of our top players won Gold Medals at our outstanding regional where 934 players from 32 states & provinces played in tough matches. They competed especially hard here because winning a Gold Medal also won them a coveted “Golden Ticket” to register early and lock down a spot to play in the important 2021 USAPA Nationals.
| Tom Bowman |
Joey Brandes |
Lisa Brummond |
| Doreen Burnham |
Daphne Chen |
Sheri Cole |
| Julie Cramer |
Jessica Fung |
Tim Gleason |
| Lisa Griffin |
Dave Grube |
Randy Howell |
| Dick Johnson |
Brent Kerbs |
Jan Lake |
| Katie Lamm |
Bee Le |
Chin Le |
| Patti Lousen |
Diane Magnuson |
Kenneth Ortega |
| Becca Roberts |
Shelly Schwers |
Kartika Singpraseuth |
| Daryl Spivey |
Rob Townsend |
Jean Verdini |
| Gail Walker |
Mark Walters |
Kirk White |
Nationals will again be held at the famous and world class Indian Wells Tennis Gardens in California and is anticipated to be the largest pickleball tournament in the world. For tournament players, winning a “Golden Ticket” is especially critical for this year’s Nationals because the turnout is expected to be so HUGE that some players likely will not get in. In fact, our winners are already utilizing their “Golden Tickets” to register, whereas players who did not win the coveted ticket have to wait till August 1 to try to, hopefully, finally get a spot in a lottery-style registration which will be enormous.
*There may be some other Golden Ticket winners from our area we were not aware of for this article. Please let us know about them so they can be recognized.
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