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Hey hey, this is Shaun with the award-winning GoTennis! Podcast powered by Signature Tennis.

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Check us out at LetsGoTennis.com and we invite you to learn more about the award by

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following the link in the show notes.

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As you're listening to this, please look in your podcast app where to leave a review

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and do that for us.

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We would love to earn your five-star reviews.

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In today's episode, we invited a representative from USTA Atlanta to talk about their pickleball

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opportunities for players in Metro Atlanta.

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Called Atlanta Team Pickleball, the league has an upcoming team registration deadline of

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March 27th.

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So go to USTAAtlanta.com/pickleball and get registered today.

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Stay tuned for more information from Andrea Staniskew of USTA Atlanta.

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Who are you and why do we care?

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Yeah, thank you so much for having us.

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First of all, my name is Andreea.

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I am a community programs coordinator for USTA Atlanta and I oversee our pickleball opportunities.

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I am the league coordinator of Atlanta Team Pickleball and we are here to bring pickleball

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opportunities to Atlanta.

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Thank you for having me.

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And this is called Atlanta Team Pickleball.

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So I will point out, we don't call it USTA anything.

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This is called Atlanta Team Pickleball Intentionally.

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We call it Atlanta Team Pickleball and it is presented by USTA Atlanta.

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Okay, we got to get the sponsorship right.

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Get all the branding proper.

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That's good.

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So tell us about Atlanta Team Pickleball.

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Right, yes.

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So we are fairly new to the game.

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We started about two years ago.

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This Atlanta Team Pickleball is a league.

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We have a combo double format right now in the spring and in the fall we usually organize

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single gender formats.

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So that means men's and women's division separately.

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So it is, you know, six to eight week long league.

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We play locally regular season playoffs and then city finals were the top teams battle

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to win their division.

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We use a DUPR.

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That's our official rating system.

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So we are looking at dDUPR parameters and that's how each player registers in the right rating

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divisions.

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And yeah, one of the most exciting things is that we get to set the top teams in each division

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to one culminating event, which is called the triple team national championship that it's

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happening at the end of each year.

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So that's the fun part, right?

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So we assume if we do well, we're going to go to nationals and we're going to win and

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we're going to be champions of the world.

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How does this back to the combo?

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You say combo is in the spring.

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Gendered male female separate teams are in the fall.

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Combo is that adult for co-ed?

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Right.

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So it's basically the triple team, the national championship organization word for the

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co-ed.

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So you will have, you will play the genders around.

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So men, play men, women, play women and then you have two rounds of mixed.

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The other fun part about this, it kind of runs a little bit differently than other leagues

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because in the mixed format, you get to set basically your two lines of mixed and then

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that was the first round plays home team one plays versus the 13 one home teams two plays

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versus the 13 two and then four round two.

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You get to swap.

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So the same players will have to stay and they just swap to play the other team that they

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haven't played in the first round of mixed doubles.

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Okay.

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So that's how we answered the whole format question, which is how do we take something and

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don't make it as long as tennis, but also don't keep it as short as a single pickleball game.

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That makes a lot of sense.

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And so in this case, combo is the USTA version.

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We're talking about co-ed, but combo also means are you combining my ratings?

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I'm rated a 5.0 and my wife's rated a 4.0 and we play together and together we're

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a 9.0.

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How does that work in pickleball?

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Yeah, no, that we do that a little bit different.

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We don't do that like tennis leagues.

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We strictly look at doopers or do per is all official rating.

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So let's say we have right now our registration is open for our combo the double season.

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One of the divisions that we have is 18 of 15 plus combo 3.0 to 3.49.

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The 3.0 to 3.49 those are the parameters we are looking at.

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So all the players that are in that parameter, let's say you want to create a team and all

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your teammates all have between 3.0 and 3.49.

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Well, they're qualified to play in that rating and they all play at that rating.

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Okay, so more like everybody is a 5.0 in that range or less.

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Right.

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Gotcha.

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Okay.

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So we have different DUPR parameters.

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The combo is the problem because the combo league is a my rating plus your rating total

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system from a tennis perspective.

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That's for tennis.

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That's for tennis.

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Yeah.

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No, no, that's completely different.

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We in pickable, we don't look at it that way.

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We kind of do it.

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Well, in this aspect, we do it a little bit different.

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Yeah, no, that's good.

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Just making sure I know what I'm looking at when I see that website and it says combo, I'm

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not adding money rating to somebody else's rating like I would in tennis because we come

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in from tennis and we think we know what we're doing.

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But yeah, yeah, in this aspect, pickable is way different.

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You know, the way our league runs is kind of similar to a USTA Atlanta tennis adult leagues

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because we play locally, we have a regular season, we have a playoff and then we have city

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finals and then we get to send these top teams that win city finals to this culminating event

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that it's very exciting and all the teams we've sent so far have great, great experience

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and great feedback.

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That's fantastic.

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Okay.

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What I need to know is somebody in our audience is interested in getting signed up right now,

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like if you're listening to this in six months, don't worry, just learn what you can, you're

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not getting registered today.

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But if we were to say register today, where do they go and what's the deadline?

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Yeah.

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So they go to our website, ustaAtlanta.com/pickleball.

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They will see that our combo double season is right now on.

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They have the link to register and they can always email me at pickleball@ustaAtlanta.com.

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I am happy to answer all of the questions, but our website is designed with as much information

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in a sustained way as possible so that all the questions can be answered there and if you

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have additional questions, then you can always email us.

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And I'm happy to respond about it.

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Pickable@ustaAtlanta.com.

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That's what we got.

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Okay.

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We'll make sure all that information's in the show now.

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It's in all the links are there.

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Anybody interested in jumping in now?

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Can I register as an individual last question?

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Individual?

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Do I need a team?

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How does that work?

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So right now we don't have a free agent list, quote unquote, because the format of the

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league is home and away.

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So we have kind of different counties in our jurisdiction.

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So we allow teams to register in those counties that we oversee and they can play together

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as a team.

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It's a little bit more difficult when we have this type of format to create free agents because

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just because we don't know where they all are.

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But if you are interested to play, again, you can always email me and I'm going to look

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into platform and see if any player, if only team needs a player, then I'm more than happy

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to make that introduction and see what comes out of there.

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Perfect.

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I appreciate your time.

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Thank you so much.

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We're going to learn more and more.

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We're going to do this more often.

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Andreea, I really appreciate your time and we'll talk to you again soon.

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Thanks so much.

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Thank you so much for having us.

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Thank you.

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Bye.

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(upbeat music)