On Saturday July 12th we held the 4th Annual Serge Planidin Dinking Tournament in our auditorium. (Not to be confused with a drinking tournament). The Dink is a shot in Pickleball which essentially is a soft drop shot played from close to the net. A dinking game can be played by using only the 7-foot region either side of the net, referred to as the “Kitchen”. Our tournament involved a partial round robin of 26 players on two courts.
Serge Planidin was a mainstay of Pickleball at the SSAC. As an organiser and coach, he devoted many incredible years to the Centre, always having time to teach anyone who showed interest in the game. He was particularly insistent that the game should be a soft game with many dinks. Therefore, it is particularly appropriate that we named the dinking tournament in honour of his memory.
The tournament was open to all levels of SSAC pickleball players. The 26 players were divided into two groups playing partial round-robin games on each of the two courts. Each played 8 games with different partners who were randomly selected for each game.
At the end of 8 games the two players with the highest scores from each court played in a 4 player 2 game final to determine a champion. Our champion was Margaret Ellis, with co-finalists being Steve Clifford, Gail Raines and Doug Stewart. The tournament went off without a hitch and was organized and run by Richard Ward, with the assistance of Gill Poulton and Cheryl Linsley serving as court marshals. The tournament was a lot of fun for players and spectators alike. Thank you to all those players who participated in the tournament. We will be holding a similar tournament in early December. This will be called the SSAC Picklemas Dinkathon, with potluck food contributions by the attendees to properly celebrate the Picklemas festive season.
