This week in Five Dink Friday😀

💰 The $1M Pickleball Showdown — Agassi vs Waters
🐍 Deception Upgrade — the snake actually works
🎭 Body Language Wins Points — sell the fake
🌵 18 Courts, Still Waiting — Chandler chaos
🏢 Oversaturated or Overbuilt? — the real answer

Let’s get to it!

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Okay… this one’s actually a big deal.

We’ve got a $1 million winner-take-all pickleball match on ESPN on April 15.

Quick Context (Because This Matters)

Agassi = tennis legend.
8 Grand Slam titles. Household name.
He’s been one of the biggest celebrities helping bring attention to pickleball — and yes, he’s been involved in the sport’s growth, playing in these Slams and showing up in the scene.

Anna Leigh Waters = the face of pickleball right now.
World #1. Wins everything.
Recently signed a major deal with Nike.

If you watch pro pickleball… you already know.

The Other Two….

James Blake — former top tennis pro, athletic, legit competitor.

Genie Bouchard — tennis star turned pickleball convert, and honestly… part of this whole “tennis → pickleball pipeline” we’re seeing.

Just imagine how many more tennis peeps we are going to attract to pickleball with this event.

And it will be super fun to see if a tennis legend can hang with one of the most dominant pickleball players on the planet.

Who are you putting your money on?
Hit reply and let me know.
I’m betting ALW all the way.

⸻

👉 Click here: If you want to watch: April 15, ESPN, 7 PM ET

Remember the sneaky snake speed-up from last week (if not, check it out here)?

Yeah…

I drilled it.

And I actually pulled it off 4–5 times in real games.

It works 😏

100% worth drilling.

And I’m definitely keeping it in the arsenal.

But Here’s What I Realized…

I don’t actually slice dink that much.

Most of the time?

I’m hitting an aggressive twoey forehand topspin dink crosscourt.

So mid-drill, I kept thinking:

“Okay… but what’s my fake-out from this shot?”

⸻

And then this tutorial popped up this week 👇

This is the twoey topspin version of the fake-out.

You show the same crosscourt pattern…

and then at the last second?

You send it down the line.

Same idea.
Different setup.

I now have:

• A fake-out from the backhand slice dink (last week’s snake 🐍)
• A fake-out from the forehand topspin dink

Which means…

I can now sneakily attack from either side of a cross-court dink battle.

So after stumbling across the twoey topspin dink fakeout, this dink disguise tutorial popped up in my feed at the perfect time.

What I loved about this one is that it reminded me how important it is to sell the shot with your body and to pay attention to the direction your opponent is moving so you can put the ball where they aren’t.

If your body says crosscourt…

your opponent believes crosscourt.

And the moment they commit?

You send the ball down the line.

That’s what makes these fake-out shots so effective.

It’s not just the paddle work.

It’s the setup.

It’s the weight shift.
It’s the body positioning.
It’s the story you sell before the shot ever leaves your paddle.

This was a really good reminder for me as I keep working on deceptive shots like the snake, the twoey fakeout, and the inside-out overhead.

Because the better I get at using my body to sell one shot and recognizing when my opponent is shifting the other way…

the more opportunities I’ll have to win points with disguise and placement.

Super excited to drill these until they become second nature.

We chose Chandler, Arizona, for spring break for three very important reasons:

And okay…
4. Renting a Corvette because my husband enjoys speed in all forms 😏

We played every night.

Because in Arizona, you either play early morning or after dark… unless you enjoy being slow-roasted.

And honestly?

We loved and hated Tumbleweed Park.

Loved the people.
Hated the wait and the grab bag of games.

⸻

Here’s how it works:

Paddles in the rack.
Wait 15–30 minutes.
Play one game to 11.
Rotate off.

So if you don’t bring your own group…

you’re rolling the dice every time.

⸻

Toward the end of the first night, someone told us:

“Go try the challenge courts.”

So we did.

Waited 30 minutes.

Got on.

And immediately got humbled.

⸻

These guys were unhinged.

Behind-the-back shots.
Between-the-legs.
Misdirection.
Disguise.

It was like pickleball meets Harlem Globetrotters.

They got to 7 before we could blink.

We managed 4 points…

And yeah…

we did not wait around for round two.

⸻

But we came back the next night.

And this time?

We did better.

Even beat one of the tricksters when he wasn’t paired with his circus partner.

That felt VERY good.

⸻

Here’s my takeaway:

The scene is awesome.
The courts are packed.
Pickleball in Arizona is thriving.

But…

it made me deeply appreciate owning my own facilities where there is:

No waiting.
No randomness.
Just good, competitive games for hours.

⸻

Because honestly?

If my first experience with pickleball had been:

wait → play with random skill levels → rotate → repeat…

I don’t think I would’ve fallen in love with this sport.

⸻

So yes — go play Tumbleweed.

Just know what you’re signing up for.

And if you’ve been…

tell me if your experience was the same.

I came across a Reddit thread this week about a Picklr location in Utah reportedly losing $267K a year, and the comments were exactly what you’d expect:

“Pickleball is oversaturated.”
“No one should open indoor clubs.”
“The model is broken.”

And to be fair…

some models are broken.

For those of you who found this newsletter through my 3-step guide on how to open a low-maintenance, high-profit pickleball facility, you already know I care a lot about this topic.

Because I’m not just watching it from the sidelines.

I’m living it.

We currently have 8 Kitchen Pickleball locations with several more in the works.

And fun fact:

The Picklr’s flagship location is basically 100 yards from our second location.

When they announced they were opening there, my co-owners were definitely a little nervous.

Two years later?

We haven’t lost revenue.
We’ve actually grown.

⸻

So what gives?

My take is simple:

The market isn’t oversaturated. Bad math is.

If your rent is too high, your payroll is bloated, your buildout costs are massive, and your pricing model doesn’t match how pickleball players actually play…

yeah, you’re going to have a bad time.

Pickleball players play a lot.
They’re price sensitive.
And many of them disappear outdoors the second the weather gets nice.

That doesn’t mean indoor is dead.

It means you’d better have a model that pencils.

⸻

That’s exactly why we built The Kitchen differently.

We run a low-maintenance, high-profit model with no employees.
Everything is automated through our booking app.
We spend months—sometimes years—finding the right building or land deal before we move.

And that discipline matters.

A lot.

Because if the numbers don’t work on paper, they definitely won’t work once you add inflation, seasonality, and a few slow months.

⸻

Also…

I live within 10 minutes of 4 indoor facilities and 5 different parks with pickleball courts…

and I’m still over here considering building a court in my backyard because there are still times I can’t get a court when I want one.

So no, I personally do not think the market is tapped out.

I think a lot of operators just underestimated how important the business model is.

⸻

If opening a facility is something you’ve been thinking about, just reply, and I’m happy to answer questions.

And if you haven’t grabbed my guide yet, you can get it here:

⸻

Curious where you land:

Do you think the indoor pickleball market is actually oversaturated…

or are we just seeing weak models get exposed?

If this week’s edition made you:

• want to grab tickets to the Agassi vs ALW match
• want to test a sneaky fake-out in your next game
• or appreciate just how good you’ve got it when you don’t have to wait 30 minutes to play

…then my work here is done.

If this landed in your inbox via a friend, hit subscribe so you don’t miss next week’s drop.

Until next week…

Stay sharp.
Sell the shot.

And don’t be afraid to go down the line 😏

See you on the courts.

— Janelle 🏓✨

🥒 P.S. I owe you a report about my first Moneyball experience.

We didn’t win the purse.
But we did win half our games, and it was pretty fun.

It was my first time playing with my partner, Scott—we played well together.

But I think if I do Moneyball again, I’ll partner with my husband…

because he loves playing with me, and I love playing with him too.