Taylor Swift was undeniably the biggest show in town in Sydney, Australia, the weekend of February 23-25, 2024. Crowds flocked around her hotel to get a glimpse of Taylor and her boyfriend, Travis Kelce, fresh off his second-straight Super Bowl win. Metro trains were bursting with Swifties in boots and pink dresses. Every public service announcement regarding the weekend’s rainstorms was focused on the impact on concertgoers. Yet in the shadow of this chaos, I was participating in a lesser-known entertainment spectacle: Pacific Pro Sydney 2024.

Pacific Pro Sydney 2024 was the first professional pickleball tournament of the year on the Pacific Pro circuit (now renamed PPA Tour Australia) with pro tournaments throughout Australia, New Zealand, and Singapore. I arrived at 7:30 a.m. sharp for the men’s singles division, totally unsure of what to expect at my first-ever pro tournament — in Australia, no less. Now is probably the point in this blog to take a step back and give a proper backstory of how I ended up at a pro pickleball tournament on the opposite side of the world.

Going Pro

My participation in the tournament is actually the convergence of two major gap year events, in addition to my internship at a health care AI company back home in Minnesota, that transpired between my graduation from Santa Clara University in June 2023 and me beginning the MQM program in July 2024. I transitioned from being a competitive tennis player who occasionally played pickleball to a competitive pickleball player, just barely clinging on to any remnants of my tennis game.

Before the tournament in Sydney, I was fortunate enough to win four singles tournaments in Minnesota and Wisconsin, including the Wisconsin Winter State Championship. This tournament success propelled my singles pickleball rating to above 5.0, the threshold level for being labeled as a professional player. Separately from pickleball, I spent two months traveling throughout Australia and New Zealand from February to April 2024 and had the flexibility to incorporate pro tournaments into my travel schedule once I learned of the Pacific Pro circuit.

Fast forward to the Sydney tournament — I played the top-ranked player in New Zealand, a native Kiwi who played D1 tennis at Wichita State, in my very first match. In a bludgeoning, 95-degree heat I didn’t know could exist at 7:30 in the morning, I took full advantage of the allocated timeouts to make sure I didn’t collapse on the court and ultimately played well in losing a very tight match. I then moved to the consolation bracket, where I recorded a win versus the second-ranked Kiwi before proceeding to lose my third match.

I was proud of my performance in Sydney and decided to enter the next Pacific Pro tournament, held in Auckland in early April. In all honesty, my results in this tournament were nothing to write home about (or in this case, blog) about. My constant travels made it hard to play pickleball since Sydney, and I once again lost in the first round before collecting one win and one loss in consolation.

Looking Ahead to MQM

Soon after the Auckland tournament, I headed home to Minnesota with so many fond memories of signing autographs, making TV appearances, and enjoying complimentary five-star hotels. Just kidding, I wish! The reality is that pro pickleball, especially in Australasia, is a rapidly developing concept that does not yet have the infrastructure or resources of other professional sports. There is no doubt, however, that my time in Australia gave me the space I needed to come back to the U.S. with a clear vision for my path forward in life. Rather than returning to the workforce in a full-time role, I opted to pursue a master’s of business analytics degree to ensure I started my career with a strong analytical foundation. MQM turned out to be a perfect fit, and I am thrilled to be here at Duke and Fuqua!

Fortunately, life at Duke still involves a healthy amount of pickleball, thanks to having courts on East Campus, at the Duke Faculty Club, and even right next to Fuqua. I do my best to introduce pickleball to international students who are brand new to the sport, and I’ve also joined Duke Club Pickleball! With the team, I hope to travel to collegiate tournaments across the country and compete for a national championship.