We Had Our First Bench Clearer In Pro Pickleball After One Player Called Another A "Fucking Bitch"
Everywhere I go I get the same question asked to me. Doesn't matter if I'm in the grocery store, catching a play at the local theater, or volunteering my time at an animal shelter. Everybody always wants to ask me, "hey, Jordie, do you think that pickleball needs enforcers?".
For the longest time, I thought the answer to that question was "not quite yet". I knew there would come a day when the sport would need to start employing some players out there whose main role is to police the game through the threat, and sometimes act, of violence. But after the events of this past weekend's Major League Pickleball event in Orlando, the time is now for pickleball to add enforcers.
What we had here was a match between the New Jersey 5's and the St. Louis Shock. MLP is a team format league with each team consisting of 2 male players, 2 female players, and then 2 players on the bench. Anna-Leigh Waters and Hayden Patriquin are 2 of the youngest players in the league, but also 2 of the best. Anna-Leigh Waters plays for the New Jersey 5's and is widely considered the best pickleball player on the planet. She's the #1 ranked women's player in the world, and that's by a pretty considerable margin. Hayden Patriqun plays for the St. Louis Shock is a top 5 men's player in the world. I'm pretty sure they're both 18, so there goes everybody's joke about pickleball just being for geriatrics.
After the game, there's some lighthearted chirping going back-and-forth. The lightheartedness came to an end once Hayden Patriquin called Anna-Leigh Waters a fucking bitch.
Now we can sit here and debate about what should or shouldn't be condoned when it comes to shit talk. It's tough because pickleball is one of the only sports where guys and girls play against each other. Players are competitive, the shit talk gets fiery, and things get messy. It is what it is. That's a debate we can all have at another time.
The real story here is Anna-Leigh Waters immediately rushing over to bark right back in the face of Hayden Patriquin. That's a dawg right there. Doesn't wait for any of the guys in her team to step in. Just goes right after him herself, and he immediately backs down. That's a big dog.
You've got ALW going over to defend herself, her mom/coach going over to get in the face of the Shock's coach, team owners barking at each other. There wasn't any actual fighting going on but that's just as much of a bench clear as you'll see in baseball or basketball. A lot of getting up in peoples' faces, some light pushing and shoving, cooler heads prevailing before any punches are thrown. This is why team pickleball rules so hard. You're not going to get that at Wimbledon.