021 | The Man Behind the APP Tour

Morgan:  My guest today is not a player or a pundit. He is Mr. Ken Herrmann, the head of the Association of Pickleball Professionals. The APP Tour has 17 sanctioned tournaments on the docket for 2021 throughout the US and abroad. With this background working in the USTA on player development, he has a great perspective on what can drive players and the sport in the right direction. So please welcome, Mr. Ken Herrmann.

 

The Man Behind The App Tour [0:48]

Morgan:  Ken, how are you, mate?

Ken:  Great to be here, Morgan.

Morgan:  Hope I’m not taking too much time out of your busy day?

Ken:  This is a treat. And, Morgan, today is a big day for you? Do you know why?
Morgan:  Oh do tell me. Is it a Thursday? I’ve always liked Thursday.

Ken:  (laughs…) I believe if I’m correct, your paddle has dropped today, the Maxima, am I right? Did it drop today?

Morgan:  Oh yes, there were some brief recordings of earthquake movement, and that’s exactly what that was. It was the paddle dropping.

Ken:  (laughs…) That is amazing. Congratulations! I’ve heard good things. I had a phone conversation earlier today with a Mr. Edward Hector from Pickleball Central who said he played with your paddle; loved the paddle and wrote a great review about it on Pickleball Central, so congratulations! You got to be really proud of that.

Morgan:  That’s fantastic! Good, old Edward. He’s always been in my corner. I love that guy. I’m going to get him on the show soon, actually.

Ken:  Good. Very good!

Morgan:  So you are the man behind the APP Tour. Tell me, how did that all happened? How did it start?

Ken:  Wow! The APP Tour, yeah it’s the Association of Pickleball Professionals and this was a vision that I had well over two years ago, and spent probably a good seven to eight months trying to put in the pieces of the puzzle together to see if a tour could be offered for pros and amateurs alike, and have it be a way that they can see how they’re working on their developments and give them a great level of competition and hopefully experience as well. So we launched the tour back in June of 2018, announcing that we were ready to go full-time in 2019, and then all of a sudden COVID struck as it did with many of the other tournament directors across the United States.

Morgan:  Yeah. How did it impact you guys? I know obviously, a lot was needed to be postponed and sometimes canceled. But you’ve weathered the storm, do you feel?

Ken:  We’ve weathered the storm. We had 12 events lined up in our 2019 calendar year. We’re actually a week out of running at Hilton Head which was supposed to open the tour back in March earlier this year. Then the decision was made by myself and a couple of members of my team literally about six days before we were supposed to start the event to cancel it because of all of this COVID. And then a couple of days later, the whole nation shut down there.

There were some events we were able to postpone, some events we just cancel. We were fortunate to get our last four events in this year and we just wrapped things up a couple of days ago with the Hilton Head Open which was co-hosted by Sarah Ansbour and Steve Deakin.

Morgan:  Steve Deakin – I love that guy. He’s just the nicest bloke out there. Top five, anyway at least.

Ken:  He’s certainly is. He had a great time in Hilton Head. His wife came. They were celebrating their anniversary. And the guy played knock Pickleball and took a big gold in Men’s Double, so he played really well.

Morgan:  Yeah, he’s one of those players that just doesn’t have an off-day. I’ve never seen him sort of waiver from his standard ability which is an astonishingly good level. It almost doesn’t matter if it’s the first game of the day or the last game – he just brings it every time. I kind of want to play with him and not against him anymore. Hopefully, we’ll get that going.

Ken:  (laughs…) He left his home in Canada and certainly put together a string of 10 events, and I know he was looking forward to getting back home. He played in an invitational of mine that we did, and then he picked up events in Chicago, Cincinnati, Las Vegas, so he’s certainly was definitely matched up by the time Hilton Head came around and his body was holding up great. I said, “What are you going to do these next couple of months until I see you in January?”

He goes, “I’m just going to keep working on my fitness, my off-court program, making good choices with my eating diet,” and it’s awesome and inspiring. Steve’s not the 25-year-old, young gentleman out there playing and it’s just really motivational and inspiring to see somebody keep developing their game especially as they get into their 40s, and still regarded as one of the best in the game out there.

Morgan:  Yeah. How was his hair? Was it as good as normal?

Ken:  (laughs…) Steve is known for his hair. But I’m going to give one more props for Steve and also Ms. Sarah. When I go to the pros and I asked them to co-host the event for me, there’s a couple of things that they do in order to make that experience that much greater. I cannot tell you how many times people walked up to Steve, people walked up to Sarah, didn’t know who they were. They were so approachable, so nice and giving of their time, perfect sportsmanship-like conduct on the court. And while it was close, they were very fair with all types of calls while we’re out there, and just mingled with the people afterward in the end as socially distant as they could, and they just made that experience that much greater. Steve and Sarah really did an unbelievable job just welcoming everybody and just showing them what the whole world of high-level Pickleball was about.

Morgan:  That’s fantastic! We all hope that Pickleball never loses its charm in that respect because there’s not too many sports out there where an average player or spectator can feel comfortable about walking up to a pro and just having a chat, and I love that Pickleball’s still that and hopefully it’ll never end.

Ken:  I agree with you —  I definitely agree with you. And I’ve seen that not only from Steve and Sarah but several of the other pros that have co-hosted some of my stuff and they’ve all just had that line of professionalism and helping the continued efforts to just grow the game.

Morgan:  Yeah. And I think as sort of a side benefit, it may be a fantastic strategy to kind of force better line calls upon some of the more dodgy players out there, just get them to host one of your events, so the spotlight’s on them. They can’t afford to do that kind of dodgy stuff.

Ken:  (laughs…) There you go! Great idea, Morgan – exactly.

Morgan:  Yeah, good stuff.

Sponsor: CoachME Pickleball

 

Fast-Forward to 2021 [7:26]

Morgan:  So now, fast-forwarding a little bit to 2021, looks like you’ve got 17 events on the docket with a total prize purse of over $600,000 – that’s no small chunk of change.

Ken:  We’re excited about 2021. We’re kicking it off in Punta Gorda. Kyle Yates and Steve will be co-hosting that event and I think the goal that I wanted to do this year with moving forward is we listen to some of the players and some of the amateurs what their feelings were about the scheduling. Again, as we’re working with USA Pickleball with our partnership, we’re continuing to try to grow the sport. I came up with that vision, Morgan, of offering three separate series within the tour; a series for the west-coast players, a series for that middle one player, and also a series for that player that lives in the south, lower east region. And I think by kind of clumping these tournaments together and giving them an incentive to play the tournament along with some additional prize money available for those that do well in those series, it just creates hopefully another opportunity that people can have an APP experience tour event regardless if you’re a pro or an amateur. I think we have 12 events this year and it went up to 17, and we’ll continue to just monitor the success.

I love the fact that we’re bringing Pickleball into new markets.

Morgan:  Yeah.

Ken:  We’re bringing Pickleball into some areas that have not been exposed to Pickleball before – Holy cow! A terrific field, first time that pro-Pickleball was at a high-level there in the state of Ohio, and you could just see the fans watching and looking at the Pickleball especially with some of the shots that the pros are making out there, they were inspired by that. I think that as we left that city event there, hopefully, the locals there continuing to build off of that enthusiasm that we left there, that will continue to produce the next year’s champions coming up to the ranks.

Morgan:  Yeah, I think you’re exactly right. And often, it only takes either one, big tournament or a player from a certain region that kind of stands out and it becomes the sort of catalyst that grows the game. The Björn Borg did it for Sweden in Tennis, and hopefully, your tournament will do it for Cincinnati, Ohio.

Ken:  Well, we’ve got some players in Ohio – no doubt about that. But again, Hilton Head as wonderful Sarah Ansbour is, there was still no pro tournament that got into the Hilton Head island or even South Carolina maybe for that realm. So many people were coming out and just experiencing, “Wow! This is what this sport can really evolve into.” I think that was eye-opening for a lot of people.

Morgan:  Yeah, for sure.

So you mentioned emerging into new markets. The English Open is coming, July 1^st to the 4^th in Nottingham, England. It is the birthplace of Robin Hood. Do you plan to, at some point during the event, rob from the rich, and give to the poor?

Ken:  (laughs…) I am the poor! (laughs…) I don’t know.

Morgan:  We’ll give the money to you – perfect!

Ken:  Boy! The English Open – what a treat that is working with the team. Kara Mitchell and Sam Bashford, they’ve been terrific to work with. Again, working with them – how can we continue to grow this game? And how can Pickleball or the APP Tour have an impact over in Europe and align ourselves up with the premier tournament over there certainly in England, is a big step in that direction in trying to work with them, and continue to inspire their players. I know that we’ve got some pros that we’re in good talk and know about venturing over to the English Open to play the event. I joked with the tournament directors there about how we’re going to be over there during our July 4^th holiday here, and they said that they won’t hold that against us. So we’re looking forward to just having a great week over there and bringing Pickleball from England back to America.

Morgan:  That’s great! Now, I don’t know if you know this but I’m actually a British citizen, so if you need a host I can totally host it.

Ken:  Well, let’s see how you do host the Los Angeles event.

Morgan:  Oh, that’s true.

Ken:  You and Ms. Kim will be doing that event for us at the latter part of January. I know I’m coming up there in a couple of weeks to visit with you all for us to continue to work at our ground plans. But yes, Morgan, if you want to jump on a plane and get over there, you will be welcome, without a doubt.

Morgan:  Fantastic! Alright, so if I behave myself in LA, then there’s a chance.

Ken:  (laughs…)

Morgan:  So for the average listener who isn’t 100% sure how the tour works, per se, one of the background structure of the events. With so many events, they all culminate in one particular final or how does it work?

Ken:  Great question. So the four events that we had this year that we were able to run; Chicago, Las Vegas, Cincinnati, and Hilton Head, those four are going to transfer over into the 2020 calendar. Our season-ending tournament is going to be held this year in Miami but it will actually be held in January of 2022, and our campaign ad says, “The Road to the Miami Masters” so that’s our vision. People are trying to qualify to be able to get into the event in January of 2022.

If you’re an amateur, you got to play in three events, amongst 21 events that will comprise the four events from this year and then there are 17 new ones that will be taking place in 2021.

If you’re a pro, you got to play in six events to qualify, and that’s kind of like our road that we’ve got there –going into our season-ending championship which will take place there.

The series that evolved hopefully a stepping stone for people to get that. So again, the vision was how can I bring an APP Tour event into your neck of the woods. Hopefully, with the regions that we’ve been able to hit, I think we’re in nine out of the thirteen USA Pickleball regions. I think we’ve got events in nine out of 13 of those events. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get the event close to you that should limit the amount of time needed to spend on travel.

Morgan:  That’s great! So it seems like a more consumer-friendly affair, hoping people will be able to get there without the need for air travel. We appreciate that. That’s a step in the right direction for this time and age that we’re living in. But if you could also create a vaccine, that will be fantastic!

Ken:  (laughs…) I think you’re right about that.

Just to go back to kind of what is a voice or what is the narrative of what we’re trying to do here, is how can we continue to bring Pickleball into new markets? How can I go and grow the sport and have APP help USA Pickleball continue to have this be 4 million people playing the game or 5 million people playing the game, and create that family atmosphere that people can spend a Saturday or Sunday afternoon and just have a great day out there, just playing the sport that they all love?

Morgan:  Sounds to a large extent, you’re kind of echoing a lot of the main principles that USA Pickleball have done so for quite some time. Just out of interest, how long did it take you to learn to say USA Pickleball as opposed to USAPA? I’m still struggling.

Ken:  (chuckles…) It’s right here in front of me – USA Pickleball. But yeah, it’s challenging.

Morgan:  Good man. It took me a while. I had to do a trivia question for them a couple of days ago and it took me 19 takes and I was saying USAPA almost every time. It was rough but we got there eventually.

 

Defining What A Pro Is [14:27]

Morgan:  Now, one of the questions that I am curious about – professional Pickleball is still in its infancy and the APP could indeed be in a position to essentially define what a professional player is. Is that something that’s on the radar? Have you already kind of thought about it and come up with something that works for the masses?

Ken:  We’re working heavily with the players using PR rating. So if a player is a 4.5, we will allow them to enter into a pro draw. Certainly, a 5.0 can enter into a pro draw. Our pro draws for senior pros and amateurs are unlimited so if somebody wants to have that pro experience right now and is right at that level, we’ll get them that opportunity. We certainly won’t let anybody less than a 4.0, 3.5 being able to play in a pro event. I think what’s happening right now is Byron Fresno is heading up a committee on behalf of USA Pickleball which is a pro’s council-type committee and they’ve got a few things that are going to be coming out there in the near future that is really going to defer and work with them as far as what those guidelines and role models are going to be defining that true pro.

Morgan:  Oh, great! Okay, so there is something in the works. I have a number of people in my area that I’ll see them on a Friday or a Saturday morning or something like that, and they might be at the sort of 4.0, 4.5 level. And once in a while, I’ll hear a story about them looking for special treatment as a professional player. It’s not my place to say, “Sunshine, you’re not a pro” or “You definitely are”, that’s why I was hoping to defer it to more educated people such as yourself.

Ken:  (chuckles…) So that’s our guidelines that we’re doing right now. We’re watching our list of players that enter tournaments and making sure that we’ve got an appropriate caliber player to be in there. I know the pros are out there an awfully long time playing their matches especially during the duration of the day, and we want to make sure that they’ve got the right, appropriate level of competition to keep themselves and not be out there too long as they’re playing some glorified players that really don’t have any business being in a professional ranks event.

Morgan:  Maybe we could set up a system whereby it’s 75°, perfect weather, if you can’t play half the day without cramping, then you’re not a pro – something like that.

Ken:  (chuckles…) There you go! (laughs…) And I can think of several pros that that’s going to take them out of the equation. So they need to keep working on making sure they’re properly hydrated, that’s for sure.

 

Taking the Game to the Next Level [16:49]

Morgan:  So obviously, you’ve got your finger to the pulse of the game of Pickleball. Do you have an idea what do you think it’s going to take to get to the next level and more sort of mainstream pop culture whereby anybody and everybody on the street has heard of the game of Pickleball?

Ken:  I think it comes from the consistency of local grassroots efforts to continue to grow the sport; whether it’s in school, in park disctrict programs, whether it’s in your clubs. That’s certainly where everything kind of keeps heading back to that basic in there. There are some terrific tournament directors out there running great events – not just APP events, and offering players a terrific experience whether they’re a pro or an amateur.

As far as where professional Pickleball is going to go and how can we ever get it one day into that Olympic venture – look at where the game has come within the past 18 months, the leaps and bounds. We ran the Chicago Open last year in 2019 and had a purse of $25,000, and that was probably one of the top six or seven biggest tournaments of the year, and now it almost kind of feel like that’s chump change to a certain degree. So I know one of the calls that we did this year for the 2021 calendar was put in another $100,000 in the actual tour itself, expand the bases of each tour stop and then throw in an additional $30,000 off to the prize pool, and off to the winners of the three different series.

So I think we are growing leaps and bounds through the help of USA Pickleball and also through the many tournament directors that are continuing the great job with the opportunities that they’re offering.

Morgan:  That’s fantastic! The USA Pickleball, obviously, the chief responsibility I feel like is sort of grassroot and growing it from the ground up. I know they’ve got a number of initiatives working now to help get it essentially towards a collegiate-level sport in the next hopefully 5 to 10 years. Do you think we can get into the colleges soon?

Ken:  Oh, without a doubt. Even up here in the Chicago area, we started some local programs through an organization called Chicago Metro Pickleball, and I’ve got a couple of people on a committee that is actually looking to see if we can’t continue to grow the sport through high schools right now and have it be a winter sport that they can do inside.

COVID is kind of put a backdoor to some of that but we’ve at least tried to make some ground steps in doing that, and I know that there are some high school programs out there that USA Pickleball has offered grant money to it, to help grow the sport locally in high schools. So the next logical step to me would be introducing it to the college level.

Holy cow! Who would have think you can get a scholarship to play Pickleball at a D1 school? But I don’t see that as being something that is farfetched at all.

Morgan:  Yeah, for sure. Hey, just out of interest, I don’t know everything about the American collegiate system. Is there like an age limit to get into college? I’m 38, maybe – ish, something like that. Can I still get into college?

Ken:  (chuckles…) You can, Morgan.

Morgan:  Really?

Ken:  You can still get into college. Now, whether you can play competitively, NCAA – I’d have to go back and check on the rules as far as that goes. But if you want to go to collee and become a student, you certainly could become a student. You can always go back to school. There are certain age ranges that you have to be in order to play competitively. I don’t think you could have a 35-year-old playing on a Pickleball team but I’d have to go back and take a closer look at those NCAA rules.

Morgan:  Fantastic! Well, do let me know because I can imagine like a Pickleball meets 21 Jump Street situation here – that would be great!

Ken:  (laughs…) That would be really cool!

 

One and a Half Cents [20:08]

Morgan:  We’re going to hold it there for a new segment called “One and a Half Cents”.

I didn’t have enough to guarantee two cents, so one and a half is what I’ve got, okay? Deal with it.

Today, I want to talk about competition. Where would Ben Johns be as a singles player without Tyson McGuffin? Where would Coke be without Pepsi?

I remember growing up, my father telling me a story about the inventor of the self-adhesive labels — his name was Stan Avery. And in 1935, he invented a machine that could produce these labels efficiently for mass production, to be used on things like bottles. Anyway, for a number of years he sold the labels and he owned the market. Things were good but not great, so he was always deathly afraid that someone else would come into the market and he’d be ruined.

Then one day, sure enough, it happened — his worst fears came true. He had a direct competitor producing labels. Do you know what happened next? His sales went through the roof because the reality is no one wants to be stuck buying from a monopoly. A consumer wants to be able to compare products and services to feel educated enough to make a decision. Pickleball players are, in one facet, customers and right now the APP and the PPA tour are competing for those customers. That competition can and will make them stronger. And as they buy for a bigger piece of the pie, my hope is that customers really start to learn just how each is trying to grow the game and make the pie bigger.

Alright, that’s enough ranting for me. Let’s head back over to Ken.

 

Tour Competition [21:44]

Morgan:  Okay, so Ken, let’s talk a little bit about the elephant in the room. The PPA, your main competitor in terms of a Pickleball tour, is offering contracts to certain players to only play their tournaments. Do you feel that’s an effective way to grow the game of Pickleball?

Ken:  Wow! I was made aware of the fact that there are some contracts being offered to some of the players on behalf of the other tour, and I don’t know what their business model is or what their theory is or what the thinking is behind it. I will tell you that I have heard from about 95% of the pros asking me if I was going to offer contracts and how are we going to do about that, and I don’t think either tour really is in a position to ever offer contracts. I don’t know if it’s detrimental to the game, detrimental to the sponsors or just – a tour should almost be 25 to 30 weeks in length to be able to offer something like that. Here, we’ve got 17 events, I’m not sure how many events the other organization has. I’ve also shared just my personal experience in tennis. I’ve always been known as a high-performance coach or a coach that has traveled with pros on the tour through my years. Back in the ‘90s, I had about four or five years where I was lucky to be on the coaching staff for USATA Player Development when we were located back down in Key Biscayne, down at Crandon Park. One of the things that we were responsible for doing is developing that next great American player. You had Sampras and Agassi that were still playing competitive tennis but we were looking for that next future American star that was going to come up the ranks, and there were a lot of questions and papers, what have you. I remember still vividly sitting back in a board room here with Jose Enriquez and Coach Kerr for the French Open and Stan Smith, and Tom Gullett which at that time was our Davis Cup Captain, and Billie Jean was in the room, and we talked about developing the current group of American juniors that we had. That year, I was responsible, along with Rodney Hartman, for developing our top boys. It was Dustin Gimelstob, the Bryan brothers, Jan-Michael Gamble, another terrific player that came out of Michigan, a boy by the name of Mike Russell. And we sat in the room and we went back and we tried to listen to what were the stories of days gone past, the Lavers, the Newcombes, the Virginia Wade’s, the Evonne Goolagong’s, the Margaret Court’s. And one thing that we saw was that those players were playing a ton of tennis. They were playing in 18, 20, 24 tournaments a year, really working on their patterns, their strategies, their match toughness, their fitness and really developing their patterns that were going to be successful for them so that when they played center-court Wimbledon or they were representing the US in Davis Cup competition, that they were up to that task. I don’t feel like as the CEO of APP Tour I would ever want to limit a player. I’m not a sports agent. I’m here to provide a vehicle for that amateur player from Wichita, Kansas or the professional guy in Florida to have them work on developing their skillset. I have a couple of players that have played some great Pickleball this summer from the pros rank. I can take Irina Tereschenko, for example – Irina has played probably 10 weeks in a row now. She started off and played in a couple of my pre-opening invitations and then she just blinded it. She went to Chicago, won women’s gold in singles, won women’s gold in doubles, and then continued on a path to where she was playing just terrific Pickleball every week or every other week. She put together a series of 10 events. I had a gentleman that just won one of my men’s singles, Devilliers. How did I pronounce that? Pretty good, Morgan?

Morgan:  We just call him Jay. He told us just to call him Jay, so Jocelyn is tough. 

Ken:  He’s won so much on the APP Tour, I’ve gotten pretty good at pronouncing his name. But I look at how Jay’s playing when he started off at Grand Rapids at an invitational, he left center-court at Hilton Head a completely different player than when he did back in August when he played the invitational. He came to Chicago, picked up a silver medal playing Ben Johns – a good match in Chicago, then he won my Cincinnati, then he just won Hilton Head a couple of days ago. It’s a perfect example of player developing their skillset, working on their strategies, working on their stance, working on their dinks, working on their agility, mobility, fitness on the court. It’s exhausting to play a full day especially in hot, humid conditions out there, and Jay’s had a lot of time on center-court. He’s gotten the experience of playing in front of the camera, playing in front of an audience of 150 people watching – that’s a different feel than when you’re on one of the side courts on the back where nobody’s watching you. So I do know, again going back to the ‘90s with my years in player development, we took those boys that I mentioned earlier and we grinded those kids. We took them over to Europe in 10 weeks. We made the decision that when we went over for the French Open and the Italian Open, we were going to say there and play right through England, and we didn’t come home at all. We packed our duffle bags, those players their senior year, freshman year in college, they played 85, 95 matches and they really worked on developing what patterns are working best for them. I just don’t think as the CEO of the tour, I would want to limit a player that’s trying to be the best player that they can be regardless if you’re an amateur or a pro. Time on court is valuable.

I go back to Jay Devilliers, he’s going to play completely different now, let’s say if he ends up being on center-court at the US Open or center-court at Indian Wells, I think because he had such a productive summer playing so many events to work on his confidence and skillset.

Morgan:  Hundred percent, for sure. it comes down to that 10,000-hour rule really, doesn’t it? How you get them, where you get them is a little bit less important than the fact that you get them in, and you get them at the right time early on in your development. When I’m out there playing, if I’m on court and it’s a competitive game, I’m not thinking about which tournament it is and who’s running it, and what tour it’s part of. It’s just the people in front of me and the pressure of the moment that is the most specific training that you need. I think, obviously, the more match toughness you get wherever it is, if I can get 20 tournaments in a year and my body holds up and I’m still hungry for it, then fantastic! That’s just good for the game.

Ken:  I completely agree with you especially again from a player development standpoint. I just don’t think a player should be limited with what they can do with it all. When the APP Tour gets to the point that we’re offering 25, 30, 35 events, then that’s the conversation that can be had about that. I certainly want the pros to make as much money as they can, I want the pros to develop into the best players that they can be, and I just don’t know if we’re quite there yet. But again, I go back to what my experience has been – Dustin, Jim, Michael, the Bryan brothers, they all had top 50 rankings, they all held a grand slam title whether it was in mixed doubles. I think Dustin won a title with Venus in mixed doubles at Wimbledon, so they’ve all had great careers. And as I go back and see those players trying to have an impact on their game, they were a lot of hard time but it was a lot of time, court match experience that they really needed that I think kind of shaped them to have success into their pro careers.

Morgan:  Yeah. I mentioned that 10,000-hour rule earlier on. That kind of general rule of thumb, it applies to sports such as tennis, such as golf, such as possibly the NBA. It relates a lot to how much competition there is, how many players out there are at a similar level that are waking up at 4 AM and getting the job done. Right now, Pickleball if we could name 100 legitimate Pickleball pros, I might be a little surprised. Obviously, there’s more than 100 out there including senior pros. Do you feel like people are, as Pickleball professionals, the kind of work they’re putting in is ever going to get to the level that might be required to say compete on the tennis tour?

Ken:  I think the fitness level that I’ve seen with some of the Pickleball pros that I’ve seen this past year, I see the pros getting more fit on the court – there’s no doubt about that. Each generation will be better than the previous year’s generation. The players that are ruling the game right now through just modern technology, more advanced coaching, more technology and better development of paddles, better use of different types of balls, the players 10 years from now will probably be greater than the players currently in the game right now. Each generation kind of feeds and learns from the current generation and takes it to the next level. So there’s no doubt, with as many opportunities pros can play to play professional Pickleball, there’s no doubt they’re putting more time in the gym and more time working on their game to evolve to the best player that they can be.

Morgan:  For sure. Yeah, I think when the day comes where Ben Johns is the second-best player in the world, that new number one, he’s going to know that he was essentially standing on the shoulder of a giant, and all the kind of people that have paved the way and sort of really looked at how and where to train, where to really put their energy into their development, that’s just getting better and better every day, isn’t it?

Ken:  Another perfect example – here we had a star come out out of Hilton Head, JW Johnson. Gets to the finals of the singles draw. Has a terrific run in men’s doubles, gets a bronze medal. He went out there and played terrific Pickleball, had him on the camera, had him in front of an audience and I could see the lightbulb just go off in his head. His patterns were working for him. The first game, he was up 9 – 0 against Jocelyn and got a little tight out there. So he’s going to learn from the mistake and keep moving. But it’s the Ben’s and the Kyle’s that are inspirations for this next generation of players that are going to come on through, and that’s what’s going to be great about this sport, and that’s what’s going to continue to evolve the sport to where we can take those to the next level for everyone to enjoy.

Morgan:  Yeah. Do you think 100 years from now, the technique on a Pickleball court is going to look more similar to table tennis or tennis?

Ken:  Wow! (laughs…)

Morgan:  I know, right? I just dropped that on you. Jeez!

Ken:  Right now with how we’ve gotten some tennis players evolving into the game and speeding up the game as quickly as it has, my initial answer would be a little bit more with tennis. But holy cow! A great drop can certain neutralize any player as best as they can. That’s a little bit salt and a little bit of pepper – I can see both ways as far as that. But I will tell you 100 years from now, this sport is going to be in the Olympics and somebody much smarter than I will have taken over the APP Tour and has taken this game to many levels what is beyond my imagination, and there will be just a little black and white picture of me in some little office one day, and that’s all they’re going to remember of Ken Herrmann. But you know what? I love that because this tour is not about me. This tour is about the players whether you’re a pro, senior pro, or amateur. It’s never been about me. It’s what can we do to offer a voice to get people playing the best that they can possibly do.

Morgan:  Perfect! On that note, we appreciate all your efforts. Thank you for setting the tour up and continuing battling against COVID. Cheers to ushering 2021 with a handful or 17 to be exact, wonderful events on the APP Tour.

Ken:  That’s great, Morgan. Thanks again for having me.

Morgan:  No problem, mate. We’ll speak again soon.

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