Genie Bouchard, Jack Sock among tennis pros playing in Mission Hills pickleball slam
More than 1,000 pickleball players, including multiple well-known tennis players, will compete in the first Professional Pickleball Association event of the year this week at Mission Hills Country Club in Rancho Mirage. The event kicks off Tuesday and will run until Sunday.
The event, called the Hyundai Masters, is one of four grand slam events of the year on the Carvana PPA Tour, and will feature pro pickleball stars Ben Johns and Anna Leigh Waters and tennis pros Genie Bouchard, Jack Sock, Donald Young and Sam Querrey, each of whom are making their PPA Tour debut. Johns and Waters each previously won a triple crown, earning gold medals in singles, doubles and mixed doubles in a masters event.
Sock, Young and Querrey have retired from professional tennis. Bouchard has not yet officially announced whether she is done playing the sport.
Bouchard, 29, was a wildly popular tennis pro who, even in retirement, has 2.4 million followers on Instagram. The Montreal native reached as high as fifth in the world singles rankings, back in 2014.
Sock, 31, has a history of playing well in the Coachella Valley. He reached the BNP Paribas Open semifinals in 2017 before losing to Roger Federer. He’s also won four doubles titles in Indian Wells.
Young, 34, and Querrey, 36, were each among the top American men during their pro tennis careers. Young reached as high as No. 38 in the world and Querrey as high as No. 11.
This week at Mission Hills, pro-led pickleball camps for amateurs will run on Jan. 8-9 with a focus on base foundation, transitioning, blocks, drops, drives, partner shifting and moving and strategy. The camps are divided into skill levels so players can adequately prepare for competition.
“We’re so excited to be kicking off the Carvana PPA Tour in Palm Springs, which has one of the most dedicated and passionate pickleball communities in the country,” said PPA Tour founder Connor Pardoe. “As a PPA Slam, the Hyundai Masters is one of the cornerstone events of the year, and all of the best players in the world will be battling on court. Fans have the opportunity to not just watch the best pickleball in the world, but also ‘play where the pros play’ by signing up to compete in the amateur competition and camps.”
The PPA Tour is the professional tour of pickleball, where the top players battle on the court week in and week out to determine who is the best in the world. Tickets for the Masters can be purchased at ppatour.com. The tournament will be broadcast across ESPN2, FS1, FS2, Tennis Channel, PickleballTV, and the PPA Tour YouTube Channel.
This article originally appeared on Palm Springs Desert Sun: Genie Bouchard, Jack Sock among tennis pros playing in Mission Hills pickleball slam
