Ben Johns Wins Triple Crown in Rain Soaked Pickleball Championship

Unseasonably heavy rainstorms canceled amateur matches and forced the mixed doubles pro draw of the US Open Pickleball Championships to be moved to Sunday morning. But heavy rain couldn't dampen the spirits of fans, players, and organizers who enjoyed a fun-filled bonus day Sunday at East Naples Community Park.

The Sunday crowd, attending free of charge, was buzzing with anticipation as the top player in pickleball, Ben Johns, and Catherine Parenteau, were both vying for pickleball's prestigious triple crown - titles in singles, doubles and mixed doubles in the same tournament. Adding intrigue Sunday was Naples’ Simone Jardim, who announced her retirement to the crowd earlier in the week. The US Open crowd was nearly in a frenzy Sunday, fueled by the possibility of the Jardim-Johns team winning perhaps a final US Open title for Jardim, who came in with 10 US Open titles on her resume. Jardim is arguably the most popular player in the history of the sport. Jardim and Ben Johns didn’t disappoint, winning easily, 11-5, 11-2, over Jessie Irvine and Tyler Loong.

Since Johns and Parenteau were opponents in mixed doubles Sunday, only one player could win the triple crown this year. As often happens in sports, the semi-final outshone the final in mixed doubles. Jardim and Ben Johns took a tough 11-7, 11-6 win over Parenteau and Tyson McGuffin in the semi-final.

“I couldn’t be happier,” Ben Johns said after winning the pro mixed doubles title. “Simone’s a warrior. Awesome playing with her again. Couldn’t have done it without her.”

Johns said he was “thrilled" to play with his brother Collin for the men’s pro doubles title. They beat the Matt Wright-Riley Newman duo, 11-8, 11-9.  Ben Johns also took the singles title with an exciting 5-11, 12-10, 11-7 win over up-and-comer JW Johnson on Sunday, April 24.

As for Jardim, the 11-time US Open Pickleball Championship winner is looking toward retirement by the end of the year.

“This is my last US Open,” Simone Jardim said. "I have contracts and agreements. I have half a year left on contracts. I will stay involved with pickleball. I may play something here and there for fun. For the professional tour, I’m done. I’ve spent a lot of years traveling for tennis and pickleball. Now it’s time for focusing on my family. That’s it. I’ve also dealt with quite a few injuries. I have not recovered. A lot of treatment, a lot of time spent taking care of my body. I just feel that it’s a sign for me to end. And I want to end well enough, and not having to end.  I want to go out on my terms.”

Jardim has enjoyed her friends and fans in Naples and plans to continue her popular pickleball clinics.

“I love the people here,” Jardim said, "it’s my family away from home. Everybody’s been supportive of me and my family. As they say, it takes a village. My two kids need me. I love it here. I close on a new house Tuesday."

Organizers had to do a lot of lineup shuffling on the fly this year because of the rain. Sunday morning is usually spent disassembling the temporary pickleball village, not playing pro finals matches.

This Sunday, Championship Court was still quite waterlogged a half hour prior to the rescheduled 8:00 AM start. Dozens of empty trash cans and water coolers were scattered throughout the court area and stands, catching raindrops as they dripped from the fabric roof.

“The big challenge was the rain that came on Friday,” said Chris Evon, co-founder of the US Open along with Terri Graham. "Friday and Saturday are our big pro days. We’d never had rain on Friday or Saturday before. It made us delay them, and bring them back on Sunday, which is used as a pro rain day, because the pros are playing for a lot of money.”

The total purse at this year's US Open is $100,000. Evon and Graham say the US Open is the premiere event in pickleball. The US Open is seeing strong numbers.

“We have more people than we’ve ever had before,” Evon said. "Seven hundred more athletes than last year. Kiwanis feels we may have had almost 50,000 people come through here in seven days. They parked 2,000 to 3,000 cars a day. That’s a lot of people in this 47-acre park. This is the largest sporting event in Collier County."

“I bet we will tap out at $15 million in economic impact this year when the final numbers come in,” Terri Graham added. “It was a record year.”

“The amazing thing to me was,” Evon said, "you could go to any corner of the park and it was crowded every day.”

The ladies are already looking forward to next year.

"After this we meet with the county,” Graham said. "And they’re very excited about this event. Excited to improve the parking further by bringing asphalt parking. Working on other things that we desperately need to keep up with this demand that we have. The county was out here this week. They’ve put a lot into this park and they’re going to put in a lot more over the next six to eight months.”

“We’re all seeing that pickleball is on the rise,” Evon said, “the park will have over 400 players come in here every morning during the season. The park sees it, the county knows that they need to keep putting money into this park to keep it up. There’s a lot of people coming to town for pickleball."

Evon and Graham agree that the county’s Parks and Recreation Department workers are the backbone of the US Open.

“The Parks and Recreation Department were the champions by far,” Evon said. “Look what they did to the park. Hector Cervantes is a superstar. So are our volunteers and referees."