The popularity of pickleball throughout the borderland has been on a constant rise in recent years and now, El Paso had its very first divisional pickleball tournament on March 22-23.
The inaugural Nusenda Credit Union Sun Bowl Pickleball Tournament was announced on Jan. 28 at a press conference held by the Sun Bowl Association.
The Sun Bowl Association is a volunteer based non-profit organization. The organization serves the El Paso community with a year-round schedule of events leading up to an end of year annual Tony the Tiger Sun Bowl football game. The main sponsor of the event was Nusenda Credit Union, a credit union dedicated to improving its members’ financial well-being and supporting New Mexico’s communities.
The tournament was held at Eastwood High School, with 39 different open divisions. The divisions ranged from 3.0 on the Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating system to the professional level for men’s doubles, women’s doubles and mixed doubles.
With over 180 players participating in the tournament, this is the largest pickleball tournament in El Paso. Executive director of the Sun Bowl Association Bernie Olivas was proud of the attendance at the inaugural tournament.
“I thought that this would be a great event for our community and for out-of-town people to come and enjoy the sport that’s really growing,” Olivas said. “I’m very pleased so far as to the turn out for this first year. We got close to 200 participants playing.”
For some players, this was their first competitive pickleball tournament, while for others like Thuc Nguyen, 24, the Nusenda Credit Union Sun Bowl Pickleball Tournament was not his first time around the competitive pickleball scene, but first time in a divisional tournament.
“[I’ve played] some casual tournaments here and there, but it’s like my first real tournament,” Nguyen said. “Some people were talking about it, and I saw it on a Facebook group too.”
Ezequiel Crespo, 25, has been playing for a few years but never made the journey into a tournament to play pickleball. So even for veteran players, this tourney was their first taste of competitive pickleball but left them hungry for more competition.
“I have been playing for three years, but it was just for fun, like playing once a week, maybe twice a month,” Crespo said. “This is my first tournament; I played three matches today and I was pretty good, for sure I’m going to try to get better and keep playing.”
To get the tournament off the ground, the Sun Bowl Association entrusted the aid and expertise from the Pickleball El Paso Association (PEPA). Vice president of PEPA Ben Avalos was immediately on board after the idea was proposed to him.
“I organized a group of people, and I started meeting with Bernie once a week and we put together this tournament,” Avalos said. “We have maybe a little over 180 participants today, which is the most pickleball players I’ve ever seen in El Paso, so this is pretty awesome.”
After the success and turnout of the Nusenda Credit Union Sun Bowl Pickleball Tournament, the Sun Bowl Association is hopeful that many more divisional pickleball tournaments may take place in El Paso.
Joseph Montero is a staff reporter for The Prospector and may be reached at [email protected].
