Pro Pickleball Man Of The Hour

It is not often that a qualifier reaches the latter stages of a pro tournament, whether it be Pickleball, Tennis, or another professional racquet sport. It is even rarer that a double digit seed even makes it to a medal round in Pickleball in particular; the highest seeded player to make it to a Men’s Pro Singles final so far in 2023 on the Professional Pickleball Association (PPA) tour was an 8th seeded JW Johnson in Minneapolis, and the highest seeded player to win a PPA event is believed to be a 12th seeded Federico Staksrud in May of 2022.

So, to say that a qualifier made it to a pro singles final is pretty special. To then notice that said qualifier came into the tournament seeded an astounding 55th is even more amazing. This is the feat that Selkirk-sponsored North Carolina-based Collin Shick just accomplished at the PPA’s Red Clay Hot Sauce Florida Open this past weekend in Daytona, and it is worth doing a deep dive into Shick’s background to try to answer a question that’s on the minds of both fans and fellow players alike: is Shick a flash in the pan story, or is this the introduction of another competitor for the top echelons of the sport? Forbes caught up with Shick this week in the aftermath of his finals run to tell his story.

Shick is a 23-year old medical student at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill, having just finished off a collegiate career at North Carolina State. He finished his career at NC State as a doubles specialist, playing more than 30 matches in his 5th year for the top-25 team. He was introduced to pickleball by his brother Braden (who also happened to be his NC State doubles partner) in mid-2021, but rarely played as he finished off an academic award-winning undergraduate career.

Shick briefly considered a pro tennis career, but noted, “for me, a pro career would have meant pro doubles, and it’s pretty brutal. It’s a lot of traveling, and you really have to go to a lot of tournaments to really kind of start making it. And med school was kind of always my goal, so that was where I went.”

As soon as he graduated college and finished his tennis career, he started playing more pickleball. After a summer of refining his game, he began entering tournaments. He blew through a singles draw in his home town of Chapel Hill in October, 2022, and dabbled in some doubles events the rest of the year, but did not give pro pickleball a shot until the beginning of 2023.

Shick traveled to Boca Raton to play in January’s Boca Masters, an unaffiliated pro event that drew a smattering of top pros. Seeded 40th, he cruised past three seeded players to advance to the semis, where he lost to #1 seed and top-ranked APP pro Hunter Johnson. He returned to Florida a few weeks later to compete in the APP Daytona Beach Open and entered the qualifying pro singles draw. He lost early, running into a fellow by the name of Max Manthou; the same Max Manthou who ran through that Daytona APP draw to claim a bronze medal in a similar “unknown-to-podium” story. Shick’s confidence was growing, so he planned his next trip around his medical school curriculum; a return to Daytona a month later for the PPA’s Florida Open.

Shick entered his first PPA tournament with modest expectations, saying “I was really just looking to crack into the main draw and start working towards getting some points so that that eventually I wouldn’t have to qualify. And then I kept winning, and everything after that was kind of a bonus.” Seeded 31st in the qualifying draw (and thus 54th overall), Shick topped Jeff Hirsch in two quick games, then went breaker to take out the Richard Livornese, and then made it into the main draw by crushing Alex Heiden 2,0. His initial goal had been achieved.

Three matches into his busy Thursday morning, Shick was placed into the main draw as the #30 seed, set to face #3 Tyson McGuffin. McGuffin is a beast on the singles court, with three singles titles in 2022 and a number of career head-to-head wins over the sport’s number one player. However, McGuffin has been nursing a foot issue all spring, and withdrew at the last minute from the singles competition. In his place was the top-ranked “lucky loser” out of qualifying Wyatt Stone, technically the 25th seed in the draw and certainly no slouch of an initial opponent. Shick made fast work of the youngster Stone, beating him 3,2, and then moving past #19 Jason Garriotte comfortably 6,2 to find his way into the quarter finals.

In the quarters, he faced #6 Julian Arnold, bronze medalist in singles earlier this year in Scottsdale, multi-Gold medal winner on the APP in 2022, and a fearsome competitor. Shick’s observation and game plan? “Arnold is known as a grinder and a hustler. He feels very dangerous on the court when you’re playing him, with his forehand and how much it dips. It feels like he can pull the trigger and hit one by you kind of any time. So I was really trying to take that away and get as many balls back as I could and just try to extend points and make him try to feel a little uncomfortable and put a little pressure on him.” After dropping the first game 11-4 and having neutrals thinking perhaps his run was over, Shick turned the tables and dominated the rest of the way, winning game two 11-3 and then nearly blanking the top pro 11-1 in the third game.

Shick was now guaranteed at least a medal round game by virtue of making the semis, but he was not done. He was set to face #7 Dylan Frazier, singles bronze medalist in the PPA’s first 2023 event and equally as tough as Arnold on the court. Thanks to video archives of PPA matches online, Shick was able to do some quick scouting for his semifinals opponent: “Once I got into playing Julian and Dylan, there’s a lot more video of those guys on YouTube. So I was kind of watched a little bit of that and just try to get an idea of what they like to do, what their strengths are, and try to take that away early on and just work my way into the match.” Shick executed this strategy against Frazier, grinding out a three-game 8,(7),6 win to put himself into the gold medal match.

By this point, it was late Thursday evening and Shick had been on the courts for nearly twelve hours. He had played seven full singles matches and was exhausted. So what did he do next? Most pros would have gone back to their hotel rooms, perhaps hit the steam room and relax. Collin? He hopped on a plane and went back home! “Yeah, well, actually, I was supposed to fly to Atlanta to play in a college tournament for pickleball, and I had to pull out of that, so I ended up going with going back home on Thursday night with the guy I was traveling with and then flying back up Saturday morning.”

Fast forward to Sunday’s Gold Medal match. Shick had plenty of time to watch game tape on Johns (and vice-versa), and it was clear from a cat and mouse game one that the “book” on Shick from a strategy perspective was to avoid the backhand. “Yeah, I think if you’re playing me, you’re going to figure that out pretty quick because I’m just really comfortable over there on the backhand side. That was my strength in tennis as well. So that stroke just feels really good. I know Ben knew that because I didn’t get one backhand return the entire match.”

Despite having Johns work away from his forehand, Shick scrambled to stay in points in game one, surprised Johns with some amazing drop shots both in rallies and off his serve, then went on a run to take game one 11-6. Unfortunately for Shick, Johns made some in-game adjustments like a seasoned pro generally does, and began to dominate. “I probably shocked him a little bit in game one, and I hit some lines, and then he kind of figured me out a little bit, made some adjustments, started predicting where I was going more. And I think that made me probably overplay a little bit, because once I got to game three, I saw I made like 15 errors on my serve. Basically a couple of inches wide long, and then the net everywhere. I think that was just kind of the extra pressure he was putting on me because he kind of knew where I was going at that point.”

Johns ended up taking games two and three 11-3, 11-0 to claim the Daytona gold medal. However, the finals run gives Shick enough PPA points to avoid the qualfying rounds for the time being, which was one of his longer term goals for the season. Coming out of Daytona Beach, he now sits right at the cusp of the qualifying cut-off line, ranked #24 on the PPA Men’s singles tour.

Fans of Shick won’t have to wait long to see him again; he’s made arrangements to play this coming weekend’s PPA event in Texas, the 2023 PPA Onyx Austin Showdown. Initially he was not going to go to Austin, because qualifying occurs on Wednesday in this event and his rigorous academic schedule wouldn’t allow such a trip. But, with his points now getting him straight into the main draw, he will be flying down to compete starting Thursday morning in the singles main draw. Furthermore, he’s picked up a doubles partner and will be competing in his first pro doubles draw with Alex Neumann. They’ll be seeded 17th with an opener against seasoned pros Rafa Hewett and Christian Alston, with the winner facing none other than his Daytona finals opponent Ben Johns.

How about longer-term plans? Could Shick commit to more pro events? That remains to be seen. “I’ll be doing research and orthopedic surgery projects over the summer, so I’m not totally sure yet what my schedule look like, but definitely going to be continuing to play as much as I can.”

One last nugget for Major League Pickleball (MLP) team owners out there: when it was pointed out that there aren’t too many medal winning pro players that aren’t spoken for on MLP teams, Shick was excited about the possibility of being selected for a team. “If I could play any event, MLP would be the one I would want to play the most. I love team events and playing in the highest energy environments. MLP reminds me of really big college tennis matches.”

Perhaps we’ll be seeing more of Shick, both on the tours and in MLP going forward. In the meantime, tune in this coming weekend to see if Shick can follow-up on his performance and really get the pickleball world talking.