Wimbledon finals? Nope, it was all about pickleball at ByronFest

BYRON – It wasn’t on grass and it wasn’t in England, but it was the first-ever pickleball tournament at ByronFest.

Nine teams squared off at the festival’s inaugural pickleball tournament on Saturday coinciding, coincidentally, with Wimbledon – the oldest tennis tournament in the world.

The Byron Park District and ByronFest hosted this year’s event on the Byron High School’s pickleball courts, just west of the football field. Whitetail Properties was the event sponsor.

“We have teams from Byron, Stillman Valley, Winnebago, Dixon and Dakota,” said Hayden McCammond, a Byron Park District employee and ByronFest volunteer.

While the date coincided with Wimbledon’s women’s finals and the men’s doubles finals, that was the only similarity between the two events. Byron’s tournament was on the “hard court” while the tennis elite knocked the ball about on the All England Lawn Tennis Club’s grass courts – the only tennis Grand Slam held on grass.

“I didn’t hear about pickleball until about a year ago and now I am totally addicted. I used to love tennis, but now it’s all pickleball for me. It’s a smarter choice for me at my age now.”

Pickleball players use a smooth-faced paddle to hit a perforated, hollow plastic ball over a 34-inch-high net as opposed to tennis players who use rackets and the iconic felt-covered rubber ball.

Players in Byron competed for first, second and third place medals as opposed to the cash payouts and subsequent endorsements doled out across the pond in London.

And instead of strawberries and cream – a Wimbledon staple, plain old water and any shade they could find fueled the Byron participants as temperatures hit the mid 90s.

But on the heels of Barbora Krejcikova beating Jasmine Paolini for the women’s Wimbledon title, Krissy and Steve Speece, of Winnebago, were locked in a battle for third place with Byron’s Dylan Springer and Jarrett Ross.

Krissy, a teacher at Rochelle Middle School, played tennis in high school and college, but has now migrated those skills to pickleball.

“I didn’t hear about pickleball until about a year ago and now I am totally addicted,” she said. “I used to love tennis, but now it’s all pickleball for me. It’s a smarter choice for me at my age now.”

Krissy and Steve brought home the third place medals while Phil Janssen and Caleb Young of Dakota took top honors after a tight match with Rich and Candy VanWambeke of Machesney Park.

“We had a great time,” said Janssen after the championship match.