{"id":387017,"date":"2023-03-10T06:04:52","date_gmt":"2023-03-09T20:04:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=387017"},"modified":"2023-03-10T06:04:52","modified_gmt":"2023-03-09T20:04:52","slug":"moores-2-day-clinic-raises-pickleball-level-in-cnmi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/moores-2-day-clinic-raises-pickleball-level-in-cnmi\/","title":{"rendered":"Moore\u2019s 2-day clinic raises pickleball level in CNMI"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/a>
Nine-time national pickleball champion Daniel Moore gestures as he conducts a clinic last Wednesday at the American Memorial Park pickleball courts.(MARK RABAGO)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Nine-time national pickleball champion Daniel Moore is impressed with how quickly pickleball players on Saipan have picked up the fastest growing sport in the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cSaipan players are dedicated and motivated to learn and play the sport. Everyone\u2019s eager and hungry to learn. And I could really see that because people are asking questions and are very interested,\u201d the 26-year-old said after concluding his two-day clinic at the American Memorial Park pickleball courts yesterday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Moore, who came to the islands after being invited by the Pickleball Federation of the Northern Mariana Islands, said the group\u2019s growth is incredible considering the sport was only introduced locally a couple of years ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s amazing that you already have a dedicated pickleball court on Saipan during that short amount of time. People really want to learn and improve and that\u2019s nice to see. There\u2019s even some players that I met last year who\u2019ve improved a lot already,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The co-founder of Pickleball Trips, a company taking pickleball players to world-class destinations around the world, said it\u2019s also nice to see that the pickleball group is attracting young players like Chelsea Henson, who took part in the clinic.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYoung players very quickly absorb new things. So even today, from the beginning to the end of the lesson, I can see like different shots being played and improving so quickly, so if she has a little bit of teaching and coaching I think she\u2019ll be really good.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

PFNMI vice president Don Dunlop said the group really hit a homerun with Moore agreeing to conduct a two-day clinic at the AMP.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fact that Daniel came here and being such a world class player, now he\u2019s No. 11 in the world with a Dynamic Universal Pickleball Rating of 6.66, that means that we have someone exceptional coming to teach our game and bring it to a better, better level.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dunlop said Moore\u2019s impact during the two-day clinic can be summed up by what Micronesian Games table tennis gold medalist Charlie Cheng shared.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cCharlie said this clinic today has brought his level up another half a point, which is huge. We\u2019re getting responses from people that this is now giving them the confidence to play at a higher level,\u201d said Dunlop.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Guam\u2019s Dereck D. Alcorn said learning and playing against Moore gave him a bit of perspective on where he stands in the sport.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s funny because playing in the same pickleball groups on Saipan and Guam you kind of get complacent playing the same people all the time. But then having someone come in with multiple levels of pickleball skills has really opened up my eyes,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Alcorn, a 41-year-old businessman, said there\u2019s a reason why Moore is one of the top players in the sport.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYou think they\u2019re winning shots, but no that\u2019s coming back. Because it\u2019s an everyday shot for him. So, we still have a lot to learn. I can\u2019t label it but it\u2019s kind of a feeling that I\u2019m a little bit reenergized and challenged knowing that there\u2019s more work to be done. This is huge for Saipan and then he goes to Guam next, so we\u2019re excited that he\u2019s going there too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Cheng, meanwhile, said after Moore\u2019s four-hour marathon clinic yesterday he\u2019s markedly improved as a pickleball player.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s great and the biggest thing I learned today is that the weakest part of my game is the drop shot and the lob. I believe I improved half a point after this clinic,\u201d said the 55-year-old entrepreneur.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Henson, the 15-year-old Marianas High School student Moore alluded to earlier, said the skills he imparted to them during the clinic will go a long way in furthering the sport in the islands.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDaniel Moore is consistently testing our skills and honing them to be better and helping us go up a level. Hopefully, we\u2019ll retain the information and we will slowly add it to our arsenal of skills.\u201d<\/p>\n

And her favorite part of the clinic was Moore\u2019s reset drills because they demonstrated techniques that \u201cwere very different from what we\u2019ve seen here on Saipan before. It\u2019s very fun to see new things to learn.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nine-time national pickleball champion Daniel Moore is impressed with how quickly pickleball players on Saipan…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":387001,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-387017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sports","tag-cnmi"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387017","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=387017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/387017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/387001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=387017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=387017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=387017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}