57 years old.
First competition with trophy and cash money ever.
Two matches. Two losses. Balik.

Not enough time to build momentum.
Enough time for reality to give me one tight slap… I dont have tournment experience.

And honestly?
I drove home smiling.

Last CNY, I started pickleball.
Then like many uncles with poor “self-control”, I got addicted.
I play at least 3 times per week from social game and drills session

For six months, mojo die off suddenly.
I played once a week onlu.
Thursday evening at my tennis kaki’s condo in Taman Molek.
Two hours drills.
Fifteen minutes single match.
Enough to feel ready.
Not enough to actually be ready.

Then one WhatsApp came in.
Kulai First Mini Tournament. Men’s Doubles. Last day to register.

Normally Sunday is for off-road motorbike or
golf.
But one month earlier I injured my left shoulder in a motorbike accident.
Cannot raise properly.
Motorbike … painful.
Golf … also painful.

So naturally, I made a very weird senior citizen decision.
Join pickleball tournament.

I called my pickleball friend at Molek
Me: “Eh bro, got tournament this Sunday, you want?”
Him: “Ok.”
This kind of friend is dangerous.
No questions.
Just “ok.”

Three days before, we did “serious preparation.”
I bought him to train at the actual court.
Then played against stronger intermediate players.
They beat us 15–5.
And to be fair to ourselves. Our 5 points felt like charity.

Tournament day came.
Young people everywhere.
Fast legs.
Expensive paddle
Bling bling bag and accesories

My partner is 58.
I am 57.
I am quite confident we were the oldest team there.
Possibly the oldest people in the building.

First match: lost 15–10.
Looks respectable on paper.
Was not respectable in person.

Hand stiff.
Breathing short.
Footwork like a man avoiding Lego at 3am.
Too many easy mistakes.
We are too nervous that hardly talk each other.

Second match was different.
By then we had already accepted our role for the day.
We were not here to win.
We were here to pay RM70 and enjoy tournment hype.

So we relaxed.
Joked during game.
Won some real points.
Had a few decent exchanges.
Then it was 8–8.

Playing against strong young opponents is breathtaking. I remember one rally clearly.

I hit a heavy side-spin cross-court from resetting. Good shot. The kind of shot where I already start walking back confident.

Next thing I know, the young fella returned it with his own side-spin, straight back across to my opposite side. What a return.

The kind of shot I thought only exists on TV.
Two old uncles, mouth open, watching the ball fly past us.
All we could do was look at each other and laugh.
“Wah… this one is impossible!”

Then suddenly the moment hope entered my body uninvited.
Eh… maybe got happy movie ending leh.
Then immediately: wrong shot, wrong decision, wrong timing.
Game over.

Tournament over.
Less than 30 minutes.

But that 30 minutes taught me one thing clearly.
The problem was not age.
Not the shoulder.
No tournment experience (of course I need to play more often than once per week)

Will I join again?
Yes obviously.

Because the moment my partner walked out of the tournament venue,
he looked straight into my eyes, very serious, and said word by word:
“革命尚未成功，同志仍须努力.”

Two uncles, 57 and 58,
just got sent home by a bunch of youngsters at a pickleball tournament.

PS:
My tournament “career” timeline:
10:00am. Tournament start.
11:00am. First match.
11:30am. Second and final match.
11:45am. Game over.

Total “career” span: 1 hour 45 minutes.
Actual playing time: less than 30 minutes.

The rest of the time, I was just waiting, stretching, and pretending I knew what I was doing.