Bainbridge Cup 2021

Pictona Members

Here is your invitation to play in the Humana-Island Doctors Bainbridge Cup Tournament that will be held at Pictona April 7-11. You can learn more about the tournament, the exciting format that will be followed, and the pomp and ceremony that goes with the largest international pickleball tournament in the world at https://pictona.org/bc21/. From this location you will be able to link to Pickleball Tournaments.com to learn even more. But don’t try to register yet.

BC21 will have 5 skill levels (3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, and 5.0) and 8 age groups (19+, 35+, 50+, 55+, 60+ 65+, 70+, and 75+) for men’s doubles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles. Singles will be a demonstration event and is not part of the registration process described below. For this international event the competition will be between the EAST and the WEST. The East is east of the Mississippi along with Europe and the West is west of the river along with Asia.

Pictona members will have two opportunities to register for the tournament. The first is a special arrangement with the International Federation of Pickleball (IFP) to permit 100 of our members to register for the tournament before the general registration and to receive a $10 discount off the $125 registration fee. The second opportunity is to register during the general registration period.

We hope you will want to play in BC21. If we have more than 100 players apply for early registration, we will have to select the players for early guaranteed entry. To do so we are limited by the IFP in the number of players we can assign to any one age/skill bracket. There are 40 brackets. We need to do so separately for men’s doubles, women’s doubles, and mixed doubles, providing equal places for men and women. Partners may or may not be members of Pictona which influences the number of Pictona registrants selected. And the IFP requires us to divide equally our 100 registrants into East and West teams.  You may specify a preference on your registration form, and we’ll do our best to assign you to that team. 

As you can see the registration distribution is complex. We will be able to select members for one or more of the available places in each bracket only after we know who has applied to enter the tournament. The distribution of entries will not be equal across the 40 brackets for each of the 3 events (Men, Women, Mixed). We will have a quota of the number of teams in each bracket, with the more popular brackets accepting more entries up to the limits set by the IFP. If we have more players registered in a bracket than we can accept, we will randomly select the players from the pool of registrants in that bracket. We will not select registrants on the basis of any other criteria. Remember, however, if you are not accepted into the 100 pre-registrants, you have a second opportunity to register during the general registration just as you would do for any other tournament. Also know that there will be waiting lists created when registrations exceed the initial limits per bracket set by the IFP, and then when registrations are complete and certain brackets are not filled to their limit, people on waiting lists will be invited to play.   You may enter without having a partner, but if you do not have a partner before registration ends on February 14^th, you will be dropped from the tournament.

One additional item:  Both you and your partner must be members of USA Pickleball to play in the tournament.  Annual membership is $20 and you may join at https://usapickleball.org.

Don’t let all of this complexity scare you away. We encourage all members of Pictona to pre-register for the 100 places available to us. Here is what to do.

1. Team up with your partner to determine what skill level your team should enter for the tournament. If either you or your partner has a USA Pickleball UTPR rating, you must enter at the higher level between the two of you.  If you don’t have UTPR ratings, please self-rate.  (If you are unsure how to rate yourselves, please ask us for help.)  To determine what age bracket to enter, you must enter the age bracket of the younger of the two partners as of December 31, 2021. Your partner does not have to be a member of Pictona. If you enter two events, you obviously will have two different partners.  You may also indicate if you are interested in playing singles.
2. Submit your request to play in the tournament by completing the registration form available at the Pictona Welcome desk or download it from the BC21 section of the Tournaments tab on the Pictona website . You must submit this application in person at Pictona by the end of the day on Wednesday, January 20^th to be eligible for pre-registration. Form
3. When our member registration deadline ends, we will review the pool of registrants to determine the distribution of players by skill and age for men’s, women’s, and mixed doubles. If we have more players in a skill/age bracket than the BC21 will allow, we will randomly select the teams that are invited to register. We suggest both you and your partner, if a Pictona member, complete registration forms so if we randomly select teams you will have a better chance of being selected.
4. Once you are selected as one of the 100 players, you will also be assigned to the East or West team with us trying to accommodate your preference if you have one.
5. Next, each player selected to play in BC21 will then be sent a link to register at PickleballTournaments.com at the discounted price of $115. This registration window will be very short. You must register on January 28 or January 29^th.  Otherwise you will not be guaranteed a spot in the tournament or receive the discounted price. 
6. Payment for the tournament will not be collected until after registration closes and as many people as possible have been moved from the waitlists into the tournament. You will have several days to pay the fee online.
7. f you were not selected in the 100 pre-registration, you will want to register at PickleballTournaments.com beginning January 30, 2021

We look forward to your participation in this international event.