Patrick Kane and partners win mixed and men's pickleball doubles titles at Sun City Grand

Sue Gardiner and Steve Miller had a shot.

They had pickleball potentate Patrick Kane and his mixed doubles partner Sjoukje Lehmann right where they wanted them. Sort of. They owned a lead in the first game of the championship match in the Open Division of the Sun City Grand Invitational Skill Level Pickleball Tournament held in Surprise, Ariz., in mid-November.

Granted, the game is to 11 and they were up only 11-10 and needed to win by 2 points. Still, it was a lead. Kane called time out. And the crowd was whooping it up for Gardiner and Miller. "People always root for the underdog," Gardiner said. "A lot of people were watching the finals and everyone was rooting for Steve and me. And Pat called time out. Everyone was excited because we forced him to call time out."

Alas, Kane and Lehmann made good use of the timeout. They rallied, winning three straight points to win that game 13-11. The pair went on to win another championship. No surprise there. Kane is on the winning team most of the time.

In fact, he made it a clean sweep in the Sun City Grand by winning the Open Division men's doubles title with Barry Ford. Gardiner had a successful tournament, too. She teamed with Laurie Kilmain to win the women's doubles championship in the Open class.

Gardiner and Kilmain had a tough go of it, too. Linda Lenzini and Carol Tripp, coming out of the losers bracket of the double elimination event, won the first game. If Lenzini and Tripp had won another game, they would have forced a 15-point showdown for the title. "We didn't want to play that 15-point game," Kilmain said. "We cranked it up a bit and won the next two games. They gave us a run for our money. People told us it was a great match to watch."

And Gardiner, 61, and Kilmain, 55, had won a title to kick off the unofficial start of pickleball's tournament season. About 300 players took part in the Sun City tournament, up at least 30 percent from the previous year, said tournament director Earl Tripp. Participants were divided up by skill level.

Kane is widely regarded to have the most skill of the players at the tournament in Surprise. Tall and athletic and covering a good share of his side of the court, he earns more than his share of winning hardware. A former firefighter, he played in Washington, where pickleball originated, before he moved to Arizona. "His arms are so darn long and he's got the skill, too," Gardiner said. "He's been playing a lot of years, and he can basicallyplace it wherever he wants. And then you think you have it away from him, and he's there."