Capital Area Pickleball Association
Serving Dane County Wisconsin

Pickleball Kingdom will be opening a new indoor pickleball facility in Sun Prairie in mid-December 2025! The new facility will be located at 463 Broadway Drive, Sun Prairie, WI, 53590. It will have 12 courts and will also have a bar serving beer, wine, and cocktails. Pickleball Kingdom will offer three flexible membership plans, depending on the number of individuals in your household who will be playing there. All membership plans will be available in monthly or annual formats, and all will include unlimited court reservations and open play access. Non-members will still be able to reserve courts or participate in open play for a drop-in rate. As of the time of this writing, no pricing information was available. Click here to sign up for updates about Pickleball Kingdom-Sun Prairie!

• The third annual Baird CAPA Cup pickleball tournament will take place on August 15-17, 2025, at Bakken Park in Cottage Grove, WI. Whether you are a pickleball enthusiast or just enjoy being part of a fun community event, the Capital Area Pickleball Association (CAPA) would love your help as a volunteer to help make the tournament run smoothly. Volunteering is also a great way to meet new people and enjoy the action up-close!

  As of right now, here are the positions, times, and dates for which volunteers are still needed:

  Friday, August 15

•       Scoring Assistant, 7:30am-11:30am
•       Runner, 3:00pm-7:00pm

• Saturday, August 16

•       Runner, 11:00am-3:00pm
•       Runner/Teardown, 7:00pm-8:30pm
•       Court Monitor, 5:15pm-8:30pm

• Sunday, August 17

•       Registration/Set-Up, 7:00am-8:30am
•       Court Monitor, 7:30am-11:30am
•       Photographer, 10:30am-11:30am

To see a more fulsome description of these positions, as well as to sign up for these roles, go to the Baird CAPA Cup Volunteer Sign-Up.

If you would like to play in the Baird CAPA Cup Tournament, you can still register until August 12, 2025, by clicking this link. Note that most brackets are full, although you can join a waitlist. The brackets that still have openings are as follows: Men’s Doubles 3.0-3.49 age 50+; Men’s Doubles 3.5-3.99 age 70+; Men’s Doubles 4.0-4.49 age 70+; Women’s Doubles 3.0-3.49 age 70+; Mixed Doubles 3.5-3.99 age 18+; Open Skill Level Parent/Grandparent/Child/Grandchild Doubles (Child 18+). You must be a CAPA member to play in the tournament. If you are not already a CAPA member but would like to join, go here. Scores WILL be reported to DUPR.

Keep pickling!

Madison School & Community Recreation (MSCR) recently released its Fall 2025 Program Guide. Registration for Beginner, Advanced Beginner, and Intermediate Pickleball through MSCR will begin on August 11, 2025, at 12:00 pm for Madison residents and on August 25, 2025, at 12:00 pm for non-residents. MSCR is an affordable way for Madison residents to play and learn pickleball.

There will be two fall sessions for pickleball, each running about 6 weeks long. The first will run from early September to mid-October, and the second session will run from the end of October to the first couple weeks of December.

Demand for pickleball is always high, and it's recommended that you preview the available classes and add them to your “Wish List” for quick access at registration time. Classes will fill up within 5 minutes (or sooner) of registration time, so you'll want to be ready to register right at noon on August 11. Be sure to sign up for the correct class(es).

Here's a direct link to the MSCR registration site, with only the fall 2025 pickleball classes listed.

• This summer, for the first time ever, the Capital Area Pickleball Association (CAPA) organized and ran some Minor League Pickleball (MLP) leagues. This author was the volunteer in charge of organizing and running the DUPR 16 League, which played its regular season at Hitters Sportsplex in Middleton from June 18, 2025 – July 16, 2025, and had its Championship Playoffs at Hitters on July 23, 2025. The DUPR 16 League played at Hitters every week on Wednesdays from 6-8 pm. There were originally five teams in the DUPR 16 League, but only the top four were invited to play in the Playoffs for gold, silver, and bronze.

  The final results were as follows:
  

  ·      1^st Place - Gold: Electric Pickle (Michelle Hebert, Andrea Boardman, Chris Boardman, Evan Tenebruso)
  ·      2^nd Place – Silver: Day Dinking (Lindsey Gregor, Abhishek Shankar, Jill Masana, Gino Ricchio)
  ·      3^rd Place – Bronze: The Mad Picklers (Dan Parenteau, Mary Thomson, Caitlin Kantosky, Anthony Petrasko)

 The DUPR 13 League still has one more week to play in its regular   season, and its Playoffs will happen Tuesday, August 5, 2025, from 4-6   pm at Hitters. The DUPR 14 League has wrapped up its regular   season, but its Playoffs will occur on Thursday, August 14, 2025, at   Hitters from 6-8 pm. All are welcome to come and watch. Spectators   can attend for free!

Dill Dinkers private indoor pickleball courts will be opening soon on Madison’s East Side! Dill Dinkers’ address is 5004 Tradewinds Parkway, Madison, Wisconsin, 53718. The opening date had initially been set for July 31, 2025, but due to a few final construction-related adjustments, the opening date had to be pushed back. A new opening date will be announced soon.

During the first week that the facility is open, you will be able to sign up to play for free by making a reservation in the Court Reserve app under “Dill Dinkers Madison”. After that, you can become a member at Dill Dinkers at the appropriate membership level (depending on anticipated usage), and note that additional court fees of anywhere from $7-$28 per person per 2-hour session may apply. Court fees vary depending on whether you are a member and whether you are there for open play or private court rental (assuming doubles (4 players)). You can receive $100 in free membership credits using promo code BLAKE. For more information about Dill Dinkers, visit their website.

Update (8/3/25): Dill Dinkers has announced that it will be opening on August 7, 2025! During the first week of August 7-August 13, everything will be free, but reservations are required. Free things include clinics, court rentals, open plays, ball machine sessions, and competitive events. You can make a reservation through the Dill Dinkers app (which you can download on Google Play or Apple Store) or in the Court Reserve app.

Dill Dinkers’ hours of operations will be daily from 8 am to 10 pm. Their phone number is (608) 747-3465, and their email address is madison@dilldinkers.com.

• You may recall a recent Pickleblog from May 22, 2025, entitled, “Understanding DUPR.” However, much has changed since then. In early July 2025, DUPR Inc. released an update to its Dynamic Universal Pickleball Ratings (DUPR) algorithm so that now, DUPR ratings adjust based on a player’s performance compared to his/her expected score. 

  Starting July 8, 2025, a player’s rating changes based on how he/she performs relative to how he/she was expected to perform in a given match, not on whether he/she wins or loses a game. DUPR assigns every match an expected score before it is played, based on the ratings of the players involved. ‍If you score more points than expected, your rating will go up, even if you lose. If you score less than expected, however, your rating will go down, even if you win. Under the prior algorithm, the winning team’s rating would always go up and the losing team’s rating would always go down.

  ‍According to DUPR’s website, its algorithm takes four primary components into account when calculating a player’s ranking:

•                Performance vs. Expectation: Each match has an expected score that is based on player ratings. If a player scores more points than expected, his/her rating will go up. If he/she scores fewer points than expected, his/her rating will go down.
•                Type of Match: A club or tournament match influences a player’s rating more than a self-posted one.
•                Match Recency: Newer matches have a larger impact on a player’s rating than older ones.
•                Match Volume: Each match refines a player’s rating. More match history leads to more stable and accurate ratings.‍

For more information on the update to DUPR’s algorithm, go here.

Keep pickling!

The Madtown Pickleball Open, Wisconsin's largest outdoor pickleball tournament, is scheduled to start tomorrow and will run from July 11-13, 2025. It will be played at Wyndham Hills Park, located at 675 North Heatherstone Drive in Sun Prairie. 

The tournament started in 2022 and has experienced an astonishing 65% increase in participation since its debut. The tournament is open to players of all skill levels, from beginners to professionals (skill ranges 2.5-5.0), and features men's, women's, and mixed doubles events, with age divisions for 18+, 35+, 50+ and 65+. The tournament will be played round-robin style, and each participant is guaranteed at least four games.

Registration has closed for the event, but you are welcome to come and cheer on the players! A schedule of the brackets, dates of play and anticipated start times can be found by clicking here.

On June 8, 2025, Memorial Park in Barneveld, WI, was reopened after a significant renovation, and, among other features and amenities, it now boasts a full-sized basketball court that is also multi-marked for two pickleball courts. The multi-sport court is available to the public on a first-come, first-served basis, but it can also be reserved for $10/hr. Memorial Park is located at County Hwy ID, Barneveld, WI, 53507.

Two new dedicated outdoor pickleball courts will soon be coming to Poynette. They will be built in Old Settlers Park, located at 100 Old Settlers Trail, Poynette, WI, 53955. As of early June 2025, the project had been sent out for bids, with the intention of having the work completed by the end of September or early October 2025. For more information, contact the Poynette Parks & Recreation Commission.

One of the best ways to improve your pickleball serve is through practice and repetition. Being able to bring many balls with you to use for serve practice can cut down on the amount of time you spend chasing and picking up balls. But let’s face it, pickleballs can get expensive if you want to buy them in bulk quantities at most sporting goods stores.

This is one way in which being a member of the Capital Area Pickleball Association (CAPA) can benefit you and help you save money. Specifically, if you are a CAPA member, you can buy Franklin X-40 pickleballs at a discount from certain CAPA members who regularly buy pickleballs in bulk and resell them to other CAPA members at a discount. The discounted price for pickleballs under the resale program is 3 pickleballs for $6, 6 pickleballs for $10, and 13 pickleballs for $20. (To clarify, even though the balls are being “resold,” they are, in fact, brand new!)

For a list of the individuals in CAPA from whom you can buy discounted pickleballs, click here.