It’s wanting like there’s far more that must be unravelled concerning the UPA terminating the contracts of James Ignatowich, Ryan Fu, and Vivian Glozman. On Thursday, the UPA introduced that it had terminated the contracts of the three pickleball professionals after they supposedly participated in “competitor occasions.” One other participant’s standing, that of Parris Todd, is beneath evaluation as effectively.
That “competitor” seems to be the Pickleball Japan Federation (PJF), which lately held a number of clinics and exhibitions in Tokyo’s Ariake Tennis Park.
Right here’s the place the plot thickens, so to talk. After information of the axing made its rounds on the web, the Chair of the PJF’s Board of Trustees, Quinn Riordan, quietly shared his two cents in a touch upon a submit within the Fb web page The Kitchen – A Pickleball Neighborhood. In his feedback, Riordan identified that the PJF shouldn’t be a PPA competitor, and that it owes a lot to Ignatowich and firm for serving to develop pickleball in Japan.
“To make clear, the Pickleball Japan Federation shouldn’t be a competitor to PPA. We’re a non-profit organisation devoted to spreading the enjoyment of pickleball to Japan. We supported PPA’s occasion in Fukuoka and are presently cooperating with native companions to doubtlessly host a PPA occasion in Japan in 2026,” Riordan wrote. “Our first PJF Championships held in December 2024 tremendously expanded the variety of pickleball gamers in Japan, and now pickleball is booming in Japan. A part of that success is because of James Ignatowich and his group instructing clinics at our occasion, which helped generate super enthusiasm for the game.”
Curiously, Riordan’s remark corroborates, to a level, a number of the factors raised by Ryan Fu, who maintains that he and firm taught in 4 clinics and did the very same factor final yr.
For the time being, it seems the termination of Fu, Glozman, and Ignatowich stands. However the axing may not be as cut-and-dried because the UPA makes it seem.
