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Link & Dink Weekly

This Week in MoCo Pickleball · Issue #1

Wednesday, May 27, 2026

Strap: Free local pickleball · Montgomery County, MD

This Week in MoCo Pickleball · Week of May 20, 2026

The first issue. Welcome. Court supply, rating reshuffles, and a stack of June tournaments to plan against.

Where do you play in MoCo? Tap your area to add yourself to the map: Down-County · Central · Up-County · Eastern · Western → See where MoCo plays

🔥 The lead

6 new dedicated pickleball courts coming to Wheaton's Rubini complex.

Montgomery Parks is converting 2 tennis courts at the F. Frank Rubini Athletic Complex (inside Wheaton Regional Park) into 6 dedicated, lighted pickleball courts, plus a renovated handball court and parking improvements. Project status is on track for spring 2026 — no opening date posted yet, so the ribbon-cutting is still TBD.

For the Wheaton / Silver Spring / Kensington / Takoma Park corridor, this is the closest dedicated set you'll have without driving to East Norbeck or Bauer. Worth watching the Montgomery Parks project page for an opening announcement.

📍 MoCo pulse

DUPR Reset is closed — your rating may have moved.

DUPR's first-ever Reset program ran March 16 to May 17. Players who paid in and logged at least 8 DUPR-reported matches got a recalculated rating, and the system kept whichever was higher — so a Reset rating could only go up. The window's now closed, and Reset ratings are settling in over the next few weeks (per The Dink).

Worth checking even if you didn't Reset: in April, DUPR rolled out Mixed Doubles ratings and Age-Based ratings for 50+ and 65+ (details). Those subscores actually matter for skill-banded play and partner matching. Open your DUPR app and check where you landed.

🏆 Pro tour storyline

USA Pickleball stamps Pickleheads as its rec-play tech partner.

USA Pickleball just named Pickleheads its Official Technology Partner for Rec Play. The practical translation: any organizer — a rec department, a club, a neighborhood ladder — can now run a USAP-certified league on Pickleheads' software, with USAP-provided insurance and Franklin balls folded in.

USAP-operated leagues launch in Arizona this June and expand from there. For MoCo, the bar to spin up an insured, well-run local league just dropped. If you've ever thought about organizing one in your neighborhood, the infrastructure is now off-the-shelf.

📅 On the calendar

3 weekly outdoor leagues in DC — no partner needed. DC Pickleball League is mid-spring with three open-to-play options for MoCo-south players willing to cross into NE DC:

  • Monday outdoor at Catholic University — 5:30pm to dark, runs through June 15.
  • Wednesday outdoor at Catholic University — June 3 to June 24.
  • Saturday indoor at Rock Creek — through June 6.

Shootout-ladder format — no fixed partner, just register, show up, and rotate. Skill-banded brackets. Details and registration at wdcpickleball.com.

Also worth knowing:

  • Find open play near you — PlayTime Scheduler shows who's playing where across MoCo in real time. See what's on.
  • Next Pot Night — check the schedule.
  • MoCo Rec & Parks — summer pickleball programming and court info on ActiveMONTGOMERY.

🎟️ Tournaments near you

The next month of MoCo-first and MoCo-adjacent tournaments, pulled from our tournament radar:

  • Star Spangled Smash — Coed Doubles 8.5 Max DUPR Moneyball — Life Time Gaithersburg, May 30. Memorial-Day-weekend moneyball, $55 ($45 for LT members). Register.
  • 3.75+ Coed Moneyball Pop-up — Life Time Gaithersburg, June 6. Same venue, different format and skill band; $55. Register.
  • DCPL Juneteenth Partner Tournament — Anacostia Park, DC, June 19 (8am–3pm). One of the strongest DC community tournaments. Register.
  • World of Pickleball — Maryland — Montgomery TennisPlex, Boyds, July 10–12. Right here in MoCo. $55 early (rises to $65 after June 10); divisions from Under-3.49 to Open. Register.

Also on the radar: Ocean Pines Summer Classic (Jun 5–7), Spring Classic Life Time Annapolis (Jun 6–7), 4.0+ Life Time Annapolis Moneyball (Jun 20), and 6th Annual Beat the Heat (Aug 21–23, Chantilly — registration opens Jun 26).

✦ From the Link & Dink desk

Welcome to issue #1 of This Week in MoCo Pickleball. If you're reading this, you're probably someone who plays here, coaches here, or runs courts here. That's the whole audience.

The promise: this newsletter exists to make MoCo pickleball easier to navigate. Where to play. Who to play with. Where the new courts are going in. Which open plays match your level. The core community is free forever — no take rate, no premium tier on what matters. If you ever want to tell me what would make this more useful, just reply — every email reaches me.

— Sam · Link & Dink / MoCo