UF pickleball club among the top 10 in the USA

July 8, 2024

After less than three years of activity, the UF Club’s pickleball team has gained great popularity and now enjoys national recognition.

The UF club pickleball team has been ranked among the top 10 collegiate pickleball clubs in the country by Dynamic Universal Pickleball Ratings (DUPR) for the past few months. Club members can attribute the success to strong leadership and continued camaraderie toward the new players.

The Pickleball team is unique in that it invites new members through beginner courses for anyone who is interested but does not have the necessary experience or knowledge of the sport.

The team promoted one of its first seminars on its Instagram page in early February 2023 and is still looking for new members to expand its roster.

Bennett Carollo, a 22-year-old information systems graduate from the University of Florida and the team’s competition director, started playing pickleball as a hobby and eventually enjoyed it so much that he joined the club team.

“Our goal is to grow in every way we can,” Carollo said. “I think pickleball is great because it’s very accessible to new players, but it’s also really fun and exciting to get involved in. We’ve helped grow in all aspects to get the word out and bring in a lot of new members who are new to the sport.”

The club welcomes people of all experience levels and works to help them improve.

“As far as competition goes, I think it’s only going to get more competitive,” Carollo said. “I think last tournament we had five different teams, and this is a community tournament where we’re representing our school, and each team is two girls and two boys. That was by far the most teams any school has sent.”

The team has grown tremendously over the past year and has enjoyed success on the field in tournaments. On July 5, the team was ranked 6th in the DUPR rankings.

Most recently, UF team member Laura Falceto Fony, a 26-year-old UF biomedical sciences graduate, competed in the 2024 DUPR Collegiate Individual National Championships, making it to the quarterfinals in both women’s singles and women’s doubles.

Font regularly played doubles with two of her teammates, Martine Sundsten, and mixed doubles with Django Chassang.

“Competing with them was incredibly fun and a great learning experience that helped me grow in the sport,” Font said.