PETER SIDORCZUK

BADMINTON AND PICKLEBALL PROFILE

Pete Sidorczuk has 20+ years of experience in playing and coaching badminton.  He started in 2000 in High School as an unofficial member of the Girls Badminton team.  After learning the basics during the first season he went on to play year round at local badminton clubs to further improve his skills.  He continued to be a volunteer helper on Buffalo Grove High School badminton team while expanding his badminton skill set outside of community badminton free plays into Midwest badminton tournaments.  Peter has won many titles in the Midwest region and has also attended larger badminton tournaments in the United States such as the U.S. Adult Nationals and the Boston Open.  Peter continued to play at least a dozen tournaments a year and trains 4-5 times a week.  In addition, he has moved on to being an integral part to the badminton community by extending his knowledge to the younger generation as a former High School coach and Staff member at the Annual Eastern Illinois University Badminton summer camp. For the last 5 years (2018 – 2022), Peter has been the JV coach at Lockport High School in Lockport, Illinois.

During his badminton career Peter has been previously sponsored by ProKennex for several years, and is currently sponsored by HL Badminton, located in Manhattan Beach California, who are also proud sponsors of the Eastern badminton camp.  Peter’s goal is to further pursue his playing and coaching career as he feels that the best way to grow interest in badminton is to get the younger generation involved.

At the end of 2019, Peter slowly moved away from playing competitive badminton, and transitioned into playing Pickleball. Peter started playing Pickleball in his local clubs and quickly rose through the ranks to be a low 4.5 level player. After several months of homing in his skill, Peter was approached by a very good 5.0 level player that took him under his wing to facilitate his growth. Over the last few years Peter has grown up to and above the 5.0 level and has competed in various 5.0 level tournaments. Next step will be to try some of the Pro level tournaments to see where he stacks up.

Peter’s love for coaching wasn’t far behind him in his transition to pickleball as he began to give advice to other players in open rec play. After some time, Peter did a few lessons for local pickleball friends and family dipping his toes in the pickleball coaching scene. As of today, Peter isn’t a full-time coach yet partly due to the lack of a facility and partly because he is still focused on his own pickleball game and with a full-time job it is difficult to add coaching into the mix. Peter’s goal is to have his own pickleball facility and be a coach there while improving his own game as a full-time job.

ELLA SIDORCZUK

PICKLEBALL AND BADMINTON PROFILE

Ella Sidorczuk was introduced to Badminton early on by watching and supporting her son (Peter). After a short period of time, she decided to pick up a racket herself. Although she never entered the competitive scene of the sport, she went deep into organization and coordination of groups and play times. She continued to promote and recruit new players to her badminton groups and always tried to organize and coordinate play times. She was praised by her fellow players for her work and dedication as it was a very difficult job considering the number of players involved.

Just like badminton, Ella’s Pickleball career started with her son Peter inviting her to try it. She immediately fell in love with the game and began creating a network of friends and players. Since the pickleball population is much larger than the badminton community, Ella had her work cut out for her. With meticulous dedication and hard work, she was able to recruit lots of players for her initial groups and began putting together open rec play groups. As time went on, she was able to invite more and more people from various outdoor open plays, and she currently manages groups with close to 150 members. In addition to private playing groups and leagues, she was also the one that started the OMG PBB tournaments that we host every month during the warm months. The whole idea started with a competition between the village of Arlington Heights players and the village of Buffalo Grove players. Our very first tournament was hand picked and organized by Ella as a battle of the villages to see which group of players was superior. The tournament was a huge success with most of the players wanting more. This sparked the fire to continue the tournaments and expanding them into a monthly event, but Ella quickly realized that to do that she will also need to expand the pool of players.

This is how the monthly OMG PBB tournament for 3.0-3.5 level players was created. The purpose of these tournaments was to give these players a chance to experience their first competitive play without the pressure of a big tournament. The participants are hand picked out by Ella and invited to a tournament chat group on a messaging app, where all tournament communications take place. Ella spends each day making sure that we have enough players, that they all know the rules, that if there are any drop out that she can find a sub, and most importantly that everyone that is in the group belongs in this level. As the tournament date nears, Ella will send out a message regarding final preparations and payment, and she meets with Peter to split the players up into various groups, making sure that each group is evenly distributed by player skill level.

In conclusion, Ella is the mastermind behind all the management and organizational parts of OMG PBB, and will direct the flow of operations and customer satisfaction.