Nico Almeida

Thank you for tuning in. I'm Greg. I'm Mike. And I'm Kris Anna. And we are the Pickleballers Next Door. Our court's your court. Thank you for tuning in. I'm Greg. I'm Mike. And I'm Kris Anna. And we are the Pickleballers Next Door. All right. Yeah. So how was your day gone? It's going good. It's going good. I mean, we've been back since... When did we get back? We got back on Sunday. You came back early. What? Hey. Yeah. You know, I got things I have to do. Yeah. Right. Yeah. I was hot AF. And Mike left and I got to sleep a little bit. That was pretty bad. Yeah. Because Mike kept you up all night? No. Because it was like 130 degrees in my room. You forget they don't... Because these are winter resorts. They don't have air conditioning. And this is a beautiful place. This was a 4,000 square foot place. Very nice. Yeah. And I mean, the air conditioning is the windows, just so you know. But I guess Greg didn't have a window. Absolutely no windows. And he's a very tall man and it was a bunk bed. He did draw the bad one. Well, I didn't draw it. Even though he didn't get it. I didn't draw it, but somebody drew it. Hey, now. Come on. We are here today with Nico Almeida. He is a coach, a player, a world traveler. Love it. And an amazing dude. Yeah. What a player, too. Hey, Nico. How are you doing? Hi, Nico. Hey, guys. How's it going? Going good. Going good. Got to watch you up there. You were great. Thank you. Thank you. That was a lot of hard work that I put into my game in the last year. And so I'm happy that it's finally coming out. Have you played with Kyle Yates before? I have... No. Not with him. Okay. Because I came... I was DMing him after I met... I don't know if many listeners know Leigh Whitwell. She's the number one senior pro. Yep. So I had... Oh, no. She's insane. And she's so knowledgeable about the game. So I was talking to her in Florida, and she told me that they do a few clinics with Kyle. She's like, oh, that's a cool person that I can hit up. They told me that he lives in Denver, and I was heading to Aspen then. So I contacted Kyle via Instagram DM, and then Kyle, if you can, come to my Rocky Mountain Championship tournament. So I ended up coming to Denver early, and that's how we met. Nice. Yeah. How was it? I mean, he's quite the player, huh? Oh, no. He's insane. It was... I was actually... So I'm a big student of the game. Even back when... My background is in tennis. And even back in tennis, I always tried to replicate Roger, Rafa, Fernando Verdasco. Those are my favorite players. And I just used to study hours of footage, and I want my technique to look identical to them. So I translate that passion over technical and aesthetics of the game to pickleball. And Kyle and Ben was two of my big inspirations for the game. So I was extremely thrilled once he responded to my DM to meet up with him. I can see some of the tennis when we were watching you. You never get rid of the tennis. You try, but it's still there a little bit. Right. No, it was a good foundation for my game. But of course, there was a bit of a learning curve moving from tennis to pickle. I remember when I was like a few months in on my professional training, and I was like, Nico, you got to forget that this is not tennis. I cannot be trying to play tennis on a pickleball court. That does not work. There's a lot of people that play little tennis. How long have you been playing pickleball? So I play my very first professional tournament, October 2023. It was the PPA tour in Daytona Beach, and I decided to play that event, and I practiced for two weeks prior to it. So two weeks before the event that happened in October. So October 2023 was my anniversary. And you never played pickleball before this, correct? I have not. I watch it. I have fun with a few friends, but nothing very serious. I just stop the ball. It's just like it never caught most of my attention until I see how grand is this sport will be coming and how many people are playing. Before I was too into tennis, I was coaching tennis full time. I still do a very little bit, but I was like super into it. But a little bit before September 2023, I was just watching a lot of footage. I just, it just grew my interest. I was like, oh, let me try a few pro events. Obviously, did not end up well. My first pro event was awful. I lost to Ivan Harvey in singles, 6-4, 11-6, 11-4, and he's killing on the tour now. So I'm really excited to play him again. So do you have any qualifiers coming up? So I am, my next event, I'm going to play with Kyle, the next Rocky Mountain event, the one in Grand Junction. After that, I'm going to, yeah, I'm playing that with him. I was so happy that after the tournament, he invited me over again. I was like, I didn't suck too much. Yeah, that's positive. That's a positive thing. Right, I was through. Yeah, I was through for that. And after that, I'm going to go play the kitchen. You guys know the kitchen, the TKOs? No, tell us about that. Yeah, so the kitchen is like one of the biggest communities for pickleball. It's just called the kitchen pickleball. And they have this tournament, this TKO that is like a 25K event. That is like very good to like review up-and-coming players. So I'm excited to play that. So kind of like the APP Next Gen? Yes, it's not Next Gen because it's not tied to age. But it's a good event. I have a few friends that played that and ended up getting UPA contracts, which is my goal. Heck yeah. And where are they holding that at? That one is going to be in Austin. Nice. I feel like everything big is held in Austin. I do. I really think so. When is it? When? It's going to be on September 25th. Oh, OK. So right after the one in Grand Junction. Yes, yes, yes. So I'm playing Grand Junction, staying in Colorado, staying in Aspen for a little while, then flying there. Wow. All right, so let's go all the way back. How did you find pickleball and how did you get involved with it? So pickleball is very big in Florida. There's courts everywhere. Yes, I'd say it's the mecca. Yeah, it's insane. And we keep building, and there's more and more courts coming. It's actually amazing what they've done for the game at the expense so quickly. Right. Sorry to interrupt, but didn't they build a stadium that was just for pickleball now there in Florida? It's a stadium. It's a fort, right? Yeah, it's a fort, yeah. Yeah, at the fort, they have 46 courts, and they have one that is actually a stadium right around the restaurant. It was pretty neat. I like it. Wow. When I was there, it wasn't finished yet. I think when I come back in October, they're probably going to be fully finished, and I'm excited to play there. And then do you have any practice partners while you're in Florida? So, I mean, usually we rotate. There's so many people there in Florida that I'm blessed to just rotate with a bunch of them. Of course, you rub elbows with Eric Constance. I see it all the time. I see Annalie and Christian practice. I never practice being on court with them. I had the opportunity to hit a little bit with Millie Raine and Georgia Johnson. Nice. Wow. Yeah, I got to see and talk a bunch with Ben, too. He came to Aspen last year, so we became acquaintances. Yeah, I remember when he was there. He missed, um... Shit, what was it? The, uh... Kansas City. It was Kansas City that they didn't show up to. Yeah, they ended up doing the pickles and puck event. Yeah. Yeah, the PPA pickles and puck. That was at the Aspen Meadows, the location that I coach at. Yeah, okay. Nice. It was pretty fun, yeah. Unfortunately, I was not there for the event. I was there for the day before because my best man had his wedding in Canada, so I lost that event. So I didn't get to play with Annalie, but I played with Ben. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got to play with Ben, so it was fun. That's nice. He's something else, huh? Oh, no, he's, like, absolutely insane. And I could definitely tell. He played with all our staff, and he could not even try. Yeah. He's not next level. He's beyond next level. Yeah. It's just, like, the processing speed, the velocity that he analyzes plays before you even execute the shot and choose the proper response. It's just, like, insane. It's just something that, like, since then, I've been trying to mimic and trying to get to it. Right, right. So have you been in the U.S. your whole life? So my U.S. story, it's nice. It's funny. So I grew up in Brazil, and when I was, like, 19 years old, I came to U.S. to play college tennis in 2012. Okay. Nice. Yeah. So 2012, and I played in this small school, small private school called Tiffin University. We're a fairly good tennis team. Yeah, we play against all the Midwest schools in all, like, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana area. We call it the Great Lake Conference. Okay. Yeah, it was hella fun. It was, like, four years of, like, traveling, training, like, learning how to play tennis. Like, learning how to be disciplined while maintaining grades. That was the toughest part. I bet. What did you get your degree in? So I got a double major in marketing and sports management. Nice. Nice. And then, yeah, after I was done with that, the head coach invited me to be his assistant coach. So I got to get my grad school paid for by being the assistant coach, and then I did my MBA in international business. That's awesome. That's great. That's awesome. You're not only a good player, but a brain, huh? You're smart. Yeah. I mean, I try to. To be fair, like, I met my wife on my grad school year, so she helped me a lot. I don't even know, like, if I would be able to do it without her. Yeah, exactly. Nice. She's just, like, a phenomenal writer, so that helped a lot. I just brained her up, and she writes all my papers. She's your personal GPT. Oh, that's what we call her. Actually, her job, she's known to be, like, an AI. That's hilarious, man. Yeah. So how did you end up in Florida? Oh, so after I graduate, so for international students like me, they offer what is called an OPT, which is, like, an extra year after you're done with your curriculum. They give you a year that you can practice, that you can work in the U.S., and after I was just graduating, I was talking to Bree about it, and we were like, I wanted to find a coaching job somewhere else. I cannot handle the winter anymore. I understand. Ohio is absolutely freezing. The Midwest winter sucks. And it's flat. Yeah, and it's flat, and it was driving me crazy. I love Ohio with all my heart because it gave me all the opportunities, but I was ready to move out. I understand. Yeah. So I applied to many tennis academies all over the country, and I was so fortunate that my head coach knew one of the head pros of this academy in Derry Beach, Florida, and they needed coaches for the summer. I was going to be the entry level on the summer. They're going to give me a little room at the clubhouse, and I was like, God, that's the opportunity that I need. That's my opening. Nice. And that's where I went, and I lived at the clubhouse of this club. Not even a country club. It was like a rundown club, which is a very nice facility for training, but the clubhouse is very outdated. So I lived there for three months until I found an apartment, then I drove back to Michigan where my wife's from, and then we both moved down to Florida, and we've been there since. Nice. And how long has that been? That was in 2019. Nice. So you got to deal with that whole COVID situation. Oh, yeah. I mean, but in Florida, like, it was literally two months. It didn't really matter. Yeah. I remember me and Bri being in an apartment for like a month, and I was like, oh, looks like everybody's outside already. Okay, we need to go. Everybody's at the beach. Right? Yeah, it's not like nothing happened. I was like at the beach, working out, running, teaching lessons. As far as everybody was posh, it was like we have, like, collar balls that only one person touch. You couldn't touch each other's, like, tennis balls. That was a good catch. Sure. I know. I know. I had to. Could have gone in, like, a bad direction there. Right, right. Yeah, that's funny. So, do you work out? Because you look pretty in shape. I mean, those calves you have on you, they are impressive calves. You do look good. Yes, you do. Yeah, wow. I have some good calves, but those were some good calves. Is that all from you? Yeah. Very strong legs. Mike's jealous. Sorry, I was a little jealous. Yeah. So, like, my whole entire life, like, before I actually started playing tennis very late, I started playing tennis at 13 years old. But before that, I was a soccer player. So, I played all base soccer in Brazil. That makes sense. So, my whole entire life, I worked out. Like, we did conditioning, strength training. I was always very, like, focused with my diet. I remember since I was 16, I never ate much junk, never ate much sugar. And I always had, like, a strict diet and workout. I'm going to tell you, I eat the hell out of sugar. And it shows. What I noticed, you weren't winded at all. And I know you're working up in Aspen, but coming from Florida to there, a lot of guys get winded and lightheaded, isn't it? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, yeah, it's, when you get winded and lightheaded, it's tough to play here. And then, when you hit the ball, it goes a lot farther than you think. Oh my God. That was the toughest part because I was in Aspen last year and it took me, like, a solid three weeks to get used to the altitude. Yeah. Like, I was with oxygen mask. It's funny. We're in, like, Rocky Mountain, the first event. I don't know if you guys see it, but I was sitting there on the sidelines with my gala of water and a can of oxygen so I could survive. At Clinton Park? I saw it, yeah. Oh, was that coming? Okay. I didn't see that. So, I'll tell you, like, when they, the last PPA event they had here, Ryan Sherry was handing out air in a can and I got a nasty picture of Leah Jensen sucking air out of a can. I posted it. She saw it. It's funny. She ended up seeing me at the event and was like, thanks a lot. But it didn't look like you were having any struggles up there. No. You looked good. You were moving right along. Yeah, finally I got used to it. Like, it was the first few weeks like, this time was easier because I found another trick too. So, for everybody that go at high altitude it's like, Tylenol is very good. I don't usually take any aspirin or anything like that. Ibuprofen, I don't like it. But, for, like, you need to thin your blood that will reduce, like, severely, that will increase a lot more, like, your blood flow because I think, like, I don't know, somebody was explaining to me how to not have headaches and get used to the altitude better. So, that helped a lot. Oxygen can and Tylenol, I was good. I know you're a no ice guy. Yeah, yeah. Why no ice? Because I, when he got hit, he got hit in the face from a ball off of Kyle Yates' paddle. Oh, wow. Yeah, why don't you tell them about the no ice thing? Yeah, why? Yeah, so, I used to be, like, a big ice guy. Like, six months ago, I was doing almost every day to recovery. I felt great. My legs felt great. The shock felt good. There was a lot of endorphin going. But I noticed that, like, my, I was not gaining as much muscle mass as I wanted to. So, and then I dig a little bit and then I will figure out that overutilization of ice reduces inflammation and inflammation is basically the way that your body takes your nutrients to the damaged muscles and repairs them. So, reducing inflammation is basically like constricting the highways of my body and making more difficult to take nutrients to those areas. So, once I stop it, I only use heat and heat has been, like, fantastic. Do you see a big difference, then? Oh, yeah, gigantic difference. Vascularity has improved. My weight, my, I do, I do track my muscle mass, my skeletal muscle mass every time I go to my doctor in Florida and would be a consistent increase and I want to believe because of the heat. I want to do a whole year without cold to see how it goes, but that, it's going up. Yeah, I mean, honestly, it doesn't matter if it's the heat or it's the cold or if it's the lack of cold, whatever that you're doing is working, then it works, right? Yeah, you're phenomenal. Yeah, thank you. It's a lot of try and error, like, I mess around with a lot of diets, a lot of supplements that I put in, put out, a lot of vitamins and I wanted to tinker your diet to your personal body. So, for me, strictly heat works, very minimal supplementation, like, I only eat, like, just the food that I get all my nutrients from. Yeah. The only thing that I don't give up is my creatine that I love it. Well, you know, I've heard studies that creatine even helps dementia. So, it's a good thing. Right. Yeah, yeah, I saw that one when I was a kid and there was no liver. Right. I was like, oh, great, thank God. Okay, good. Do you remember, you're a baseball fan, you know anything about baseball? So, my best man is from Ohio and he put me in baseball. So, I follow very little but I've been a few times to the Indian Stadium. Okay. Mark McGuire used to take creatine and they busted him for it. They thought it was how you got from Florida to Aspen. Yeah, that was great. So, one of my friends and doubles partner, he actually and we actually have like a little scramble. We scramble, we are playing together and he invited this director from Aspen. His name is Alex Robes and when we were playing this little this like get together playing a game we're renting out two courts at this indoor facility in Florida and he introduced me to Alex and Alex I guess he saw like that that I was a good player that I was charismatic to talking to him talking to his wife and I think Nico, what are you doing next summer? So, I don't know. I usually I teach at the Stennis Academy in the summers but I'm trying to figure out something else that I could do because summers in Florida are absolutely brutal and I think most of the time in Florida is pretty brutal. I mean, I don't mind the winter and like the beginning of the summer. It feels like I'm working hard but the summers are just like a step above. It's like 10 degrees more is just like 1000% humidity Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I like the humidity feels good on the skin but the humidity with a 100 degree weather is absolutely criminal. Criminal is a great word. Yeah. You're from Brazil too. I mean, you have some humidity there. Right. Yeah. And it does get hotter like in Florida in our summer which is at the end of the year. Right. But I mean, you can get used to it. I got used to anything because like I didn't complain because I was living like my best life on the beach in the summer but having the opportunity to upgrade to like an Aspen I was like, okay, yes. Sign me up. Right. I'm going to make the moves. And how long have you been doing Aspen? So I did Aspen last year so I did that for like 10 days first and then I came back for another 20. No, I was more just like a pro to understand the ropes. I'm not getting any director role yet but just trying to get the confidence of everybody like showing Alex that like, I'm here to help. I wanted to be a part of this team and we kept a good communication even after the summer and then this year he brought me up as like the director of Pickle to take care of everybody to like, be like a presence on the court. That's awesome. Yeah. Yes. So what you did is you traded sharks for bears or in mooses. I heard there was a bear up at the Steamboat Tennis Club in the middle of the night. Did you hear that? It was so funny you say, someone told me that and I was like, no, I didn't see it. And they had it on camera. Yeah, it stuck its head into our booths. See, I don't buy much bears. I think he was inside the booth actually because the chair kind of went down. What is the procedure? What would you do if you saw a bear? Just run. Scream? Just run. Hi little bear. It's okay. You should have pet him. Come here. You're supposed to get real big. Nice bear. You're supposed to get real big and like loud. Just show him your calves. Yeah. He'll be like, damn. He's out of here. So do you see Aspen as a potential like permanent thing or is that just an every summer thing? No, definitely, definitely I would say more of a summer thing because I do want to continue to travel. I know once we got out of Aspen I will get a contract and I'll be able to travel everywhere and play but I do like to have like coming to the summer and doing events and help out. I do enjoy Colorado. Colorado is like phenomenal. It's so beautiful. Everybody's here is so nice. So I do want to stay around in the summer but yeah, but my goal is to be more mobile, be able to travel too. I understand that. Yeah, that's awesome. Where do you see yourself in the future? Hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully, hopefully. I can imagine you're hoping to get a contract is what you're saying. Yeah, hopefully a contract, hopefully, I will get into the NLP and get to the PPA main stage. What about The Orchard on Tuesday night Pickleball? Oh, I do heard, I heard about it. I don't know much and I don't know how to get in or to get an invite. Maybe you can educate me a little bit more on that. Because I looked into it but I'm nowhere close. I was just curious but I looked into it and you go and you just put an application in. Oh really? As far as I know, as far as I know. Yeah, theorchard.com that's in Scottsdale. Oh, that's not bad. I mean, I'll definitely, I'll be, I'm very open to that. I'm open to play APPs but obviously. You had a lot of people come out of there you know like Auggie Gee, he played in that before I even saw him in the PPA. Wow, that's cool. I mean, I was not aware of that. There's so many of those little avenues that you can take. Oh, there is. There's so much opening up with Pickleball. I mean, it's crazy. I think Alex Tron came out of there too. Oh, Tron? Oh, nice. Maybe. I'm probably wrong but I swear that she was playing in that. Greg's usually wrong just so you know. Yeah, right. Usually. But I swear she was there. Maybe I'm wrong. Grand Junction? Grand Junction. Yeah, Grand Junction. Then he flies around. Yeah, so Grand Junction. We'll go to Grand Junction. Sorry. We'll wave. Where are you guys at? Sorry. So Wynton, how long will you be here? So, probably till the end of September. That's when I go to Austin. Then after that I will be heading back to Florida finishing my coaching contracts. We have to renew everything. Finalizing my positions there and then from there I will start re-traveling to the PPA tour events that I want to play. Nice. Nice. And when I get down there when I'm doing van life I'm going to come see you. Please do. Please do. And then we'll play together and then you will beat me up bad. And then after that we go get some dinner. Absolutely, yeah. I'm in for dinner, of course. I'm in for a good ass whooping too. No worries. What a life though. I mean, I'm so jealous. I mean, this is awesome. I mean, how you prepared to be here. How you take care of yourself. I mean, this is awesome. And you sound really happy. You do. And you get to go around with your wife and enjoy life. So, every time I have seen Nico he has never not had a smile on his face. He is happy. He is very happy to be wherever he is. Very kind. Yes, you are. I thought he was just here. That's why I thought he was in Colorado for all our... Because those are the events we saw on that, right? So, Nico, why don't you tell us or everyone listening where they can find you, Instagram, etc. Okay, so, oh, I have a... It's a good one. I actually have to check it out. Let me just change the handle. My handle is Nico underscore Almeida with three A's like a triple A battery. Ah. Yeah. Nico underscore Almeida. Yeah. And that's the only social media you have? Yeah, Instagram, I do have... I mean, that's probably available just my Instagram. Yeah, that's fine. I haven't worked much on my online game. I have a few friends reaching out because they enjoy the way that I break down the sport to do some like YouTube content. Yeah. Well, in my eyes, I want to do that. I want to do videos. I want to give information that I've been collecting by studying Kyle, talking to Kyle, talking to Ben, talking to Collin a lot. And I want to put this good information out there. But I feel like in order for me to give the information, I need a little bit more proof of concept. You know, like, oh, who is this guy just talking about? He's smiling a lot, but I haven't seen him doing anything great, meaningful with the sport. Like, I know that I'm on the way to it. So I wanted to like accomplish a little bit more We're looking to start maybe a Patreon where we're doing that. So maybe we can connect and you know, we can be one of your avenues. If you don't get too big too soon. Yeah, maybe you'll still talk to us. And then you'll forget about us. Yeah, we're gone. Who was that? Just remember us. Yeah. Absolutely not. No, no, no. I'll gladly do it because I, it was funny because that's one way that I connected with Kyle. Yeah. It was that we met at Rocky Mountain and we talked for like a good solid hour just about the game because it was, because it was funny because he, it's very hard for you as the outsider to see what yourself are doing. Right. So I pointed out things of his game that he does consistently. For example, when you do this for work on your forehand side, you do this, but when you're doing your backhand, you do that. Why is that? And he's like, man, I'm not even thinking about that stuff. I'll say, let's break it down. I think that was one of the factors that got me. He said like, oh, Nico, have great vibes, but he's intelligent about the game too. So that's probably one of the. Oh my gosh. He's very intelligent. I had one of the other players that played single with him and he says, I just don't get it. He stays way back at the line. I said, what he's doing is he's watching for your consistency and then he takes you out. I said, he no longer needs to know how to hit the ball. No longer how fast to get to there. He's going to learn what you're doing and then take you out. And I'm so disappointed that I lost the semifinal match because I really want to play a best of three with him. Our game on the round robin was like a 25 minute game. It was a long game. It was so much fun because I'll start to figure it out how he plays and I wanted to try a few more strategies. I just ran out of points. That's how that happens. He's just so consistent. I have to like try to throw my paddle at him to win a point. So I was beyond stoked but that was probably the problem why I lost the semifinal because I was already dreaming about playing Kai on a best of three. I was like, I already have my strategy. I'm going to do this, this, this. Didn't have the chance but hopefully in Grand Juncture I'll have the chance to play him again in singles. I hope so too because that will be a great match and I can't wait to see. It's been so fun to watch you guys. It's so fun. Hey Nico, we really appreciate you joining us man. It's been a pleasure. It's always a pleasure to see you. I'm looking forward to seeing you again in September. We'll see you soon. We love it. Thank you so much guys for this opportunity. I love talking about the game. I love talking to you guys. You guys are awesome. And then maybe we can have you on for something else. We definitely want to do that video stuff with you. Oh absolutely. I love talking about the game and expanding people's knowledge. I feel like the game is relatively new. It became mainstream fairly recent. So there's a lot of great minds into the game putting knowledge and studying the game studying patterns and I love doing that and I love Breakdown. I know that might not be the most interesting thing to a great majority of people but talking a little bit more specifics to improve somebody's game is my passion. That's why I do coaching. Yeah, that's amazing. That's awesome. I mean, if you guys ever meet Nico, I think one of the nicest people you'll ever meet. He'll be smiling. He'll always be smiling. And he's the one with the great calves. The great calves. All you got to do is you can look from when you see him from the back, that's Nico. Those calves. Dang. All right, Nico. Thank you so much, man. Have a great night. Thank you so much, guys. You guys have a great night. You too. Appreciate you guys. Ciao. Bye. Wanted to give a special thanks to Pickle for the People for supporting our podcast. Pickle for the People is a Denver-based paddle company. They specialize in a low-carbon footprint. They also have a buyback program. Check them out at pickleforthepeople.com