Roster Rating Standard Appeal

I have mixed feelings. This person has no documentable history of her skills either in pickleball or tennis since 2022.. My tennis playing friends state that a 4.0 tennis is like a 3.5 pickleball. She states she plays with 4.0 players but what does that even mean? Her rating from 2022 is 3.69. I feel that the fact that she had no documentation is too great. Her Dupr is 3.545. She has no pickleball brackets account. She has 2 wins and 6 losses in 3.5 in Dupr with the most recent one played in 2024

• APPL history of results does not support the Appeal

1. To whom this may concern at APPL. I am currently considered by APPL to be a frozen player. I played on an APPL team in 2022 but have not played since that time. My APPL rating in 2022 was 3.69.

I am making an appeal to get rated as a 4.0 so that I can play on The Drop Squad which is a 4.0 women's 50+ team which plays in the Southern Region. The coach of this team is Sharon Falor and she encouraged me to provide this information to you.

2. I need to get my name corrected in the APPL database. I am listed as Julie Zielenga but my last name is Zeilenga. My date of birth is September 16, 1958.

3. I started playing USTA tennis in approximately 2000 at a 3.5 level. I then got moved up to a 4.0 rating in approximately 2010. Unfortunately the USTA records I found don't go back further than 2021. I have been playing USTA tennis pretty consistently throughout the years. Last year I played in both the womens 55+/8.0s and the womens 65+/8.0s. My rating at the end of 2024 is a computer rating of 4.0. This year I will only be playing minimally on the 65+ team as I have found that I really like playing pickleball much more.

4. I first started playing pickleball early 2022. I joined the Desert Dinkers which was a 3.5 team out of Green Valley for the 2022 season. My APPL rating at the end of the season was 3.69.

5. Unfortunately in early 2023 i started experiencing lower back pain and it was very painful during and after I played both tennis and pickleball. I stopped playing all USTA tennis for the 2023 season. I continued playing pickleball with a group of 4.0 women in Green Valley, AZ and I was invited to join the 4.0 APPL 50+ women's team team called The Drop Squad in the summer of 2023. I continued to play 4.0 pickleball in Flagstaff that summer and early fall. I finally had to drop off the Drop Squad in early 2024 due to the severity of my back pain.

6. I finally went to see Dr. Meier at Flagstaff Bone and Joint in early October of 2023. My MRI showed that besides a host of issues the Xray had shown, I also had vertebrogenic pain syndrome. Between the end of October and mid January I had 2 bilateral blocks and 1 bilateral ablation all on L3-L5 and S1. None of these procedures worked to completely reduce the pain but medicare required that these procedures had to be done initially.

7. On March 12, 2024 I had the Intracept Procedure from Relievant done on my L5 and S1 vertebrae. This procedure ablates the nerve inside those vertebrae.

8. In about 3 months I was able to play both USTA tennis and 4.0 level pickleball pretty much pain free. My back actually seems to have improved since the initial procedure.

9. Thank you for considering my appeal and please let me know if you need any additional information.

Thank you, Julie Zeilenga
jfzorbea@gmail.com
510 861 2186

See above medical info in the reasoning APPL index section.