September 27, 2024
He didn’t have her at hello. Far from it. When pickleball coach Matty Klein first saw a player named MeiShen Chang on a court in 2015 he told a friend, “I’m going to date her someday.” His friend scoffed because Matty is 17 years older than MeiShen. They had been introduced by a mutual friend, the legendary pickleball coach Richard Movsessian, better known as “Coach Mo.”
Matty asked MeiShen out and she said no. In fact, he asked her out a total of six times and she said no each time.
“The first two times she was dating someone,” Matty told me. “The third time she had just broken up with someone and wasn’t ready. The fourth, fifth and sixth times she said she needed a break from dating.”
He was more than halfway to getting pickled.
The seventh time they met on the court was the start of a courtship. She asked him out. Four months later, in 2016, they got married.
MeiShen, who’s from from Malaysia, later joined Matty as co-instructor at his clinics. Matty says she’s a better player than he is, that her player rating is 5.0 and he’s a 4.8. They became known as “Coach Matty and Coach MeiShen.” Matty says they have conducted over 850 pickleball clinics in the US and overseas and taught 35,000 players. In October they’ll be teaching pickleball in Italy, Greece and Istanbul. In 2025 they will conduct clinics in a couple of resorts and on a cruise ship.
Matty, 65, and MeiShen (pronounced “May-shin”), 48, live in the The Villages in Florida, a huge haven for seniors and pickleball players. It’s also good business for pickleball instructors, because the community has 260 outdoor courts.
They have produced more than 200 instructional videos called Pickleball Minute, which are on their YouTube channel and Facebook page.
Matty came to pickleball after an occasionally difficult upbringing in Ulster County, New York, 100 miles north of Manhattan.
“I moved from Kingston to Los Angeles at the age of 18 in an attempt to get away from my parents, who were fighting all the time,” Matty said. “It was usually about money.”
He was a good high school and college tennis player, so after moving to LA he coached tennis on the UCLA courts. Like with his coaching now, he was a hustler then, in a good way. “I got three jobs within my first week in LA. I worked three to four jobs until I was 21.”
That’s when he ended up being the driver for the actress Eva Gabor, best known for her role on the television show Green Acres. “Eva was super nice,” Matty says. “But her sister Zsa Zsa was a b - - - h.”
Matty says that every weekend the famous Hungarian sisters made him drive them to Tecate, Mexico, so they could buy vitamin supplements. “They thought those pills would help them live forever,” he said. Zsa Zsa did live to be 99. Eva passed away at 76.
Matty decided after two years of chauffeuring Eva around that he wanted to be a police officer. She offered him $100,000 a year to stay, good pay for a chauffeur in 1983. But he was bored with driving around and sitting in Eva’s car for hours on end, even though it was a Rolls-Royce. He craved action.
Matty became a motorcycle cop with the LAPD, a job he held for 20 years. “Many times I was in a life and death situation,” Matty said. “I was shot at three times. I rode my motorcycle through three different riots. I was a moving target every day.”
After retiring from the LAPD Matty continued to play tennis. “Fifteen years ago, someone came on the tennis court and asked me to try pickleball,” he said. He’s been playing pickleball ever since and coaching for 10 years.
It has been estimated that 75 to 80 percent of all recreational pickleball players are at the 3.5 level. Matty says the four most common mistakes made by 3.5 players are:
- “They hit too hard from the back. They should only hit as hard as it takes them to get one inch from the non-volley zone line and have one second of being ready in a great position with their weight forward on their feet.”
- “They try to win the point instead of work the point. If they have just a little bit more patience than their opponents, their opponents will beat themselves.”
- “They go for shots they don’t have. Don’t go for shots until you practice them. It takes 30 days to practice that same shot [that you often miss in games].”
- “They don’t practice enough to ever get past 3.5 unless they’re extremely athletic, but the highest they’regoing to get without training [a lot of drilling and practice] is 4.0.”
Matty says the best drill for a 3.5 player is skinny singles, the one-on-one game in which half the court is used. Matty and MeiShen often play skinny singles against each other.
Afterwards, they go home as partners.
Name dropping anecdote of the week
My mother was a fairly well-known ceramics and stained glass artist and taught an adult education course in Bergen County, New Jersey when I was a kid. One day when I was about 10, my mom was working with one of her students in our basement, where she had three different size kilns. The student’s husband got bored and came outside, where I was playing touch football with a bunch of neighborhood friends. The guy stood on the sidewalk, smiled, said nothing and watched our game for a half-hour. After he and his wife left, my parents told me that the guy watching us was a singer. His name was Tony Bennett.
My thoughts of the week, not all pickleball
- Whenever I’m channel surfing and come upon The Shawshank Redemption I cannot turn it off. Even though I’ve seen it at least a dozen times. It’s my favorite movie ever.
- You ever hear a hit song and wonder how it became a hit because you don’t like it at all? That’s what I think when I hear Lovin’ You by Minnie Riperton, Green Tambourine by The Lemon Pipers, and Muskrat Love by The Captain & Tennille.
- Pickleball players who complain about bangers should stop complaining and learn how to counter them. Some bangers don’t have a soft game, which will hurt them eventually. Just watch high level players. Same goes for those who complain about lobbers. Learn how to return lobs. The only instances in which I think lobbing is not cool is if the opponent is immobile or the court is slippery. I’m referring to rec play. All is fair in tournaments.
- I think it’s really weak and cheap that some paddle sellers don’t include a cover. Their markup is high enough, they can afford to throw in at least a neoprene cover that costs a couple bucks. I’m glad that Hudef includes a beautiful faux leather paddle case.
- One thing I love about pickleball is the friendliness among players who previously were total strangers. I occasionally give shoutouts here to players I’ve met online, never in person, and from whom I’ve sought advice. Sometimes we text and sometimes it’s a phone call. I know virtually nothing about them except that they love pickleball. Shoutouts today to Gian Alvarez, David DeCarlo, Cody Heyer and John Tran. Thanks, guys, for being patient with a lot of questions from this 70-year-old, 3.5 player.
