‘Letting my results speak for themselves’

Cole Lacap never got a chance to prove he belonged with the best who swing a racket — so he’s trying again, this time with a paddle.

The 27-year-old Winnipegger is pursuing a career in professional pickleball seven years after his dream as a pro tennis player fizzled. Despite his evident talent as a teen, Lacap was squeezed out of tennis as the financial demands of the sport became too much for him and his parents to bear.

Now he’s already making strides in one of North America’s fastest-growing sports.

Lacap struck gold in the men’s singles 4.5 (19-plus) division at the National Pickleball Championships, held at Taylor Tennis Centre over the weekend.

Lacap defeated Keaton Kirchner of Alberta 2-1 (20-18, 13-15, 15-5) to triumph in the tournament’s second-best division. The only higher ratings are 5.0 and 5.5 — a ranking only held by professionals.

“It brings me great confidence. I heard a lot of chatter around the whole tournament that I can play with the big guns,” Lacap said Monday. “That win allowed me to kind of set the bar for myself that I can be with these guys.”

Lacap comes from humble beginnings, raised by immigrant parents who believed that hard work can help anyone achieve anything they put their mind to.

Both born in the Philippines, his parents moved to Winnipeg with their respective families in the ’80s and tennis became a way for many people in their culture to stay connected. The court is where his parents met, and tennis remained a cornerstone of the Lacap family as they introduced their three sons to the sport on the courts at Sargent Park.

Lacap became a force locally and nationally as a junior, racking up accolades while travelling across the country for tournaments.

Every summer, from the time he was 12 to 17 years old, his family would make the three-day road trip to Florida, where Lacap and his brothers would play at the Orange Bowl in Plantation and the IMG Academy International Tennis Championships (formerly known as the Eddie Herr International Championships) in Bradenton — a pair of long-standing tournaments that welcomed the top junior players from around the globe.

Lacap remembers playing against kids from affluent families while he and his brothers shared a racket that they strung themselves.

“We weren’t the wealthiest family, but we made it work,” he said.

At 16, his parents even saved enough to send Lacap and his brothers to the 4Slam Tennis Academy in Barcelona, where they trained with some of the top trainers in the world on clay courts.

Indeed, perhaps Lacap could’ve made a career out of his talents, but the commitment ultimately became too hard on their wallet and, after careful deliberation, he decided to step away from the game.

It was years later that Lacap discovered pickleball at his gym. He proved to be a natural at the sport, likely owing to his tennis background, and the sport has quickly turned from a pastime into a commitment.

While most are enjoying pickleball recreationally, Lacap says he can’t help himself from trying to go all the way.

“It came from my mom and my dad,” he said. “We had very humble beginnings, and we sort of had to prove ourselves, not just to a lot of people, but to our family, that there is a higher level that we can have — (that) we can achieve as a family and as individuals.”

It’s a mindset that was also instilled by his oldest brother Sean, who is now Lacap’s full-time doubles partner. The pair won the men’s doubles event in last year’s provincial tournament, and have triumphed in a pair of events this year.

“He was very hard on me growing up, and we wanted to be the best,” Lacap said. “There was no question about it. There was the grind, but we knew how to work hard. We didn’t really have so much help. I don’t want to sound woe is me, but… if I can be frank, in the tennis world, it’s a rich sport, but we weren’t rich”

“I hate to use that term, but it felt that way growing up,” he added. “There’s a certain trait that I got when I was training in Spain with my brothers. It was: that as long as you’re loyal to yourself, you know exactly what you want, then you can achieve anything.”

Lacap is training in the weight room and on the court nearly every day at his local gym, and has plans of practising out of one of the three The Picklr (indoor facility) locations coming to Winnipeg by 2030 — the first of which is scheduled to open this winter.

He also plans to get extra reps when he becomes a developmental coach at The Picklr and the Pickleball Club of Winnipeg — which remains under construction in Headingley.

“It’s been around for a while, but just in the past two to three years, it’s skyrocketed. That attracts me,” he said. “This is the new wave, the new vibe, and it’s probably not even about the money, but it’s just being in a culture of this new sport and making a lot of great connections — I’m exercising and I’m being social.”

Lacap knows this endeavour won’t be easy, but tennis wasn’t either. And after experiencing the thrill of singles, doubles and team events at the pickleball national championships, he said that was all he needed to confirm his desire to make it big.

“I’m a very competitive guy, and I love to see where I can take myself,” he said. “I was like, ‘If I can do this, and I can kind of etch my name and have people talking about me and letting my results speak for themselves, then I can hang around.’”

joshua.frey-sam@freepress.mb.ca

X: @jfreysam