Four days a week at 6 a.m., Alana Romans and her husband, Adam Ross, play pickleball, mostly at the Durango Rec Center, with a couple of other players.
“My husband and I are both interested in going pro,” Romans said. “We play pickleball year-round.”
They also go around the country to compete in tournaments, and aim for one tournament a month, she said.
Recently, Romans and her doubles partner, Lexi Jensen, competed at the USA Pickleball Diamond Amateur Championships in Daytona, Florida, and won gold in the 4.5 division for players 19-34 years old.
“It felt really exhilarating,” she said. “It had been a while since I had taken gold in a 4.5 tournament and it showed me what hard work does.“
Players start with a 2.5 rating. There are standards so players can self rate, or they can improve their rating at tournaments. Above 4.5 is a 5.0 amateur division, then 5.0 open pro followed by pro.
With the win in Daytona, Romans and Jensen also qualified for the USA Pickleball National Championships next year in Indian Wells, California.
The victory, however, didn’t come easy.
The diamond championships began with pool play, with the top two teams from each pool advancing to the gold-medal bracket.
In their first game, Romans and Jensen played Nicole Hanlon and Jessica Simeri, a team called “the back wall,” and lost.
“In our first game, we lost pretty badly, actually,” she said. “I think we played pretty cold and I played nervous. I tend to be the beta and they definitely targeted me more.”
Romans called her partner, who teaches lessons as a level-2 pro in Steamboat Springs, “a fantastic player.” The two met playing on opposing mixed doubles teams at a tournament in Colorado Springs about two seasons ago and then started playing together.
After the opening-game loss in Daytona, Romans said she set some set some new goals and focused on her mental game.
“I focused on playing my game: patience, dinking and setting up good points for us,” she said.
Romans and Jensen didn’t lose again in the tournament.
They rallied from a 14-6 deficit to win another game in their pool and eventually found themselves in the finals with a rematch against Hanlon and Simeri.
“I was very excited,” Romans said. “At that point, we had nothing to lose.”
Hanlon and Simeri took the first game, 12-10, but Romans and Jensen rallied again to win the next two games, 11-8 and 11-8, to claim the gold.
“It was a great game,” Romans said. “It was close, we just both played so well, and we didn’t make as many mistakes.”
The 19-34 division is arguably the toughest as well.
“Everyone we played was like 22, 23 or 24,” said Romans, 31. “There are so many high quality players. It lends itself to more agility and there’s so much strategic placement.”
The day after competing in Daytona, Romans and Jensen competed in a 5.0 tournament in Orlando and finished fourth out of roughly 14 teams.
Romans works as the director of strategic initiatives at Fort Lewis College. Originally from Florida, she moved to Colorado in 2016 and then from Denver to Durango in November 2021 to work at the college.
Back on the pickleball court, she said she’s working on her precision, endurance and attack shots by setting up cones and playing more singles. She said playing singles also helps her move around the court. She said playing on a basketball court is significantly different from playing on a pickleball court, however, and hoped there would be dedicated outdoor courts in Durango soon.
She said she started playing right before COVID.
“It’s a time to come together around one thing – playing a fun outdoor sport,” Romans said. “You can play and have fun at every level. If you’ve had injuries in the past, you can still play. Former Division I tennis players can play singles. It’s a total gamut.”
And Romans is working toward reaching the top level and becoming a pro.
“It’s a great goal to have; it always keeps me competitive,” she said. “I don’t know if it’s realistic because I have a job. But it would be such a fun thing to do for a year or two.“
