Story by Ryan Heller
Video by Richard Adkins
Graphic by Makayla Williams
Photos courtesy of Anton Gudz
Jared Zopp always had a tradition after completing his tennis lessons at a school court in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He would grab a whiffle ball and a wooden paddle, and walk over to a court more than 30 feet shorter than the tennis court.
He practiced pickleball.
On a 2017 spring day, he played pickleball with his friend Nick Galez, who suggested that Zopp bring his roommate – Anton Gudz.
Gudz had a tennis and racquetball background, and Zopp figured he would enjoy it. But Gudz was unwilling to try a new sport, resisting several invitations. After a couple weeks, he finally gave in.
“When we came back from our first time playing pickleball together, I asked ‘So, what do you think?’” Zopp said. “He said, ‘I’m never playing that sport again.’”
But soon, he was back on the pickleball court.
“I think everyone who gets into pickleball has a similar story like this, where they don’t know what it is, and then randomly find it somehow and instantly like it,” Gudz said.
But Gudz’s journey has a twist. He became a star on the pickleball court all while pursuing a full-time career in the field of chemistry.
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During his first few months playing, Gudz rarely beat Galvez and Zopp. It took him a year to best Galvez, a local ambassador for the USA Pickleball Association. Around that time, Zopp returned from medical school to Chapel Hill, where Gudz was awaiting their next rematch.
“He just whacked me,” Zopp said. “He kicked my rear.”
That same year, Gudz won a U.S. Open tournament, the highest amateur event, giving him enough confidence to go pro.
On his first tour in Atlanta, he was approached by a man who noticed his old Wilson paddle.
“He was like ‘You’re pretty good, but like, what paddle are you using?’’’ Gudz said. “I told him about it and he said, ‘Yeah, this is ridiculous.’ It’s basically the equivalent of using a wooden ping pong paddle.”
He still won his first match.
He has since made deals with companies, like Selkirk and HUDEF, that provided him with all the gear he needed, and he has quickly climbed to the No. 22 spot in the PPA’s current rankings at the age of 27.
“He’s very tenacious,” Galvez said. “He learned how to win. It’s impressive and brave that he put himself out there so quickly.”
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A native of Odessa, Ukraine, Gudz moved to Mystic, Connecticut, at age 11 with his mom, Tatiana, after she married an American.
Along with learning from Tatiana – who worked as an interpreter for English – he watched several American cartoons such as “SpongeBob SquarePants” and “Hey Arnold” and movies including the Harry Potter series and The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
He grew up and studied chemistry at the University of Connecticut While there, he was recruited by Michel Gagne, a chemistry professor at UNC.
When he started playing pickleball in Chapel Hill, his focus on chemistry never wavered. Pickleball just became his second life.
Gagne never even knew Gudz was a professional pickleball player. When his class went out for one of its annual lunches, he and the rest of his class would joke about Gudz’s tendency to order a burrito bowl without any rice – just the toppings. He believed it was nothing more than a dietary choice, not a pickleball training regiment.
“He always seemed to keep a pretty cool head, at least around me,” Gagne said. “He just seemed like he could skate through things, stay focused and get things done.”
Whenever Gudz had a free moment, he would write down what he needed to improve on in each profession. When a pickleball tournament overlapped with class, he’d assign days to take off and elect which competitions he wouldn’t attend. And when he was kept at work until night, he’d find time to get in a workout whether it was early in the morning or at midnight.
“I equate professional athletes with a massive time commitment,” Gagne said. “I equate chemistry graduate students trying to get their doctorate with a massive time commitment. So, the sum of those two things would be pretty darn challenging to pull off. So, the fact that he managed to do that is really remarkable.”
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Gudz works full-time as a technical sales specialist for Thermo Fisher Scientific. In order to continue his athletic ventures, he had to keep up his juggling act. That’s the reality of a pro pickleball player.
“Only the top 10-15 people can rely on pickleball as their full-time job,” Gudz said. “They can make enough money winning tournaments, teaching lessons or camps and getting sponsorship money. This is where we are as a sport.”
Most of the other players, like Gudz, have a second career to keep them financially afloat. And since he has yet to win a singles tournament and doesn’t work as an instructor, he hasn’t gotten the type of paychecks a player with his ranking would collect in sports such as tennis.
Pickleball, while invented in the 1960s, hadn’t seen much growth until recently, especially professionally. The current top tours – the PPA and the Association of Pickleball Professionals – were both established within the past five years.
“We have a few lawyers, coaches and a couple entrepreneurs,” PPA Head of Content Hannah Johns said.
Though he has a community to support him, Gudz still deals with uncertainty. Since pickleball is a new sport, there’s no roadmap for him to follow. But he knows he can adapt.
“I look at it more as an opportunity than a struggle,” Gudz said.
When the first serve is made, a switch in Gudz’s head turns on. He blocks out all the distractions around him. For the duration of a match, he is only a pickleball player.
***
After that first match, Gudz was hooked on the sport, despite not loving his first taste of it.
“I think that competitiveness is what made him say that he was never going to play again,” Zopp said. “But also at the same time, I think it was his competitiveness that got him back on the pickleball court because he knew that he could get better. He hated losing.”
It’s the same type of intensity he often shows in a chemistry lab. It’s the emotion that drives him to focus on being the best he can be at both occupations.
“He’s not somebody who likes to wait around and let an issue linger at work,” Gudz’s girlfriend, Iryna Feshchak, said. “It transcends to pickleball. He likes to address it, which his customers and his team probably find to be beneficial.”
But to Gudz, that’s not a hassle. It’s just a chance for him to perform his two passions.
“That’s the funny thing about this,” Gudz said. “Pickleball is my break from work and work is my break from pickleball.”
