Alabama doctor, former junior tennis player heads back to New York as a pickleball pro
Aye Unnoppet of Riverchase, who has a functional medicine practice in Pelham, competes in a pickleball match. Now she's headed to New York for this week's Franklin New York City Open. Unnoppet, 52, is ranked No. 8 in the world in pro senior women’s singles pickleball. (contributed)
Aye Unnoppet grew up in a tennis-playing family who competed on the grandest stage – at the National Tennis Center in Flushing Meadows, New York.
They annually took part in the Equitable Family Tennis Challenge and Aye, the middle of three children, advanced to the Big Apple three times – first with her younger brother Nop, then her mother, Urai, and finally with her father, Kumjad.
“As a kid it was pretty special because that’s something that you always looked up to,” she recalled. “You watch it on TV and all of a sudden we get this all-expenses-paid trip to actually play there.”
This week, Riverchase’s Unnoppet returns to where she performed before, but there is a difference.
This time, she won’t be using a tennis racket. Unnoppet, a doctor with a functional medicine practice in Pelham, will be using a paddle to play pickleball, an increasingly popular sport for which she is a professional player.
Aye Unnoppet at her functional medicine practice in Pelham. The doctor, who played tennis avidly while she was growing up, picked up pickleball by chance playing with a friend and soon decided to go pro. (Solomon Crenshaw Jr. / Alabama NewsCenter)
The Franklin New York City Open is Wednesday through Sunday, May 25-29. It includes a prize purse of $125,000, the largest of any pickleball tournament where no appearance fees are included.
It is the first time the USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center, home of the U.S. Open, will host a pickleball tournament. The Franklin NYC Open is one of four pickleball majors in 2022, a golden ticket qualifier and a USA Pickleball sanctioned event.
Unnoppet is ranked No. 8 in the world in pro senior women’s singles pickleball. She is No. 20 in pro women’s doubles.
Last weekend, the 52-year-old Unnoppet competed in the Atlanta Georgia Open of the Pro Pickleball Association, the professional tour of pickleball. She and playing partner Chris Karges earned the silver medal in Women’s Senior Pro Doubles.
Now she’s heading back to New York.
“I don’t know if it feels like old times yet,” Unnoppet said. “I feel like it’s more poetic, I guess. Is it more like irony? It definitely feels like something that’s full circle.”
Aye “Pocket Doc” Unnoppet, left, and her pickleball doubles partner, Chris Karges, won silver medals in last weekend’s Atlanta Georgia Open. Unnoppet’s speed and agility enabled her to become a highly ranked player despite the disadvantage of her diminutive stature. (contributed)
Unnoppet’s journey from a junior tennis player to a pickleball pro began with her being a friend. Her best friend, a physician on the other side of town, was going through chemotherapy for her breast cancer.
“She has kind of a private (pickleball) court in the Inverness area over there,” Unnoppet said. “I would play with her basically to get her out of the house, kind of for rehab for her mental health.”
The pair played more and more, and after a few months, Unnoppet said she was turning pro.
“I started taking it more seriously, started playing more tournaments,” she said. “Then I realized there’s a little group of people here that play a lot, so I got connected with them. It kind of grew from there.”
The Atlanta Georgia Open was available via YouTube. Commentators referred to the 5-foot-1 functional medicine doctor as Pocket Doc Unnoppet.
“My good friend from medical school called me that because I was so small he felt like he could just carry me in his pocket on rounds in the hospital,” she said. “The funny thing was he was not much taller. I put it as my nickname for pickleball registrations and I can’t get it off.”
As in Unnoppet’s previous court life, height – or greater wingspan – is an advantage. The goal in pickleball is to get to the net, she said, and taller players have greater range to reach the ball.
“Being small, I rely on my speed and my agility or previous athletic ability to get to these balls, which won’t last because I’m 52 and I’m gonna get slower and slower,” the doctor said. “It’s about playing smart and whatever kind of physical prowess you have could be an advantage. It’s not about hitting hard all the time. You win by being kind of smart with pickleball.
“It’s kind of a cat-mouse game most of the time if you’re playing singles or doubles,” Unnoppet said. “It’s become a more powerful game. A lot of the players are driving the ball more than just working on strategy and placement. You’ve just got to be smart.”
Unnoppet said her best tennis showings with her family in New York came when she and her father reached the quarterfinals in 1987 and she was a runner-up in 1988 while playing with her mother. That big glass trophy from 1988 is one of the few things the parents took with them as they moved back to their native Thailand.
“That, and my dog,” the doctor said of the dachshund named Nitnoy, which means “a little bit.” “I had him in medical school.”
Unnoppet begins play in New York on Wednesday with the McCurley Cup, a coed team event that pits her East Coast team against a West Coast squad. Actual tournament action begins Thursday.
