The Pauls Valley Tennis and Racquet Association will host its second “Wimbley in the Valley” July 12 at Pauls Valley’s Wacker Park.
Timed to coincide with the final Saturday of the 2025 Championships at Wimbledon, Wimbley in the Valley features the sport of touchtennis, described by organizers as a scaled-down adaptation of tennis.
“In terms of how the sport is played, the way to think of it is more of a basically mini-tennis,” said Tournament Director Ryan Rennie. “It’s a kid’s tennis racket, a compressed foam tennis ball, played on about a half-sized tennis court.”
This year’s event is expected to bring a new level of competition, along with the chance to earn world ranking as a touchtennis competitor.
Rennie said after last year’s inaugural Wimbley in the Valley, touchtennis USA, the U.S. arm of the organization that promotes and ranks touchtennis players around the world, reached out to ask if PVTRA would be interested in making Wimbley in the Valley a sanctioned tournament, allowing its competitors to earn global ranking points.
“It’s a huge bump for Wimbley to become a sanctioned event,” Rennie said.
Wimbley in the Valley, which is played on grass, will be the first sanctioned lawn touchtennis tournament in the United States, according to Rennie.
Sanctioned touchtennis tournaments range from 25 to 2000 level tournaments, indicating the number of ranking points available. Wimbley in the Valley will be a 200-level tournament, Rennie said, which will put the winner of Wimbley’s men’s division into the top 100 ranked male players in the world and the winner of the women’s division will be in the top 50 for women.
Participants in the sanctioned matches will also be playing for a $2,500 purse spread across five divisions.
This year’s tournament has already drawn registrations from ranked players in Michigan and Iowa, as well as local competitors.
Wimbley in the Valley will also have non-sanctioned matches. Those will include a senior division for ages 50 and up, a junior division for players 15 and under, and a “Get Out and Play” bracket, all designed for those interested in healthy competition without ranking points or prize money. All equipment needed to participate will be provided.
Registration ranges from $25 for singles play to $50 for team or doubles play.
Those interested in registering for the sanctioned tournament can do so online at touchtennis.com. Registration for the non-sanctioned matches can be found online at pvtra.square.site.
Similar to last year’s event, Wimbley in the Valley will also include several activities designed to bring a fun Wimbledonstyle spin to the event. Those will include a British accent contest with cash prizes in both youth and adult divisions, the opportunity to snap your picture with life-sized cutouts of members of the Royal family, and a live band playing British music.
There will be a free lunch of barbecue sandwiches and non-alcoholic Pimm’s Cup, along with strawberries and cream, a Wimbledon tradition.
Net proceeds from the event will go to the Wacker Park tennis court renovation project, court enhancements or to local tennis or other racket sport programming. The tournament gets underway at 8 a.m.
