Fed and Pablo: Fiery Friends
| October 30, 2023
Pablo Tellez and Federico Staksrud are best friends. They live about 15 minutes apart and are now long-standing pickleball partners and among the top pickleball teams in the world. They plan on being partners for all of 2024 on the PPA Tour.
They recently chatted on an Instagram Live session with PPA Tour’s Ireland Horvat. Here are some of the highlights of what they had to say:
Their first meeting
Tellez: “The first 10 times I met him we played singles, and he never said a word to me. We’d play and then he’d just leave.”
Staksrud: “I was working full-time and going to school and I was also teaching tennis. I was playing pickleball with them and I told them I had to go.”
Dining together
Staksrud: “The biggest problem with Pablo is he takes 10 hours to do anything. I eat in like 5 minutes and then I have to wait and watch him eat. It’s tough. You get used to it, though.”
The transition from making the move to the United States
Tellez: “The first year was tough. I didn’t know any English and I couldn’t talk to girls, but you catch up quick.”
2024 Goals
Staksrud: “We’ve been close. Silvers and bronze. We’re missing that gold. We’re so close.”
Tellez: “Last year was a learning year. Next year, we’re looking to be the best in the game. That’s what we’re working for.”
On-court fiery personalities
Tellez: “My mom gets embarrassed sometimes. My dad is emotional, he understands if we’re in a bad mood, sometimes it’s better to let it happen. When we’re upset, we usually recover quickly. We know how lucky we are and try to keep things in perspective that way.”
Staksrud: “We get really upset when we lose. We have to change that, for sure. My dad used to tell me, ‘I don’t want to know if you’re winning or losing when I’m looking at you.’”
“When we’re winning, we’re laughing all over the place. If we’re losing, we have to be more neutral.”
Their favorite PPA Tour venue
Tellez: “North Carolina.”
Staksrud: “Newport Beach.”
A brush with greatness
Tellez: “Jack [Sock] and Sam [Querrey] are around us and are colleagues. They were top 10-15 in the world [in tennis]. For me, that’s really big time for sure.”
Tellez’s personality
Staksrud (joking): “When Pablo says something, 95-percent of it is fake or a lie. Just double check with me, and I’ll tell you what’s going on.”
Watch the Live Stream here.
