A Florida husband and wife absolutely pounded a rival couple on the pickleball court at the Spruce Creek Country Club in Port Orange, Florida on Sunday. Who actually won the match prior to it is not clear from People.com’s gripping summary of the bloody aftermath but it’s safe to say that 65 year-old local man Anthony Sapienza and wife Julianna, 53, take the game at least seriously enough that Tony was willing to get hit with two counts of felony battery on a person 65 years of age or older, and aggravated battery causing bodily harm, and Julianna a single battery over 65 count.
According to police reports Tony accused the unnamed 70 year-old male of stepping in “the kitchen,” which is pickleball dork slang for a 7-foot buffer in front of the net, a violation typically overlooked by opponents in what’s supposed to be the casual, accessible, Wiffle Ball version of tennis given an inarticulably worse name. The match ended and words continued to be exchanged, including a specific one that starts with a “C” – as in Tony told the man “You wife’s a [c-word].”
Then… Armageddon. The man objected and told Tony not to speak to her that way. “Anthony then approached him and punched him on the left side of the face and struck him with a pickleball paddle, causing significant bleeding” and then “forcefully” pushed the female victim to the ground, according to the police report. A third man, also 70, tried to intervene, only to have Tony punch him in the face, “causing his nose to bleed profusely.” At some point Tony used a pickleball paddle as a weapon against one or both of the men. By this time someone had already dialed 911 to report “over 20 individuals” were involved in a “a physical fight in progress on the pickleball court,” per a dispatcher’s notes on the police response. People.com’s reporting does not make clear what Julianna specifically is accused of doing during the brawl and to whom. The two picklepunks escaped the country club and were apprehended by cops at an unspecified later time and place.