Roscoe Bellamy went pro in 2023, but with his life-long tennis background, he’s one to watch in pro pickleball. On Nov. 5, I had the opportunity to follow around this pro for the round of 64 at the Lapiplasty Pickleball World Championships to get an inside look as to what a day in the life of this pro looks like. 

At 7:05 am, Bellamy’s alarm goes off. 

“Though I hit snooze a couple of times,” admitted Bellamy. 

At 8:15, Yates and Hunter Johnson, and Parris Todd all went to breakfast together to fuel up for the day. 

“I had three eggs, hash browns, bacon, and coffee,” said Bellamy. 

As soon as he arrived at Brookhaven, he went right to warming up with fellow pros Michael Loyd and Blaine Hovenier. 

 

But before he hit the court, he stood courtside to do his dynamic warm up with yoga stretches like cat cows, downward dog, and lateral lunges to get his body warmed up to play. 

“It’s super important because a lot of times if you don’t properly warm up, things don’t fire the right way. There’s a higher risk of injury and you just don’t feel as good out there. So, I always make sure to warm up properly. It’s an old tennis habit that I’ve been doing my whole career,” said Bellamy. 

Then, it was time to drill.

“First, I warm up at the kitchen line, dink, things like that. Then I move back to the baseline and warm up ground strokes. Then, we work on serves. After that, we go into point play and that’s really just getting everything warmed up,” explained Bellamy. 

Bellamy sat as the No. 12 seed in singles and he went up against the No. 50 seed who battled his way from qualifiers into the main draw, Zane Ford. 

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Roscoe Bellamy (@roscoebellamy)

 

Bellamy dominated game one, 11-2. But Ford came back and took game two 11-9.

“I took the first game but I just gave him some forehand returns in the second set that I shouldn’t have,” explained Bellamy. 

However, Bellamy came out on top in game three with a final 11-5 score. 

“But I felt like I was controlling the match the entire time,” said Bellamy. 

But there was no time to waste. Bellamy had about ten minutes between singles and his mixed match alongside Genie Erokhina. 

“This is the quickest I’ve ever had to change gears completely from singles to mixed. Rather than driving a lot of balls, I’m dropping, coming in, hitting a lot of volleys, and a lot of dinks. It’s a completely different game to be quite honest. And I try to play conservative from the start,” said Bellamy as he was dinking cross court with Erokhina before the start of the match.

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Roscoe Bellamy (@roscoebellamy)

 

Erokhina and Bellamy have played together before, and sitting as the 31 seed in mixed dubs, they went up against the No. 37 seeds Anderson Scarpa and Olivia McMillan. 

Winning another game in three, Bellamy and Erokhina won 11-3, 7-11, 11-2. 

“Roscoe always fights till the last point and finds a way to keep fighting no matter the score,” said Erokhina after their victory. 

When asked what specifically worked well today with their partnership, Erokhina had this to say:

“I think my drop in and cross court dinks were good. And Roscoe being big and aggressive in the middle worked for us.”

“Also, playing aggressive on our serve,” Bellamy added. “Driving when the ball was high, making the right decisions, dropping when the ball was low, and her drops cross court. Any time she got it down we were able to win the point once we got to the kitchen.”

Bellamy had some downtime before his men’s doubles match with Ivan Jakovljevic where he got to relax, hydrate, and hang out with fellow pro friends like Hunter and Yates Johnson. 

“The friendships keep you sane on tour with how much we’re traveling,” said Bellamy. “We all get dinner together and split an Airbnb every tournament. If I didn’t have good buddies around me, I wouldn’t be able to do it.” 

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Roscoe Bellamy (@roscoebellamy)

 

But soon enough, it was time for Bellamy’s favorite event, men’s doubles. He and Jakovljevic warmed up alongside Scarpa and Greg Dow. 

This round of 64 match was a particular stand out of the day. Bellamy’s opponent, Maximilian Wild and Dave Bacalla. 

Wild was actually Bellamy’s college roommate when they played tennis together at UCLA. 

“He’s one of my buddies so it’s definitely a little weird to play him, but he’s super talented and I’m excited to see on the pickleball court,” said Bellamy. 

Bellamy and Jakovljevic took game one 11-6. But Wild and Bacalla came back in game two, leading 6-0 against Bellamy and Jakovljevic. 

“In moments like that, you just have to string together some points and see if you can get momentum. It’s tough and it’s a crappy feeling when your opponent starts taking the lead. Especially because they were serving big and hit some good drives. We just needed to get to the kitchen and execute the same points that we were doing in the beginning and,” said Bellamy. 

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Roscoe Bellamy (@roscoebellamy)

 

But Bellamy and Jakoljevic fought back and won game 11-9, marking Bellamy’s third victory of the day. 

Another key element to Bellamy and Jakoljevic’s success was the right-handed and left-handed player combination. 

“The righty lefty combo is great because you have two forehands in the middle and two backhands on the outer wing. It’s like both players are kind of the aggressors and you can do a lot of damage from both sides. It’s fun playing with a lefty for sure,” said Bellamy. 

After the long day of three tense but victorious matches, Bellamy went back to his Airbnb to hydrate, eat a big meal, and watch film of today’s matches. 

In the round of 32, Bellamy will face off against Todd Fought. In mixed, he and Erokhina will play No. 4 seeded Quang Duong and Anna Bright. And in men’s he’ll go up against Connor Garnett and Tyler Loong.

To keep up to date with Bellamy, tune in to Pickleballtv and pickleball.com’s Live Blog.