How it started
Each year the APP Tour (the Association of Pickleball Players) brings pros and top amateurs to Danny Cunniff Park in Highland Park for the Vlasic Classic Chicago. 2026 was its eighth year in Chicago. It had no wheelchair bracket.
Juan Ortiz, a Wheelchair Softball Hall of Famer and Adapt To Life’s first ambassador, asked the tournament for one. The APP said yes. That made the Wheelchair Open Doubles bracket the first wheelchair division the APP had ever run.
“In basketball and softball, I was lucky to have huge, established adaptive programs supporting us. Wheelchair pickleball doesn’t have that infrastructure yet. If an adaptive athlete wants to try a sport, that sport has to exist first.”Juan Ortiz
Sunday, August 9
Five full teams signed up, more than any other amateur bracket at the tournament. Athletes we support from Chicago Pickleball: Wheelie Big Dills were among them.
Then the weather turned. Lightning stopped play on the outdoor courts, so the tournament moved the bracket indoors, and the athletes finished it.
The bigger week
The tournament ran five days, starting August 5. Across the week, the APP says, it raised $25,000 for Shriners Children’s, the APP’s official charity partner, and highlights were set to air on CBS Sports Network. The full results are in the APP’s own recap.
Adapt To Life didn’t host this tournament or raise money from it. We were there because the athletes we support were playing.
What it started
One bracket became a plan. Juan is now asking other tournament directors for wheelchair divisions, and the Chicago Classic, a wheelchair pickleball tournament presented by Adapt To Life, is still to come: our goal is free registration, travel and hotels for every athlete. Gifts past the road to the US Open go toward it.
