Combine elements of badminton, pingpong and tennis and you get pickleball. And no, it’s not played with food.

Instead of a tennis racket, players substitute a wooden paddle about twice the size of a pingpong paddle. A plastic whiffle ball is used in place of the tennis ball.

A net, which resembles a volleyball net more than a tennis net, sits three feet above the floor and separates the two halves of the court, which happens to be a badminton court.

Players hit the ball back and forth and must keep it within the court’s boundaries.

If it hits the net, the ball is dead and a point goes to the serving team if it was not the one that hit the net. A team must be serving in order to score. After each serve, the server switches places with his or her partner.

Participants play a three-game series, with each game going to 15 points.

Monday night at State Gym featured the tournament round for the men’s division of intramural pickleball doubles.

Interested students could choose from three skill levels: highly skilled, intermediate and novice. Two men thought they had what it took to be in the highly skilled category.

Matt Bindner, sophomore in architecture, and John Jensen, sophomore in graphic design, are friends who played pickleball regularly in their physical education class in high school. They played doubles last year as well, placing second in the tournament.

“We played every year, [in high school], in both singles and doubles, and we kind of got some good experience,” Bindner said.

“But other than that, we don’t really play at any other time except for this once a year in intramurals.”

Bindner and Jensen played three preliminary matches, winning two. Their only loss came at the hands of two tennis players.

“They play for the Iowa State tennis [club] team, and they’ve got some skills,” Jensen said.

Bindner said the skills transfer between the two sports.

“This is the first time they played pickleball. But they’re pretty good at pickleball because of their tennis skills,” Bindner said.

Both agreed that they would probably be the team to beat.

The tennis players would win one of Monday night’s championship games — Bindner and Jensen weren’t in that game.

Jensen said even though they signed up for the highly skilled level, they don’t always play to their potential.

“We normally play at our opponents’ ability level; it’s just our weakness,” he said. “If they play bad, we play bad. If they’re good, we play good.”

“It’s not always a great thing, but that’s the way we play,” Bindner said.

The pair would have up to three chances to win a T-shirt Monday night. In their first match, their opponents didn’t show up, giving the Bindner-Jensen duo an automatic win.

Round two saw them win the first two games to take the match and move on to the final round and the championship game.

As luck would have it, Bindner and Jensen would be facing two players who went to their high school.

Trevor Huisman, freshman in finance, and Brian Fick, freshman in engineering, were their opponents. Huisman and Fick showed that they could hang with the team of Bindner and Jensen by winning the first game.

After switching sides, Huisman and Fick took an early, commanding lead over their opponents. They made it all the way to match point, with Bindner and Jensen cutting the deficit every chance they could.

A couple of long volleys and missed chances later, the match was over. Huisman and Fick were victorious after sweeping Bindner and Jensen two games to none.

“Let me tell you, those guys are a bunch of savages. That’s all we have to say,” Bindner said, laughing.