Wednesday, April 5, 2017 (Court Day #12)
i arrived at Derby Park at 9:10 to find one game already in full swing, my friend John was amongst them.
Today was better than Sunday, I made fewer errors. My number one error is simply hitting the ball into the net when I mean to drop it over, typically when I’m moving up to the kitchen.
During one game, I was partnered with Tom S., a pleasant fellow. Tom is a tall thin man with a trim white beard. He’s a regular. Tom stopped me between points and told me to make sure to keep a player that is back at her baseline back by hitting deep. Of course, he’s right. It’s just implementing what I already have learned into an actual game.
Tom advising me to not hit short to a player who is back. Yeah. Oops.
Eric and I played two games against Allen and Lauren. We lost both by roughly a 2:1 score ratio. We were just making too many mistakes by either setting up easy shots for them or failing to get our shots over the net or within the bountries of their court. That’s not to say they aren’t solid players, they are. Not 5.0 players, but probably one notch above Eric and myself—not as many unforced errors.
I lost a few points over the morning by lobbing too short (smashed back) or too long (out). And you wonder why the pros only lob about 1% of the time.
Serving Hard
While Eric and I were waiting for our opponents, I figured I’d try a hard serve. I hit a serve as hard as I could with topspin. To my surprise, it landed in . . . right on the line in the corner! Not one I’d trust in a game quite yet! Though it still didn’t seem as fast as I’d like, it was promising.
Paddle
I checked the tracking on my paddle and USPS says it’s expected Friday. I had been hoping today, but as far as using it on a court, it makes no difference if it came later today or then. And I’ll still need to install the overgrip anyway.
SCPC Shirts
The Santa Cruz Pickleball Club came up with a new white club T-shirt with a big graphic on the back to go along with the small breastpocket logo. Karen Long kindly arranged the sales. I bought a medium one for $25. I was expecting a standard cotton shirt, but these are fancy wicking synthetics. Now if I can just get good enough to wear it and not dishonor it!
Dave Allenbaugh modeling the new SCPC shirt
Videos
I recorded another few games today. The one I wish I would have recorded was Dan and myself against Dave (former neighbor) and a 30-something tall guy named Mark with short blond hair. Some of the regulars knew Mark though I’d never seen him. I overheard Mark say he’d been in Costa Rica. Mark is a hard hitter. So was this guy Dan. Dan is about my height but stocky, sporting dark hair and a trim beard sprinkled with gray. I’m still trying to figure out how Dan was getting so much speed on his serves. Dan and I won, but that was more Dan than me. I managed to avoid losing too many points. Dan saved me a few times by successfully returning slams that I’d inadvertently set up. But it was nice to not be the reason had we lost. That felt like the most serious game I’d been in with the ball whipping back and forth. There was at least one point where I could take credit since I was volleying at the net and was able to put away the point between Dave and Mark. The match was like jumping onto one of those spinning top-like playground structures—most have removed these days as unsafe!—and hanging on for dear life! You are glad you survived afterward!
The Long Dink
One thing that I’m getting pretty good at is cross court dinking. In the video still above, you can see Dave trying to return my cross court dink. I’ve managed a few of those recently. Hmmm. Looks like Eric and I both should have shifted to the right. If Dave had gotten that he could have popped it down the line or around the post. He did manage to hit it, but not get it back onto our side of the court. Dave and John did come back in this game and win however.
The day wrapped up at noon. Allen seems to have a tighter schedule than Dave A. Dave often hangs out while players continue to play past the official noon ending time; Allen, not so much. I headed home and then off to work to muse about my next pickleball day with rain in the forecast this week.
Number of days on a court: 12
Number of hours: 34
Leave a Reply