Sunday, April 9, 2017 (Court Day #13)
I spent yesterday in San Francisco, seeing my son Nicholas sail for UCLA in a college regatta. (He did pretty well, finishing the top third of the fleet.) Between races, I killed time reading the official IFP rules for pickleball that I had printed off of the IFP website. John’s son Michael sails for the University of Hawaii which was competing, so John was watching races as well, though he sailed himself in a dinghy regatta elsewhere in the Bay Area that morning. When John arrived in the afternoon, he asked what I was reading.
“The pickleball rules.”
“Ha! I knew it!”
Yah, John. It’s your fault. You got me hooked!
The Day Begins
I arrived at Derby about 9:10 and helped set up a net. Today was my first day using my new paddle.
The first thing I noticed about my paddle was the change in sound, a lower pitch on impact with the ball. That’s not good or bad, but different. The performance wasn’t all that much different than the paddle that I had on loan from John, but at least now I can’t blame my paddle when I hit my drop shot into the net all the time!
I played a game against Eric and Tom S. with Jerry as my partner. (Now, this is a different Jerry, not Jerry Louis the tournament player. I remember playing against this Jerry at Scotts Valley and being told to hit to his backhand.) Jerry saw me putting up my GoPro camera and said, “Why are you recording?” “So I can get better.” “But you are already a good player.” Nice to hear, though I have a loooong way to go!
Jerry is a super nice guy and has a strong forehand as well as what can be a deadly lob—our first point came on a perfect lob of his to right corner over Tom’s head. While I have a number of areas to work on, Jerry has only one obvious one, that is running around his backhand. Shown in the photo below, instead of hitting with his backhand, he moved to his far left to hit it with is forehand. Unfortunately, his forehand drive left a whole lot of the court unprotected and Eric, at the net, dropped the return into the upper right of our court for a winner. I intended to mention this to Jerry in case he isn’t aware of this, but I spaced. (Yes, I am not perfect!) Next time I play with him, I should tell to just go ahead and work on his backhand, to heck with the final score!
Hanging In
Here’s a sequence that shows that I’m getting better. Here is Eric about to slam Jerry’s (too short) lob at me:
As you can see above, I have my paddle in a neutral ready position. I successfully hit the ball back near Eric’s left foot and return to ready position:
Eric manages to get it returned, but it’s a touch too high:
And the slammer becomes the slammee!
“Way to hang in!”, commended Eric. Eric is still a better player than me, but I’m doing my best to improve! Which I need to do.
Just to keep things fair, a couple of points later, here I am hitting a return from Eric, right into the net! (You can just make out the ball hitting the net right where Eric’s left kneecap is.) Rats.
“That’s No Small Moon…”
One of my ongoing problems is not keeping the ball low. Here’s an example:
That yellow spot right above the fence line is not a small moon. That’s the ball that I just popped up . . . and Eric smashed it perfectly right between the feet of Jerry and myself—impossible to return. Watching the video I’m amazed at how high I popped that ball up! So bad!! “Keep it low!” Jerry and I went from leading the game to losing 11-7. Of their last two points, two came from me hitting the ball too low into the net. “Keep it low…but not that low!”
Sneaky Serves
In the above image from another game, you can see my serve landing just past the kitchen line. Wayne did manage to get his paddle on the ball, but he could only get the ball into the net. He did the same thing to me later! I did manage to get my first true ace serve though later against him with a serve closer to the outside corner. Battle of the sneaky servers! I don’t have it recorded since I forgot to erase the previous files of of my GoPro and it ran out of space mid-game. Too bad.
Eric and I did manage to take down the two Toms. Tom S. and young Tom L. 11-2. I think they were having an off day. Though it was a bit funny since Tom L. was kidding right before the game, “You recording me kicking your ass?” Not today! LOL!
Ouch!
Somewhere in the middle of the morning, I did something weird—hyperextended?—to my right big toe. Not enough to keep me from playing but a touch uncomfortable. Add to that my continuing strained right gluteus maximus muscle, my slightly tweaked right hip, my sore—but improving—back. At least might right knee is acting fine. Advil is my friend.
The day wrapped up about 12:20, Dave Allenbaugh stuck around long enough for us to squeeze in one last game before calling it a day. I was worn out, but it’s hard to stop!
Number of day on a court: 13
Number of hours: 37
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