Friday, July 14, 2017 (Court Day #44)

I arrived at Brommer Park at about 9:15 to a busy scene. There were six courts in use—4 permanent, 2 temporary—and the last two nets were mere minutes away from being set up.

The scene at my arrival.

I played a game with a woman named Linda against her husband Paul and Mike. She was a good player and her husband wasn’t too far behind. Later in the morning, I saw her signing up on the waiting board as an advanced player (red pen)—not a shock.


Players waiting toward the end of the morning as the crowd thinned out. Peter is in green at the left, Maree in the white hat on the right next to former neighbor Dave with the puppy!

Up until 10 a.m. there was one pen color. The idea being a single hour that all players mix it up, strong with weak, etc. I’ll have to take advantage of that to play with strong players. After 10, there were red (“advanced”), brown (“intermediate advanced”), and orange (“intermediate”). There is some question what I am, but brown seems probably most correct. I feel I’m probably as good as Maree and her husband Mark now and they were using brown.

The last game was Jukka and me versus Grita and Maree. Jukka was a bit rusty and his frequent tennis playing and less frequent pickleball playing showed in him hitting about half a dozen shots long. Jukka is a good player. It was an off day. I apparently forget how strong Grita’s forehand is. Jukka and I lost pretty handily.

We were the last ones to leave at a quarter to 1.

The Takeaways

For today:

– Boy. It’s crazy how effective the third shot drop is. I need to continue to develop that and use it more often.

– Never judge a book by its cover. There was a short fellow named Tom, he’s probably about 5’3″, give or take. He surprised me. He had a killer serve—grunting with each one—and a few of these could only be returned into the net. He also had reliable strokes—with some of his strong forehands clearing the net by only a few inches. When I hit one into the net, I kidded, “And that’s why I’m not a 5.0.” He shared something that included that he’s a 4.0 player—yeah, I believe it. Very solid player.

– Patience is a key virtue in dinking. I have to wait for the clear winner, not the possible winner. For every great sequence of dinking, I have a time when I drive the ball into my side of the net while attempting a low kill shot.

Making progress. But still not really ready for a tournament yet.

Number of days on a court: 44
Number of total hours: 127