Thursday, July 27, 2017 (Court Day #50)

Last night, I had emailed Karen Long a photo of her ATP shot and thanked her for playing with me/us. She said it’s relaxing to play a game where you don’t have to meet certain expectations and not count unforced errors—I’m sure not literally count, but you know. There’s less pressure playing against weaker players. Another email followed shorting asking if I would share the videos that I took of those two games. Of course. There’s now a datastick in my backpack for her!

Scotts Valley

I arrived at Skypark at about 10 minutes to 7. Things were hopping. I took a seat on the bench and waited about five minutes for a game to open up. Neighbor Dave was there as was Allan, Eric, Ted, Mark (Maree’s husband), and a few Scotts Valley regulars such as Mark Dettle, Larry, Kristin (tall, pleasant) and a few others. 25 people, give or take. Cheryl (site organizer) wasn’t there which was too bad, she’s another one of those fun people to play with.

Dave and I played a game against Eric and Ted. I’m glad that one was not on video. My first few games are generally not that great—hopefully, someday, I’ll be able to walk onto a court and play solidly.

I played a few games with and against a woman with short hair named Debbie (whose daughter just graduated from UCLA she said)—I was wearing a UCLA T-shirt. UCLA is where my son Nicholas is studying Applied Mathematics.

It seems that it takes me a while to warm up to the point of playing decently. About an hour or four games. I had some miserable shots. Out of the two hours of constant games, I think I missed two serves—one a few inches right of the sideline (going for the backhand) and one that was a few inches long. I had a few returns sail too deep—overdoing the Jerry method of returns.

I had some good shots, but overall, it was not an evening where I was happy with my play.

A consistent issue is popping up winners for the other side. Gotta. Keep. It. Low!

Things wrapped up just about 9 p.m. I stopped by work on the way home since the alarm had gone off. An officer was onsite but nothing seemed amiss, so I thanked the officer and we both headed on our ways. Home for dinner!

Number of days on a court: 50
Number of total hours: 144.5