Friday, September 8, 2017. (Court Day #68)

I arrived at Brommer Park at 9:10. There was some car accident in Soquel and it backed up the freeway and side streets some.


Gearing up for the day at Brommer. Grita (right) standing with Terry Long (left) in the first court as I walk up.

I spent the morning in assorted games. I was playing well from the get-go. Not perfectly, but solid. I spent the morning going from game to game where I was either the best playing person on the court or one of the two best players on the court. I’m not saying that I’m necessarily always better of the players I was up against or with, but today was a good day in terms of my performance. And, of course, I wasn’t mixing it up with the “red” players, the advanced players, I was playing with “blue” intermediate-adv players and in one instance, with “black” intermediate players.

I have to say, my drop shots are getting far, far better and more reliable. I’d say that I make at least 75% of my drop shots now, maybe as high as 90%. Not all are great drop shots, but almost all prevent my opponent from smashing the ball back.

I had a perfect opportunity for my first true “around the post” shot today. (Yes, I executed one once, but it didn’t count since the other team had called the ball out on my side of the court just before I hit it.) I was off to the left of the court, I hit the ball for the easy shot and . . . my paddle was too parallel to the net and so the ball traveled down the line and didn’t angle back into their side of the court. Out. Bummer. It would have been great!

As the morning wound down, I asked Terry and Karen Long if I could play with them. I told Karen I was ready for a more challenging game. I was hoping for one where I could get embarrassed . . . those are the games that you learn in. David Black filled in the fourth spot and I knew I’d be in a formidable game. Terry is a 5.0 player, Karen is a 4.5 and David is a 4.0. Me? I’m still not even rated on the USAPA.org website. (It’d help if I entered a tournament some day! Maybe I’m a 3.0? A 3.5?)

The first game, Karen and David won against Terry and me. I was obviously the weakest player on the court—and Terry the strongest—but I wasn’t blowing it all the time. We lost something like 11-6. We were using a new bright green “hard ball” as Terry called it. It was a bit slippery and I found it a bit hard to control. Serves and returns floated long and adjusting for drop shots was tricky. My court-mates even found the ball troublesome, which made me feel a little better about messing up. David has a very good fast low serve. I returned one into the net. But Terry did the same thing on David’s very next serve, so I wasn’t a complete loser. David’s serves are ones that I’m happy to get over the net, let alone back positioned perfectly in their court!

In the middle of that game, after a point, Terry accidentally barely leaned on the net but it was just enough and the metal cable popped. It was one of the two nets that had been vandalized very recently and the end of the cable was unusually short so it pulled out of the winch. We spent a few minutes trying to get net operational, but finally we left it to Dan Bliss and his winch crank and we moved to another open permanent court to finish our game. 4-6-2, we were down, Terry’s serve from the right side. (I got it fixed in my memory, so we wouldn’t forget!)

There was a shot where I stretched over to the right and poached the ball but I didn’t put the ball away. Instead Karen hit it back for a winner. Terry, in his encouraging manner, said, “If you are going to poach, give it a hard hit.” As has been mentioned before on this blog, “If you are going to poach, make it a winner.”

The second game, Terry and I won 11-9. We had all given up on the other ball and switched to a different one after the first game. This was not one of the typical yellow Onix balls that the majority of club uses, but a somewhat translucent yellow-green ball. This one was much easier to control. At one point, David said, “Andrew likes those hard shots. He just blocks them at the net!”

David wanted a “rebound”—that is, a rematch. The third and final game of the day, Terry and I lost 11-7.

After the games, Terry said that I’d played well. Terry is such a nice guy, I’m not going to let that go to my head . . . which is not hard since most of the shots we lost were a result of my failure in some respect. Terry very easily could have made me feel really bad about my misses, but that’s not how he is. Also, David and Karen could have sent every ball my way instead of Terry. But they didn’t do that and seek an advantage. Instead, Terry definitely got his fair share of shots. I think Karen and David were seeking to make the games more challenging for them too!

Once a ball got dinked crosscourt to my hard left by Karen. I did exactly what I pointed out in the video in my last blog post as one of my flaws. That is, popping the ball up instead of crosscourt when I’m out of position. David slammed the ball and even Terry couldn’t handle that one. My fault. One of many items to improve.

Speaking of improving, I made a conscious effort to keep my paddle up at the net and in a backhand position in front of my chest in those last games. That’s a step forward.

By 12:20, we were done. There was still one game going, but I was out. Work to do at . . . well, work!

Number of days on a court: 68
Number of total hours: 193.5

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