Wednesday, September 13, 2017 (Court Day #70)

I was at Derby Park by 9:05. It was a drizzly morning with rain predictions. Dave was setting up and visor Tom were there helping. It was just us three. Stuart added a fourth. The drizzle seemed to slow down the arrivals some. Even then, it was a light attendance day. The sixth net never got set up.

The first game was Dave and myself against Tom and Stuart. I think Dave was even less warmed up than I was—we lost. There was one point where Stuart slammed the ball at me and started celebrating . . . when I sent the ball back, he was taken by surprise. It did end up in the net, but nonetheless, I was a bit quicker than he was expecting! We used Tom’s Dura 40 ball for that game. As I told him, it’s good for me to get used to balls used in tournament since I’d like to play in one someday.

I played a variety of games over the next few hours.

There was a new guy Steve who someone said lives in Los Gatos but used to live in Ireland and Canada. He’s a very strong lefty player. He’s better than I am.

The court started getting slippery and we called the game with Steve and me leading 3-2 over Terri and Grita. Steve said, “This is my first rain in Santa Cruz!” I was on the road about 11:45 to Togo’s for lunch with Eric and Ted.

I got a text from Oleg asking if I wanted to join them tonight for a game—they weren’t at the courts this morning—but given that I already have plans tonight, I had to turn him down.

How was today? It was an ordinary day. Not poor, not great. Time on the court. Today, I occasionally told myself, “treat this point as if you are in a tournament”. And that helps focus. Just playing games helps some, but focused practice helps more.

Number of days on a court: 70
Number of total hours: 199

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