Month: September 2017 (Page 3 of 5)

Saturday, September 9, 2017 (Off Day) 

Well. I had my first pickleball dream. I woke up this morning after dreaming I discovered that I had snapped my paddle right at the top of the grip under the wrappings. Had it really happened, I wouldn’t have had to unwrap it to see the break. A bad dream.

Later, I realized why I had the dream. No, it had nothing to do with being in three challenging games yesterday with advanced players. What caused it is Allan asking me to be the individual responsible to open and set up the courts on Sunday at Derby Park—followed by emails with Dave Allenbaugh about it. I’m a very responsible person, but I’m not retired and Sunday is my only guaranteed day off. Working 6 days per week at the family business has been common fare for me for about 30 years. Pickleball has been good for me, since it’s a reason to get exercise and take an extra 6-8 hours off each week, bringing me down closer to a standard 40-hour workweek. Still, it’s kind of a drag to have obligations—even if one pertains to fun—every single day of the week. Bottom line, it’s stressing me out a bit. But, I don’t want to just be a mooch and take advantage of others who volunteer to open the court. I should “take a turn” and give back. (Not that everyone takes a turn. The SCPC steering committee votes to approve openers.) And there would be backup openers when I can’t do it, so I wouldn’t be on the hook no matter what.

Sunday, September 10, 2017 (Court Day #69)

I was at Derby Park by 9:10. It was a nice day though the temperature would climb into the 80s. A couple of courts were already full.

On my way, I needed to be careful of possible Avengers sightings. Don’t mess with Iron Man!

Ok, so it was a triathlon. Regardless, it didn’t affect my typical path to the courts.

I played an early game with a woman named Susan who turns out is a regular customer at work. “Your name is Andrew? Andrew Lenz?” “Yes . . . how do you know?” “I’ve shopped at your business for years.” She was very nice.

Janet kindly asked how my back was. I told her it was stiff but ok. Grita (my partner for the game) said, “You have back problems?” “It happens when you turn 50.” “You’re 50? I thought you were 40. You look young!” Grita looks young too. She could easily pass for mid-50s instead of the mid-60s that she is. My back isn’t bad. It just gets stiff in the mornings.

I played a bunch of games. I continued to work on having my paddle up and it came in handy on a point where I was playing against Wayne. Wayne, while not an advanced player, has a rocket forehand. I had my paddle up in backhand position, and it was ready for Wayne. The ball got back.

David & Beth Black and Oleg had signed up on the schedule board for a game—names in red for advanced players. I added my name in the next (empty) box in intermediate green. I took a few steps back to allow other people in toward the board. I turned and David asked if I’d like to join their game. “Sure!” I dashed back to the board, wiped my name off of the next box with my finger and added my name in green beneath theirs . . . then I wrote over my name in red so it looked both colors! Someone said, “Hey! Andrew signed up in a red box!” I explained, “I got permission!” We’ll see if David and Beth continue to allow me to play with them.

I played as Beth’s partner. We started the game leading 4-1. Oleg had uncharacteristically returned 2-3 balls into the net. I think David had one too, but they dialed in as the game progressed. I made some errors, as expected. We were playing with one of those hard balls again, which does tweak one’s game a bit. I had to be really careful to not serve too deep, but it happened once anyway. There was one point that I remember, where I had a perfect shot down and off the court, but I hit it about a foot out. Beth would apologize to me when she’d make a mistake. It was very polite. Though I’d be apologizing all the time! Ok, maybe not all the time, but more then her! She was very encouraging and supportive. I made more mistakes than I liked. Beth and I lost. Still it was a great experience. Every game like that helps. Beth said I played well. “Well” is relative, of course. I did have some good gets, but I also messed up too. There was a good dink series where I was patient until Oleg sent it back just a little too high and I smacked it backhand for winner. I was proud of that point.

As time goes on, I’m becoming more aware of how points get won. When a ball gets slammed at a player’s feet and his partner was the last of the two of them to hit it, it’s likely his partner’s fault—and vice versa. A dink that was too high. A drive shot when it should have been a drop. A lob that was too low and short. The list goes on. Or it can be a shot that results in a lost point a few shots later—a escalating progression set off by an initial unwise or poorly executed shot.

It’s really neat to see the improving play of people in the club. Marianne has gotten far better—though she doesn’t do herself favors. She likes to hit hard at players at the net—something I did a whole lot of early on. I told her she’d do better developing her drop shot. Janet has improved significantly. She’s better than she thinks. Jeanne has gotten a lot better. Rolando is improving though he’s still pretty green with raw talent. The whole club is getting better and that’ll drive the aggregate skill level up and up.

Things wound down and I was off to my car at 12:30, then home to watch the Raiders game that I recorded off antenna on our DVR. (They beat the Titans 26-16 to kick off the NFL season.) Pickleball will interfere with early football games, but I’ll just “tape-delay” those games—though it’s not really “tape” it’s an HD signal onto a hard drive, but you get what I mean!

Number of days on a court: 69
Number of total hours: 196.5

Click here to start at the beginning of this blog: PickleballJourney 

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

Click here to start at the beginning of this blog: PickleballJourney 

Wednesday, September 6, 2017. (Court Day #67)

Thankfully, it was a cooler morning. Overcast and drizzly enough to have to flip on the windshield wipers on the way. I arrived to Brommer at 9:10. It was a light crowd and continued to be light attendance. It stayed misty pretty much all morning. Not enough to make the courts slippery but enough to make your clothes moist. The sun stayed hidden all morning.

So what did I think of today? It was a tale of two Andrews. Unlike typical days, I was better earlier on. I played two great games with Eric. That were loplised wins. We were “on fire” as Alan (English accent, one “L”) told Mike when the two of them took us on. Eric and I pulled out ahead but ended up losing 11-9.

My worst game of the day was when I partnered with John P. against Stuart and Allan. It wasn’t failed drop shots that got me. It was mostly my net game or otherwise popping the ball up. Sometimes, it was impatience. In the midst of a dink battle, I’d would go for a drive but it wasn’t a down hit, it was an across hit that could be hit back—I should have waited for the opportunity for a clear winner instead of forcing it.

The later morning was frustrating. I hit a few shots too deep. There were a few shots were I took too much off the ball and it didn’t even make it back to the net. I popped up way too many balls that lead to points for our opponents.

The morning felt long. When I asked Tom S. what time it was, he said, “11.” “11-what?” I was expecting something like “11:45.” For my answer, I got a kindly “11:02, if you need to know down to the minute!”

Things wrapped up at 12:00 sharp. There are up days and down days, today was a down day.

Since I can’t play tomorrow night (obligation) and therefore wash today “out of my mouth”, I decided to watch some videos. Joe Baker’s are always good ones to revisit. In this video, the problem mentioned at 6:55 is mine:

There is a lot of great advice in the above video.

Number of days on a court: 67
Number of total hours: 190.5