Thursday, May 17, 2018 (Court Day #151)
I had to finish a project at work and couldn’t leave until about 10 minutes to 7, already 20 minutes into the session in Scotts Valley. I raced home, changed, then headed straight out to Skypark. I got there about 7:15.
I pulled up and easily parked right at the courts. Eric was back from his trip out of state. (I’d tried to set up a private game on Tuesday night, but people were gone or busy or didn’t reply soon enough and I just ended up working late instead.)
Left to right: Olga, Oleg, a man, Lauren, Eric, a woman, Rochelle.
There were four nets set up. I found myself waiting on the bench with two other players. We didn’t have to wait long.
I played a few games. Things got more interesting when I got into a game with Eric. We played a game against Kent and Barb (tall, ponytail) whom Kent was going to be playing mixed doubles with. That was a fun game. Eric and I won fairly handily. Afterward, Kent said we’d been “picking on Barb”—not in a bad way, just that she was getting more balls hit in her direction. As I told him, it wasn’t a conscious decision, it was “whichever player was in the weaker position got the ball.”
In that game, there was one shot where we were all at the net with Barb across from me with Eric to my right. She attacked a ball, driving it outside of my left foot. I reached down, got it and returned it low down the baseline as a winning passing shot. It was a really good shot. I chalked it up to luck. Hours later, however, I realized that I’d executed the exact same winning shot against Oleg about two weeks ago! Hmmm. Once can be luck, but twice, maybe there is some skill involved after all.
The next game was Eric and me against Kent and Mark Dettle. Again, it was a pretty lopsided game. Mark is a decent player, though if he made fewer unforced errors he be more of force.
For the last game, we mixed it up. I offered to play with Mark. Surprisingly, Mark and I took then lead by a few points and held that for much of the game. In the end, we lost 11-9. It was a fun game. While Mark lost the last three points for us, he had a smattering of really, really nice shots in that game that I commended him for at the time they happened.
I felt really good about tonight. My bad shot/good shot ratio was very positive. I can confidently say I was one of the top four players there tonight out of 19. I’d give #1 to Oleg. Kent, Eric, and I would round out the four but I was playing really well. I made my mistakes, but not all that many of them compared to my normal play.
Play ended about 8:50. At least there was access to the court lights this time!
Number of days on a court: 151
Number of total hours: 421.5
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