Wow.

Thursday, June 21, 2018 (Court Day #161)

On Monday night, I found a YouTube video for good drilling game to develop super important fundamentals. Serving deep, returning deep, dropping short. Keys to winning points.

The next time I get to do drills, this would be a good one with a group. We’ll just need some tape. I may have to bring a roll of masking tape with me from now on!

Skypark

I left work very soon after closing and was just home long enough to change then grab my stuff and a cookie. I was in Scotts Valley not even 10 minutes after the 6:30 starting time. Game on!

Pickleballers cast a long shadow in this area!

I played a number of games. All fun. And the skill level was good. I do pay my dues and “pay it forward” by playing with beginners and weak players—which can be a welcome relaxing break—but it was nice tonight to play more challenging games straight through.

I played without the ankle brace and my right ankle held up ok. It feels a little off later, but not all that noticeable.

Allan K. and I played a game against Eric and Brennan. Within the first few points I’d already hit Eric and Brennan in the chest for winners. It was pretty amusing. Alan and I went on to win that one. It was a close game.

In a game of Cameron and me against Eric and Brennan, I hit an awesome forehand slice groundstroke. It was low, fast, with a ton of backspin. Those shots are weird to watch. They don’t drop. It’s like they are knocked along a tight wire. I was expecting a winner . . . but Eric successfully returned it from the baseline anyway. Kudos to Eric.

In one game of Allan and Brennan against Eric and me, Brennan called the wrong score (“10-9” instead of “9-9”) and immediately served. The wrong score threw me as I was thinking: “Wait a sec, 10? Game point? That’s not right—woah! Ball!” Without a conscious decision, I made an attempt at returning the ball anyway and the ball went into the net. I complained and while Allan wasn’t too happy about it, Brennan reserved that point. Later, I looked up the rules. Once the return of serve is made—it was by me—then the point needs to be played out. What I should have done was just stopped the point. I made that mistake in Coronado one time. They were serving and someone walked in the gate right to my left and distracted me and I returned the ball into the net. I should have just let the ball go and had them re-serve. Or simply focus better and plan to always play through regardless. I emailed Allan later apologizing after I read the official rules which clearly state it should have been their point. (His response was classic Allan—basically, “are you really even worried about this?”)

Yowza!

Eric and I beat Oleg and Cameron twice. The first was 12-10, a close one. In the second game I was on fire. I was getting everything over the net. Oleg would fire his tennis-trained rocket forehands—even rapid fire at the net—and I’d get them back. A ball would dribble over the net and I’d deftly dink it back over. My dropshots were deadly. All the dinks were working. Wow. It was awesome! Eric even turned to me and said, “You are playing really well.”

Unfortunately, all that came apart in the next to last game of Oleg and me against Cameron and Brennan. The magic had slipped away and I’d been transformed back into a pumpkin. We lost that game. By that time, I’d been playing for over three hours and was pretty tired. May I can get away with blaming that.

We squeezed in one more game of Olga and me against Oleg and Brennan. Yep. Lopsided. Still it was fun.

We stowed the last net and walked out of the courts at 9:14 p.m.

While I’m not able to sustain it, it was nice to see what I’m capable of when I’m firing on all cylinders. For one brief shining moment, I was playing like a solid 4.0 or maybe even a 4.5 on a bad day.

Number of days on a court: 161
Number of total hours: 441

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