Month: June 2018 (Page 2 of 4)

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

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

Monday, June 18, 2018 (Court Day #160)

Rob texted this afternoon and said some guys where getting together at 6:30 this evening at Brommer Park. Being a good husband, I checked with my wife. My son was finishing up a final project for his UCLA applied mathematics coding class and my daughter was asleep getting over a slight bug. Ok to go? “Yes.” She wasn’t sure when dinner would be ready.

After work, I raced home, changed, popped a little cooked broccoli into my mouth—drat, dinner was just about ready—then dashed out the door. I arrived at Brommer just before the time I said I’d be there, 6:45 p.m. There was some large soccer match going on and the lot was completely full as was parking just outside the entrance. I had to park a block away and walk to the courts. I never noticed just how much of the adjacent streets are striped in red! A whole lot!

Cameron, Wheeler, Rob, and Brennan.

A game was underway with Cameron and Wheeler taking on Rob and Brennan. A good young crowd. Pickleball is not just for old folks! Of that group, I think Brennan is the only one sporting any gray hairs. I suspect I’m well older than him, but he might just be beating me on the amount of gray. I opted to skip the ankle brace again this time.

I waited for their game to finish. It was back and forth as most would prove to be. Afterward, Rob sat out and let me into a game where I joined Cameron as my teammate. Then Brennan sat out while I played with Wheeler—surprisingly, Wheeler and I won that one. (While sitting out, Brennan hoped in and played with a family playing pickleball over the divider. He sat out two games.) Then Wheeler sat out as I teamed up with Rob. Then Cameron sat out with Brennan and I took on Rob and Wheeler. (That proved to be the most lopsided game, but they still scored some points.) By then, five games later, it was 8:06 and it was my turn to rotate out. I was getting pretty hungry. I told them I was going home to eat. Rob said, “Play another, go ahead!” Honorable, but I didn’t want to force him to sit out on my behalf.

So?

I was expecting to go in tonight and obviously be the strongest player. (Sheesh. What an ego!) Maybe in the first game. After that, though, not so much! Too many mistakes. No more than the others, but, still, rats! Drops and drives hitting the net. Occasional returns sailing long. (Usually with me trying to hit a deep slice backhand than just sails long—I’m hoping sooner or later, I can hit that shot successfully, but for now, it’s a whole lot of “miss”.) Serves me right though. Confidence is a good thing, but I need to be humble and not assume I’m better skilled than anyone else. There are and will always players who are better than me. And even if I’m better on average than one particular player, I can have a bad day and they could have a good day . . . then I’d look pretty stupid if I had been mouthing off about how good I was! (Of course, I’d never do that. That’s not my way. Like almost everyone, I just let my play speak for itself . . . good or bad.)

It was a fun session. Fairly balanced play with some hard hits and a handful of intense rallies. And a good group of smiling guys loving pickleball. Plus the ankle held up well.

There were a handful of points that I won due to backspin on my shots. I’ve seen it quite a number of times now. The ball lands, is hit, but never makes it back over the net. (Rob was commenting about it to his partner in one game after it happened.) I think it was Terry Long who said that by 4.0 that just every shot should have some kind of spin on it. I originally was thinking backspin or sidespin, but spin includes standard ol’ topspin too. Dinks are where spin has diminishing returns, though Dean won a point against me one time with spin on a dink. I consider it high risk/medium reward. Maybe for very advanced players.

Interference

Oh, and I suppose that I should comment. There were a couple of young boys kicking a soccer ball on the courts right next to the family playing pickleball. Not a big deal, except they hit the ball several times into our court during our games even after we asked them at least three times not to. Annoying. There’s a big grassy field but they still needed to use the courts where two pickleball games and some basketball was going on. At least it wasn’t a constant interruptions. Ah, well. Whaddaya do. Kids.

Number of days on a court: 160
Number of total hours: 437.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above. 

Sunday, June 17, 2018 (Court Day #159)

It rained last night. And I could hear drips in the downspout outside my bedroom window as I laid in bed after I woke up. After a couple emails back and forth, I got a call from Dave Allenbaugh. Given the drips, I figured we’d likely need to delay but I asked Dave what he thought since he lives somewhat closer to the courts. He said the streets around his house were dry. We decided not to delay.

I arrived at Derby about 10 minutes before 9 a.m. Hey! They upgraded the gravel pathway into the park to asphalt! Fancy! I’m gone for about a month from Derby and things improve. Maybe I should miss days more often!

I walked into the courts. Oooo. Not good. Standing puddles. I texted Dave a photo. He emailed out a delay until 10 a.m. then he drove over.

I got out the squeegee and got to work. When he arrived, Dave initially thought we should cancel for the day. I’m the eternal optimist and as site coordinator, it was up to me, though I leaned on Dave’s experience. I opted to stick with the 10 a.m. time since a few dry spots had appeared even though the sun was still behind clouds.

George (left) and a visitor from the Bay Area, John, pitched in to help. My back was thankful for the relief! 

As I warmed up with Rob, my drop shots were working well. (For a change.)

First Games

The first game was with a woman named Marsha from Castro Valley. Based on the greetings that she received, she is well known by a number of old-timers in the club. Leslie, the Longs, Kim and more. I may have seen her before, but I don’t recall. Marsha and I teamed up against Rob and George. It’s started be out pretty even, but before long, she and I pulled ahead and won in decisive fashion. Marsha is better than I am. She has great consistent drop shots. Though I had my moments—after one point in particular, she turned to me and said, “That was great!” To which I replied, “I had to fix up all my crappy shots!” I’d hit too high and get slammed but I would get the slam back over; that kind of thing. But overall, aside from missing a couple of serves and an occasional ball too high, I played pretty well in that game.

Marsha and I partnered again in another game. Tom S. had a really nice ATP shot against Marsha on a crosscourt dink that I made long enough for Tom to take advantage! Though Marsha and I won that one too.

Tom S. and I played a game against Mike and visor Tom. It was an 11-0 goose egg in our favor. I hadn’t played against Mike for a while and my level of play has continued to climb.

As I walked back into the court from the reservation board outside the gate later, Kim looked up from her chair and asked me, “Are you going to join us?” “Sorry, they already signed me up with them and it would have been rude.” Still, to be invited into an advanced match is nice.

Eric and Ted B. faced off against Olga and me. It was a close game. I think we won, but either way, it was very balanced. By the end, 12:20, I was dog-tired. Beat. Dead on my feet. Eric shared that he was completely beat too.

Lefties

Christina, a fan of this blog, is recovering from surgery on her right shoulder. She has to play left-handed for 9 months—or not play at all. She, Janet, and Olga needed a fourth. Even though I was fatigued, I played with Christina. As expected, with Christina’s handicap, we got clobbered. Still it was fun and it was good to provide her with an opportunity to play. As Janet said, “I’d hope you would do the same for me if I were recovering from surgery.”

We decided to play one more game, but with ALL of us playing left-handed to make it even. “This may be a very short game!”, speculated Janet. “It may be a very LONG game!”, I responded. I was right. It was hilarious. At least 4 out of 5 serves were out! We did get a little better at it as the game went on. After about ten minutes, Janet needed to leave since her husband Bruce was anxious to get going. We convinced Terry Long to take her place. It was so funny. I secretly harbored hopes that my left-handed play might be better than Terry’s but that was a pipe dream. Terry reliably served regardless from the get go. I did manage to win a point or two against him when the two of us were facing off at the net, but he played quite well lefty.

Play wrapped up shortly after 1 p.m. for me. Marsha and Oleg played a really good game against Kim and Cathy. That was the last game of the day and finished up about 1:15-1:20. As site coordinator, I was my responsibility to close up the courts. The Longs were still there, so I probably could have had them close, but I didn’t mind sticking around.

Brace

I decided to not wear  my ankle brace. It’s still not 100%, it hurts when extended a certain way, but it hasn’t had any “close calls” lately. The ankle held up fine today with no issues or pain. I go back to wearing it if something prompts that, but we’ll see.

Tournaments

Thursday night, I’d asked Rob about being my partner for the Golden State Championships in Concord. He said he was game, so I told him that I’d investigate. Today, three days later, I told Rob that I hadn’t checked into it yet. But I checked this afternoon. Men’s doubles will be on Sunday—no chance of work interfering! I did a final confirmation with Rob, who said he still wants to do it. I tried to register but PickleballTournaments.com told me that my USAPA membership had expired. Actually, it hasn’t but would have by the time the tournament rolled around, so I extended my membership for another year then finished registering for the tournament. $70 all told. Sheesh. These things aren’t cheap! Plus gas. And maybe accommodations the night before. I do count my blessings that I have a steady job and don’t have to worry where my next meal is coming from.

Number of days on a court: 159
Number of total hours: 436.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.