Month: September 2018 (Page 4 of 5)

Thursday, September 13, 2018 (Court Day #197)

I had to work late and drove directly to Scotts Valley from work and arrived at 7:30. The nice thing about arriving so late was I found a parking spot right next to the courts.

I got into a game fairly quickly. Sarah and Dan were there and brought another of their skateboarder friends, Kyle. It was Maria and me against Kyle and Sarah. At 9-1, I figured out that I should just hit the ball back to keep it in play and let Kyle make mistakes versus simply hitting easy winners and ending the point—that’s not fun.

It was an entertaining 90 minutes. Mark Dettle and I drilled for about 15 minutes of it between games. Stuart was there, a relative rarity. Oleg and Olga were there. I didn’t get to face Oleg or Stuart, that would have been more of a challenge. As it was, every game I was in, I was the strongest player. Not like I was heads and tails over the others, but nonetheless, the most skilled. In games like that, I get lazy. I tend to crouch down less, walk to the kitchen, generally dork around a bit more. I doubt it does as much in improving my play, but it is enjoyable. Still, there were things presented that I need to work on. Like hitting two overhead smashes into the net. Oops!

Shortly after 9 p.m., I was on my way home.

Number of days on a court: 197
Number of total hours: 545

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Wednesday, September 12, 2018 (Court Day #196)

I got to Derby Park a few minutes after 9. Stuart had opened the court for Dave Allenbaugh. (During the week, I can never guarantee that I’ll play. It depends greatly on work.) It would be a bit sparser crowd today, no more than 30 people at the maximum.

A couple weeks ago, I did some pickleball court Photoshop work for Stuart. He wanted to present “no line” courts diagrams to various facilities administrators. I told him he could thank me by getting me into some advanced games. We’ve played a few times as partners now and he’s been giving me game advice. Reminders to do . . . well, what I’m supposed to . . . serve deep, return deep, be wise about shot selection. When I’d angle a shot off the court but hit it wide, Stuart would admonish me to “hit it to the middle!” Though, I’ve started admonishing him when his angle shots go wide! Angle shots are good as long as they are executed at the right time and correctly; they don’t have to be a high risk shot.

Stuart and I were in one game where Stuart popped it up for Greg in front of me. Stuart yelled, “Sorry!” and chuckled knowing that ball would be slammed down at me and expected the point to be over. But it wasn’t. I handled the slam and got the ball back. About three shots later we’d won the point. I turned to Stuart, “A point is never over until it’s over!”

Eric and I beat Greg and Allan K. 11-2. We scored 5 points right off the opening serve, which was Eric’s. I thought we might even run right up to 11, but Eric hit one into the net. Regardless, we were soon leading 9-0. Allan was funny, telling us to not announce the score too loudly! Ha ha! I made two error and gave them two consecutive points—one was a return that I hit a bit too deep—but those were the last they scored.

Eric and I played Oleg and Jane. We were down 5-0. Around then, exasperated, I said out loud after a bad shot, “What am I doing?” I was just not hitting well. Popping balls up, Hitting drop shots into the net. It was almost all execution, not shot selection. We crawled back into it 7-9, but we’d go on to lose 11-7. Still, a fairly balanced game. Had it been to 15, we might have won since we were dialing it in.

I checked my phone for the time: 11:43. I checked the courts. The only strong players had started a game a few minutes before. I needed to get to work soon. It would be probably 10-15 minutes before I might get into a good game, so time to go.

Number of days on a court: 196
Number of total hours: 543.5

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Sunday, September 9, 2018 (Court Day #195)

I arrived at Derby Park at 8:55 a.m. to find half a dozen people milling around already. Boy.

Marianne (cut off, left), Grita (white pants, distance), Art (dark shirt), Tammi (pink shoes) and her husband Nick.

Kim (gray shirt) and Cathy chat with Dave DiBiase as Carrie walks toward the camera. Sarah on the court in the background.

Today was a great day for me. There weren’t enough advanced players to go around, but I got in a few really good games.

The best game was James and me against Dave DiBiase and Oleg. James and I won 11-3 and it was not all James.

I checked my time after closing up 1:04 p.m. I was very happy with my overall play today. Sure, I made mistakes. Missed some serves. Invited opponents up to the net with short serves or returns. Missed a couple of shots wide when angling a ball off the court. Even hit one slam into the net. But overall the trajectory was clearly up. I’m past my slump and then some.

As I wished Dave D. farewell, about to walk to my car, he said, “Bye, Andrew. You played really well today.” James also mentioned that I was improving. Nice to hear!

Number of days on a court: 195
Number of total hours: 541

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