Livermore Tournament

Sunday, October 7, 2018 (Court Day #210)
Livermore Valley Tennis Club Harvest Pickle Ball Tournament

John stopped by my house to catch a ride and we pulled out at exactly 10 a.m. as we headed to the Livermore Valley Tennis Club Harvest Pickleball Tournament.
(Or “Livermore Valley Tennis Club Harvest Pickle Ball Tournament” as they listed themselves on PickleballTournaments.com!)

In the car, I mentioned that we were playing to 15, win by 2. John hadn’t gotten the email and was expecting at least 8 games and possibly 12 games. Instead, we’d be playing just 4. John was disappointed.

We arrived about 11:10 a.m. and pulled into the lot. John shared a couple of his leg cramps pills with me and an electrolyte tablet that I dropped into the water bottle that I brought which was half water and half ice cubes. The weather prediction was low 80s with wind. I also took a couple of preemptive ibuprofen.

We walked through the main doors and were politely directed towards the tournament in back. Another staff member down the corridor overheard then stepped in and showed us a shortcut.

The registration tent and waiting area.

A few days ago, John had emailed me the player list off PickleballTournaments.com:

but the list emailed out yesterday by Kat (the tournament director) included one more pair: “Krauss/Allen”. Regardless, five teams is a very small tournament.

John politely voiced his discontent to Kat with the change from best 2 of 3 games to a single game to 15—especially after the cutoff to drop out of the tournament. John told her that he likely wouldn’t have come. I always want to play and would have wanted to come anyway . . . given that I already knew of the change from the email a couple of days ago.

Their magnetic board showing who was playing where on the four courts.

We went up to the food area and John made himself half a sandwich. The venue was generous with food and drinks. Gatorade, bananas, apples, and water at the courts, plus potato salad, chips, and deluxe sandwich makings up in the cafeteria. We chatted with a guy named Mike from Lincoln, California who was also there for the tournament and is a 3.5 player. We’d be playing against him sooner or later.

John and I warmed up. Boy, we’d have two twists today. One was the wind. But the other, the doozy, was the court surface itself. It’s a bit spongy. I went to bounce the ball just outside the baseline of one of the back courts and the ball literally did not come back up to my hand! It bounced about 6 inches then fell back to the ground! Fortunately, it was better inside the court itself. Still, the balls did not bounce normally. John said he was told that some pro tennis courts are made from the same material. Well, pickleball is not tennis!

I had a banana, figuring the potassium would help fight off cramping.

First Game

Our first match was against—lo and behold—Mike from Lincoln and his partner Hamid. The wind was a factor. Each team lost 2-3 serves due to the ball being blown out. We switched sides at 8. John and I found ourselves down 13-8. It wasn’t looking good. But then we battled back to 14-14. We’d gone on a several point run, but then I served the ball wide out to the right. It was just a lack of focus—sloppy. John then got a shot to continue the run as the second server but we lost that point. They got the next two points and closed out the game and handed us a 16-14 loss. Drat. So close.

We had a little break before the second round.

Second Game

In our second game, we faced Dennis and Liam. That would be “Krauss/Allen”. It was a lopsided game. We won handily 15-2 in less than 10 minutes. We were walking to the restroom when Mike (who was on a bye) was walking back toward the courts. “Are you done already?”, he asked incredulously. I told him the score. We had a decent amount of time to wander before the next game.

Third Game

For the third game, we were facing David and Robert. David was pretty stoic. Robert made David look downright giddy. We took the lead. At 13-7, our scoring stalled. They staged a comeback and tightened up the score to 13-11. But then we got our act together and won two points and took the match, 15-11.

We were standing at 2 wins and 1 loss in the round robin. What I figured to be our hardest match, Kelly and Jake, was coming.

Fourth Game

I just have to say, I really like Kelly and Jake. They are down-to-earth and don’t take things too seriously—getting a smile out of them is easy. Playing against them is a joy.

Our fourth and final game was a good one. It was back and forth. It seemed that they were targeting John somewhat more than me—I’d serve, it’d get returned to John; John’d serve, it’d get returned to John. Jake and Kelly pulled ahead. We got back within two points, but then they got that last point to take them to 15 and win the game, 15-12. John admitted later that the heat had been starting to take its toll on him. Yes, 80-ish degrees. But it seemed cool compared to Eric and my indoor tournament in July with no air conditioning!

John and I finished the tournament with a 2-2 game record.Not impressive. John suggested getting on the road for home. But given that there were only five teams, I told John that a medal was not out of the question and it might be possible that we could even take silver. After all, in the indoor tournament seven months ago, we’d won the gold on mathematical tiebreakers with three teams that finished with the same number of wins and losses.

Milo and Art

After our last game, we had to wait for the last round before we’d know the results. I wanted to get a sandwich from their spread in their cafeteria on the second floor of their complex, so that’s where we headed. We had a nice conversation with Art and Milo, whom we’d played against at the indoor tournament in Pleasanton back in February. Art and Milo were competing in the pool of 3.0 players. Surprising to me—shocking, actually—Art somehow actually stumbled on my blog at some point and remembered me writing up that tournament. “Are you going to write something about this tournament?”, he asked. I told him that I would be.

Results

We headed back to the courts to see if things were done. Kelly and Jake were still playing, but they would go on to win their final game and sweep all their games to win the gold medal. The rest of the medals were in question. I asked Kat about it. “Silver” was written next to one time but no “Bronze” was listed. Kat seemed to be a bit confused by the whole process. We’d been told the medals would be decided by wins and the tie-breaker would be points. I offered to help figure it out. So, with John at my side, we went about determining the margin of victory and margin of losses of the two teams in contention for the remaining medals. Between our wins and losses, we ended up with a “+12” point total. The other team finished with a “+8”. We’d be taking home silver!

John and I sporting our silver medals.

John & me and Jake & Kelly, the gold medal winners.

I pulled up in front of my house at 4:28 p.m.

The silver medal.

Between warm-ups and games, I figure a couple hours to add to my total hours of court time/play is appropriate.

Oh. And my shot of the day. I was  on the left. There was a sharp long crosscourt dink.It all happened so fast. I switched the paddle to my left hand and hit a drive passing shot. I watched it in slow motion low over the net and perfectly parallel to the sideline heading for the backcourt, it would be landing in. My opponent had no choice. He jabbed out his paddle but he was too late. The ball ricocheted off the edge of his paddle and clamored along the chain link fence. Winner. And all of my half dozen or so left-handed shots were successful—not all outright winners, but very much not losers.

Number of days on a court: 210
Number of total hours: 578

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