Month: November 2018 (Page 3 of 4)

Wednesday, November 14, 2018 (Court Day #223)

It was 46° when I left the house about 8 a.m. I went to work for a brief time then left for pickleball, I arrived at Derby Park at 9:10 under clear skies. It would warm up to close to 70° later in the day.

There was nothing of significant note today other than I started out the morning playing fantastic and my play deteriorated after about 2 hours. It was a lightly attended day, maxing out just under 30 people, so there wasn’t much waiting between games.

I had a brief conversation with a woman who asked about this weekend’s tournament and who I was going to play with. “Colleen.” There was a simple trailing off response of “oh…” as in “oh, she’s good, you two might do ok.”

The lesson today? Maybe more cardio. More something! I’m getting tired too easily.

Number of days on a court: 223
Number of total hours: 610

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Saturday, November 10, 2018 (Court Day #222)
Templeton “2018 November Fest” Tournament

I pulled up in front of Dave’s house at 8:52 a.m. At a stoplight on the way, I noticed a gap along the inside edge of left shoe. Not good, to say the least!

The shoe is actually much worse than it appears in this photo!

Dave had some Shoe Goo in his garage which we applied in hopes that it would dry enough for me to wear after a couple hours of travel.

With lots of fires going on in Northern California, it was smokey in Santa Cruz. I was happy to be heading two hours south. However, as we drove down, smoke was still visible in the air.

Smoke-shrouded hills west of Highway 101.

Dave pulled the car into the parking lot at the Templeton Tennis Ranch about 11:15 a.m., well before our 1 p.m. start time. It was a bit chilly. There was still a slight haze from smoke, but not too bad. The Templeton Tennis Ranch is a very nice facility. Swanky bathrooms too. No complaints.

The right side view of the player waiting area. Notice the gas fire going for warmth!

The left side view of the player waiting area.

There would be 7 teams in our bracket. Mike Hoxie, the tournament director, said one team signed up at the last minute.

So, seven rounds with six games to 15, win by 1. I checked and we’d have a bye in the third round between our second and third games.

My shoe repair wasn’t dry and was worse than I thought. Next time: bring two pairs of shoes! Dave had an extra pair and it was a pretty good fit, so Dave’s shoes got some “Andrew time”! (Thanks, Dave!)

Mike Hoxie (TD, in red) and others taping down a few extra courts. Unfortunately, the lines were a bit funky, so I’m happy we didn’t have to play on them!

About 15-20 minutes before the 1 p.m. start time, Dave and I warmed up on a temporary taped court.

Game #1

Our first game was against Paul and Dan, both older players. Dave and I went up 10-5. Then I made way too many unforced errors and let them back in the game and we lost 15-14. Of all the games played today, this was the most painful. We absolutely should have won that game.

Game #2

Our next game was against Vince and Chris from the Bay Area. Vince is shorter with wicked groundstrokes. Chris is tall and young, but less skilled. Dave and I did our best to keep the ball away from Vince. We won 15-4, much to the disappointment of their following watching from the bleachers above the courts. They’d cheer whenever Dave and I lost a point. I did my best to ignore them!

Later on, when talking to Chris, he said they’d entered a tournament recently in 3.0 and trounced their opponents, so this time around, they signed up for 3.5. I do think they belong in 3.5.

Bye

The bye seemed long. My back started tightening up, but unfortunately, I didn’t have any ibuprofen with me. I had it in the other backpack that I used to use for my pickleball stuff. Dave and I warmed up a bit on an empty court.

Game #3

Next up were David and Lance who said they were locals to the area. They scored quickly and we found ourselves down 7-0. (Ouch!) I went on a run as the second server and we came back to 7-5. In the midst of that, I pulled off a low ATP around the right post. Unfortunately, those were the last points that we’d score and we lost 15-5. Even with the lopsided score, this was a game that was winnable.  We just needed to reduce the unforced errors. There were three shots down the middle where neither of us went for the ball. Two would have been my forehand as Dave pointed out each time. The third was Dave’s forehand that we both let pass us down the middle. These were simply lack of playing time together. Dave was getting vexed in that game. Our opponents even commented, “It seems he’s getting frustrated.” Part of it was we picked a player/target to hit to but I’d still hit to the player that was back or out of position. Dave was expecting me to always hit to the target even if he was in a position of advantage. We needed more communication and more playing time together. We barely played together before the tournament—maybe half a dozen games total ever.

Game #4

Jeff and Joel of Bakersfield were our next opponents. They were really, really good. They hit hard. They had excellent placement and made very few mistakes. They forced errors. They cleaned our clocks. I remember Jeff setting up to serve and me thinking, “This is like playing against Terry Long.” (A local 5.0 patriarch of local Santa Cruz pickleball.) I believe they are much more like 4.0 players than 3.5 players. From what I understand, they won every match. We lost that one by a lopsided 15-3.

Game #5

Ricardo (San Jose) and Bruce (Bakersfield). Another very strong team. We lost 11-4 but this game was much closer game than the score showed compared to our game against Jeff and Joel. The service went back and forth far more times. Since even on a great day for both of us, I doubt we could have won against these two guys. They were just really good.

Game #6

The last game of the day was against Paul and Ed. Dave and I went up quickly 7-0. Dave turned to me, “I wanted to win the last game, but not like this. Not this easily.” We eased up on the gas pedal and passed on some kill shots and followed Dave’s suggestion, “Let’s just get into a dinking game.” The problem was that we eased up too much, got sloppy, and they tied up the game at 13-13! But from there, we finished them off 15-13.

Wrap Up

I chatted with Vince who asked how we did. When I told him we’d finished up 2-4, he was surprised. “We finished 2-4! You are better than that!” One of our bracket complained that one of our opponent’s said he was a 4.0, but had been made a 3.5 by the USAPA. (Kind of like the USAPA thinking I’m a 3.0. But I’m not going to play in 3.0 and clobber people.)

Dave admitted afterward, “I know I’m not easy to play with.” In a couple of games, Dave was irritated with me as he felt I wasn’t looking ready at the net when he was receiving. I made an effort after that to crouch down with my paddle up. It’s harder for me to follow the ball facing the net like that—and there’s always plenty of time for me to get into position after the return—but it made Dave feel more comfortable.

The gold medalists on the day Jeff and Joel over Ricardo and Bruce, who took silver. They were unquestionably the two strongest teams.

Dave and I probably would have done a little better had we played together as partners in advance of the tournament. Plus Dave said his 10-day layoff prior to the tournament didn’t help—he’d been traveling in Chile.

We headed back for Santa Cruz about 5 p.m. While Dave filled up, I popped over to In’N’Out Burger for dinner “to go”.

It wasn’t the winning experience I’d hoped for, but any tournament experience is good. I have to earn my way up. It’ll come with time.

Number of days on a court: 222
Number of total hours: 607

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Thursday, October 8, 2018 (Court Day #221)

Tonight, I had a coat and tie event at 6:30 in Scotts Valley. It would end at 8. I secretly wore shorts and a T-shirt underneath. Afterward, in my car, off came the jacket, off came the tie, off came the button-down shirt, off came the pants, off came the shoes and on came the court shoes and cap. Ready!

I got to Skypark about 8:15 p.m. Only two courts were still active. Eight players braving the chill—though you still couldn’t see your breath.

Oleg, Richella, Olga and a woman shortly after 8 p.m. A touch chilly this evening.

My first game was Mark Dettle and me against Janet and Olga. I made some mistakes, but didn’t play badly. One particularly memorable moment was me executing a great cross-court drop shot into the kitchen but Janet still managing to get the ball back over the net. I was mostly expecting it not to come back, so kudos to Janet. Nonetheless, my shot had Mark advancing 2/3 of the way to the kitchen and an easy shot for him to return.

Olga and I took on her husband Oleg and Mark Dettle. We lost the first game 11-7. The second game was much more of a battle, though we lost again 14-12. We decided to sneak in one more game before the lights click off at 9:30. Olga and I were leading 10-7—or maybe it was 10-8—when it went dark. Well, at least we were ahead!

One fun thing in the second game was a shot that Mark popped up from the backcourt. He was crosscourt to my right. The ball bounced high in the kitchen near the sideline and spun back over the net. I stepped to the side of the net post and hit a backhand shot, sending the ball almost parallel to the net! Point over!

I think Oleg is my next “way marker”. With Grita, a player would be hard pressed to pick her over me as a partner these days. Oleg would typically get selected before me. With more practice and, hopefully, drilling, that will be different a year from now.

Nationals

There is a controversy going on down at Indian Wells at the national championships. In Game 1 of a match of Kyle Yates—whose autograph is on my old paddle—and Simone Jardim against Sarah Ansboury & Tyson McGuffin, during a dink battle Simone changed it up and powered the ball at Tyson who wasn’t expecting it and popped it nearly straight up, losing the game. Point over. Except, as the ball came down, out of frustration, Sarah hit the ball with a two-handed backhand . . . right into Simone’s eye.

Apologies were said immediately, of course. But there were consequences, though none that negatively affected Sarah’s games. According to Kyle, Simone was “not ok” after the incident. Sarah was not disqualified though many online wanted her to be. Or to forfeit her next game or the match. Or be ejected by the TD. Many came to Sarah’s defense—she’s popular due to her instructional videos and camps/workshops, plus she’s easily in the top handful of female players in the world.

Regardless, we all need to be careful of such things. I can’t say I’ve never done anything like Sarah did. I think I had a close calll once when I hit a ball after a point was over. No contact with anyone, but it got closer than it should have. Nonetheless, if a referee ejected me or I forfeited  game because of it, it would be my own fault.

Fortunately, as far as we know, Simone has no detached retina—it happens in pickleball—nor any other permanent physical damage. And I bet a lot of pickleball players learned from the experience. I know that I did.

Friday, October 9, 2018 (No Play)

Jennifer got back to me about the mixed doubles tournament next weekend in San Juan Bautista. Good news. She has Colleen and me signed up. We just need to bring money on the day.

In the meantime, I’m meeting Dave Cox at his house tomorrow at 8:45 a.m. for our trek to Templeton. It’ll be an interesting day. Big event, but I think we have a chance to medal. The trick is, we haven’t played together for months and have never played together in a tournament before. Fingers crossed.

Number of days on a court: 221
Number of total hours: 604.5

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