Friday, December 14, 2018 (Court Day #234)
Rain was predicted. Originally, it was around 10, then it got pushed back to 11:30. I arrived at Brommer Park at 9 a.m. I was the seventh person there. It was overcast but I was still wearing sunglasses for eye protection.
Warmup
I was soon warming up with John P. and the short redhead, Di. My dropshots were practically nonexistent. They were all going into the net. It was bad. Barb R. walked up. She realized that she had no glasses on, she said, “I’ve been hit in the eye three times. I don’t play without glasses anymore.” She got her protective eyewear and came back and we were soon in a game. My play wasn’t any better in a live game—it was definitely off.
Stuart called over to me from his game across the divider, “Are you going all Hollywood on us?” Yeah, my sunglasses. I overheard from the other court, “Hiding the black eye from us!”
Ted, Chris, Grita and Dave Allenbaugh get a mid-morning game in.
Elite Game
”We can play with these guys.” It was Dean talking to Leslie about me and Barb R. Ugh. Perfect timing. Playing with two strong players when my play is awful. That will make a good impression. Sigh. Oh, well. My play was crappy. I completely whiffed on one backhand shot trying to return a shot from Dean. I think I had one good point in the whole game. Embarrassing.
It got darker. I took off my sunglasses. I had a second free pair of sunglasses I got at a trade show. They are obnoxious bright silver. I pushed out the lenses. I did a quick test with a ball to see how far close it could get to my eyeball while wearing them. Hmmm. Not perfect, but it’d provide some protection. I’ll need to pick up some better clear protective glasses.
My right arm is still suffering from tennis elbow. Not fun. Certain shots are painful. I ended up rubbing my elbow a few times over the course of the morning.
Stuart asked, “Will those glasses prevent the ball from getting to your eyes?” I told him that it might not, but it was better than nothing and that I need to make a run to a local store to pick some up.
Getting to the Line
Later, I was in a game with some other intermediates. I was the strongest player on the court. I was at the kitchen line. My partner was receiving. She hit a deep return. Great. Then the other team hit the ball hard right back where it can come from. I turned. Huh? Where was my partner? *grumble* Still at the baseline! What the heck? How to lose at pickleball—stay at the baseline. I realized if we wanted to stay in this rec game, I was going to have to play very well and maybe be a bit more aggressive poaching shots. I did play much better in this game. We did lose, but it was close. And my partner did some up to the net sometimes, but not nearly as quickly and as often as she should.
What I noticed today was me not properly tracking to my right to close up the middle of the court. There were probably three shots down the middle where I was diagonal from the hitter, meaning they were my responsibility. Something to work on.
It Arrives
It started to very lightly mist. John P. slid a little while running down a ball at the net. “I’m done. I don’t want to get hurt.” We stopped the game. 11:15. All the courts cleared. A few people decided they wanted to go back out and continue to play anyway. Good luck with that.
As I was driving home, it was a downpour. 11:30. I hope those overly optimistic players got off the courts and into their cars in time!
Overview
There are good days and bad days. The overall trajectory of skill is up, however, there are days of sliding down. Today was one of those sliding days. It’s a natural progression in developing any physical skill, of course, but it feels lousy nonetheless.
Number of days on a court: 234
Number of total hours: 640
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