Sunday, July 21, 2019 (Court Day #284)
44th day out playing lefty. Tennis elbow.
I arrived at Derby it set up at 8:50 a.m. Wayne beat me there. It was about 60° and lightly misting. (It would be fully overcast until about 1 p.m. though the mist didn’t last very long at all.)
It was not my best day serving. I think I missed an average of two serves per game. Not good.
I got to play a game or two against David Black. Those are always challenging ones. Allan and I played against David and Patty. We gave them a run for the money, but as one might expect, we lost. I did make some nice shots—and some rotten shots—but it was a game I could get more of. There was at least one point where David let me off easy—instead of putting it away, he angled it softly, passing on what likely would have ended the point. For his generosity, they lost that point!
I had my first ever game of skinny singles today. Deshen—the new Asian fellow whose name I couldn’t remember last time, pronounced “DAH-shen”—and I were the odd men out at the end of the day. We played just the right (my right) side of the court. He went up 1-0, but then I scored all the rest of the points until we got the chance to jump into a game of doubles, leaving the skinny singles unfinished at 5-1. Earlier, when I’d asked, he said he had played a good amount of tennis, but had stopped about five years ago. He’s got strong basic skills, but needs to starting using more soft shots instead of driving as frequently as he is. I was able to take advantage of that in our game of skinny singles.
The last game of the day was Grita and me against Charles and Deshen. Charles isn’t flashy but he’s darn consistent. He does a really good job slicing returns. He got me twice on those deep to my backhand at the baseline. When chatting right before leaving, he mentioned he was a 4.5 level tennis player. That explains his seemingly quick start in pickleball.
Cal was conducting a clinic after the morning club play was officially ended. (SCPC’s reserved court hours end at noon, but we regularly continue after that.) He had about eight players taking part.
It was nearly 1:30 when I finished locking up the club supplies and headed home.
Number of days on a court: 284
Number of total hours: 783.5
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