Sunday, August 11, 2019 (Court Day #295)
Cabrillo Tournament – Men’s Doubles
Today would have been my 55th day out—over about 8 months—playing lefty due to tennis elbow. Only I didn’t. I played righty.
I arrived at Cabrillo College at 8:25 a.m. When I checked in at the entry table, they told me that my partner Binh was already there.
While Binh and I warmed up, Rick May came by to warm up in the next court with his partner. I showed Rick—whom I had talked to at the end of the day yesterday about tennis elbow—my forearm strap. He kindly responded, “I have an extra one of these [Bandit], do you want it?” I told him that I’d ordered one—he’d highly recommended it the day before—and that I’d very much take him up on the offer. He dashed off, returned with the extra strap, and I wore his Bandit for all of my matches. There wasn’t much of any pain while I played, so that was good. On January 1, the last day that I played a full session of pickleball right-handed, each impact of the ball on my paddle was excruciatingly painful. Today, I didn’t have that.
Gathered for the introductory ceremony. The three closest are locals: Gregg (blue), Jeff (gray), and Tony (yellow).
We all gathered again for the morning administrative instructions and the National Anthem. I gave Rick my work business card “just in case” we missed connections later and I wasn’t able to give him back his forearm strap. He smiled and said, “Don’t worry about it.”
Binh and I learned that our bracket would be playing games to 21 points—a marathon!
Match #1
Our first game was against a team from Walnut Creek, Mark Bryant and Darrell Hoh. Binh and I started off fast, leading 6-2. Unfortunately, they came back and tied it up at 8. Then we went ahead 9-8. Then they went on a unanswered run of answered points and gradually climbed their way to a win at 21-9.
Later, when talking to Mark, he said that when things were tied up at 9, he and Darrell had discussion, determined that drop shots were not working and went to third shot drives instead. As the results show, that was very effective! He also said later than Binh and I had given them their most difficult game . . . I guess that’s some consolation!
During the second round of the round robin for our bracket, we had a bye—I hadn’t even checked the posted information which is uncommon for me. I didn’t know how many teams we had, what format we’d be playing, or much of anything. I was simply relying on the announcements to know where to go and when. Maybe I was just comfortable since this was in our home area and run—for the most part—by locals that I know.
Match #2
Rick May and David DeMateo from San Juan Bautista would be our second game. As Rick walked up, he smiled and told me, “If I’d known we’d be playing you, I wouldn’t have loaned you that band!” We both laughed!
Binh and I initially kept it close until about halfway through the game—like our first round game—but then we lost 21-11.
Afterward, I asked Rick and his wife Kelly if I could get a copy of the recording of our match that Kelly had made. He asked what phone I had and I told him I had an iPhone. Kelly offered, “I can just Air Drop it to you!” They called Binh and I for our next match so Kelly said she’d just bring my phone over when it was done transferring. And it was done and I had my phone back before our warm up was done.
Here’s the video:
As you’ll see, I’m rusty playing righty! I’ll likely do an analysis of this game soon in a future blog post. [Later: Here’s that analysis, two posts in the future.]
Match #3
Our third match was against locals Rich Valdez and Allan Kass. We lost to Rich and Allan . . . we didn’t take the game seriously enough. We were up 8-3 and were dominating, but we relaxed let them back in the game and before you know it, they had pulled ahead with just a few points to go to 21. Sometimes, it’s hard to get your brain into “tournament mode” when playing against guys you play in rec play all the time. We did have fun while playing the game though. The final score? 21-17.
Match #4
Binh and I got to the court for our match. At this point, I was still relying on just the loudspeaker announcements to know where to go. I didn’t even know if this was our last match or not. (I guess I’d gotten quite a bit less uptight about leaving nothing to chance.)
Our opponents were no where to been seen. But soon, we figured out that the man standing with the spectators was Rocky Vasquez, who we were supposed to be playing against. Rocky then admitted, “I think my partner left.” We got filled in by a few people. Supposedly, Rocky’s partner Steve was unhappy with his own play and was having some temper issues. That’s unfortunate.
Rocky asked if we’d play anyway. The spectators were all players, men and women. We convinced a local, Mike—who I think is a 4.0 player—to join Rocky and we played a game to 21. It was a fun meaningless game. Binh and I lost 21-6. Rocky is a pretty good player and Mike was unquestionably the best player on the court.
Afterward, I walked the clipboard over to Mike Hoxie and let him know that our opponents had forfeited.
Colleen took this while Binh and I waited for our last game of the day. She found my hair amusing!
I made sure to stop by the table later on to thank Mike and Gigi for their hard work running the tournament.
The last of the results posted.
I got Olga to take Binh and my photo for posterity!
Rich and Allan ended up playing in the semifinal match against Rick and David. Had Rich and Allan won, they’d advance to the gold medal match against the undefeated first seed, Mark and Darrell. But they lost as I predicted to Binh. Binh was kind of expecting Allan and Rich to win.
The 60+ 3.5 gold medal match. Steve and Allen on the far side, Eric and John P. on the nearside with with Maree officiating the match. You can just make out the tape wrapping Eric’s injured lower leg.
I had fun watching Eric and John P.’s match and getting the Buzz and Ted B. going with “ooo”s and “ahhhh”s. It was a crack up! The two teams had both won one game in this best of three, so they were going to a final game to determine the winner.
At the same time, the 3.5 50+ gold medal match was going on. In a surprising turn of events, in the best two games of three, Rick and David split the first two games with the steamrollers Mark and Darrell. Then Rick and David went on to upset Mark and Darrell and win gold! Wow. See what happens when you loan your forearm strap to Andrew? Major good karma!
Eric and John lost to Steve and Allan in the deciding third game. That was also a surprise in my book!
I left the courts about 1 p.m.
Wrap Up
While Binh and I didn’t win any games, I felt that we weren’t playing particularly badly. It’s just that our opponents were playing better! Binh was taking it harder. He felt we had played badly. Yes, we made mistakes. But we made each team work for their wins, even if the final scores were sometimes lopsided.
Once I got home, I strapped an ice pack to my right elbow.
Later in the evening, I shook someone’s hand. It hurt. I’m already paying the price for playing righty today.
Monday, August 12, 2019 (No Play)
My right elbow is pretty sore, yesterday definitely set the tennis elbow back. We’ll see how it is in a week.
My shoulder is sore, my triceps is sore, my forearm on the top inside is sore. But those are just all muscles. The elbow, though, is a relapse of tennis elbow. Drat.
Thursday, August 15, 2019 (No Play)
Just some fun insight into a recent site coordinators’ email discussion…
John P.: “Fellow coordinators: Andrew brought some new whiteboard markers and Tim brought us a set as well. Andrew also brought a couple of carabiners and I found two that I had purchased months ago in the little medical supplies box. All good.”
Andrew: “John, those carabiners in the First Aid box are for first aid only. Now what are we going to use when someone’s leg falls off? I mean, we’re going to have to choose between re-attaching a limb and holding up the court reservation board . . . I hope I’m never there to have to make that decision!”
John P.: “They can just hop Andrew…. But we really need the ball fence to stay in place! Mr. sympathetic, John P.”
Eric: “Let’s make sure we have some tissues to console the poor site coordinator who will be traumatized by this experience.”
Dave A.: “What? I’m gone for a couple of weeks and we have carabiners in the first aid kit to re-attach legs? Take them out, they’re not on the first aid list. If someone loses a leg, drag them off the court and put bike mogul area. Saves us a lot of paperwork. Please don’t tell Leslie I said this.”
Janet: “So glad I asked the question about supplies… you guys crack me up! xo Janet”
John P.: “Oh no! Get the medical kit….Janet’s cracking up! We must carabiner her back together, team.”
Elbow
Ok. I admit it. The tournament was a major setback for my right elbow. I was too optimistic. Shaking hands hurts significantly. Reaching for my office phone even hurts. Was it worth it? It felt amazing to play right-handed. It was so much fun, even being rusty. It was nice to have my serves actually go where I wanted . . . though it had been so long since I’d been regularly serving righty, that I forgot that I could aim and pick where I wanted to serve the ball to! I missed a lot of opportunities to serve to backhands. I was rusty playing right-handed mentally too.
Number of days on a court: 295
Number of total hours: 816.5
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