This week has been depressing for me. With the elbow worse again, I’ve had thoughts popping into my head of giving up pickleball. I don’t want to be stuck playing left-handed forever. It’s a horrible prospect. Even with years of practice playing lefty, I can’t see ever getting as good as my right hand. It’s frustrating.
I arrived at Brommer Park at 9:25. It was overcast, but it’d clear up and be warm later on in the morning.
One of my early games was with Leslie against Cal and a woman. Cal was targeting me versus Leslie. Cal likes to win. I can’t blame him, I like to win too. Leslie commented about it to me. She wasn’t happy that she wasn’t getting many balls to hit to her and that her injured partner playing lefty (me) was getting taken advantage of in her eyes.
Josh and Mike on the nearside in a game before the fog burned off.
Chris Yoder and his wife Jennifer came. They’ve been busy running the San Juan Bautista pickleball program, so they don’t get up to Santa Cruz as often. Matt—the 4.5 player— from Monterey came up too. They were all there for better competition.
While in a game, a ball rolled onto our court. I casually hit a ball back to Karen Long using my right arm—PAIN! Ouch! A definite regression after playing righty in men’s doubles at the Cabrillo Tournament last weekend.
Jennifer asked me, “Are you ready to be over the tennis elbow?” When I said yes, she said she’d give me a name later, which she did. She said a couple of trips to this doctor and Chris’ chronic tennis elbow he’d was cured. She said the two of them refer to him as the “witch doctor”. Dr. Scott Bergman in Walnut Creek. Sounds like voodoo, but I’m just about ready to try anything at this point.
My last game was with Tom M. against Eric (tall, mustache) and Juls. Tom M. and I were leading my quite a bit but Tom started making a series of errors. We ended up barely losing the game. There was three slams in succession by Eric and Juls to me where I was able to dig them out return them. The fourth was finally too much for me. Regardless, Juls commented after the game, “I’d hate to have to play you right-handed.”
Today, was one of those “can’t serve worth a darn” days. I had little control. While I got most in, nearly all of my serves were short or wild. Super frustrating.
I was out and off to get ready for work at 12:15.
Sunday, August 18, 2019 (No Play)
I woke up to a text from Dave Allenbaugh. Asking if I wanted to delay play at Derby today. I could hear the water dripping in the downspout outside my bedroom window. Yes. We delayed an hour. An hour later, we canceled. It misted and drizzled off and on all day. In the end, it was better for me anyway. Last night, I’d discovered that one of the water lines in our garage had sprung a leak inside the wall and was running down the wall and onto the floor behind our washing machine. I had turned off the water last night. I spent the morning dealing with the plumber I had called to deal with the “emergency”—the washing machine cold water line is capped under our house, but at at least everything else is normal in our house now. Maybe I’ll get to play tomorrow morning, depending on staffing.
Monday, August 19, 2019 (No Play)
Another rainout. I guess it was better for me in the long run, it turned out to be a very busy workload for me at work.
Number of days on a court: 296
Number of total hours: 819
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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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Saturday, August 10, 2019 (Court Day #294) Cabrillo Tournament – Mixed Doubles
54th day out playing lefty. Tennis elbow.
I arrived at Cabrillo about 8:20 a.m. Mike Hoxie, the tournament director, said in an email that we had to be there by 8:30 and that all matches were starting at 9 a.m. regardless of bracket.
The business area of the tournament. The near tent was for injuries. The two right tents were hospitality with food and drinks and chairs to hangout in.
There were a bunch of courts! I was impressed! There were at least 16 plus another handful for warm up. Karen Long was there and I gave her some Santa Cruz Pickleball Club informational signs that I’d made up on behalf of the club. She was going to pass them along to Dave Allenbaugh for laminating and posting at our local courts.
Carrie got Mark G. (who was volunteering today) to take our photo on her phone.
There were plenty of empty courts to warm up on, so Carrie and I did some dinking until we all got called over for the group tournament instructions.
Mark Ramsay, welcomes the competitors while Mike Hoxie (in red) looks on. Olga’s head is in the lower right corner. She was playing with Binh in the 3.5 under-50 bracket.
After Mike Hoxie (TD) and Mark Ramsay (the Athletic Director of Cabrillo College) spoke, Karen Long, an official USAPA Ambassador and current president of the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club, was given an opportunity to address the competitors. She thanked Kim and Jennifer (Watson Yoder) for spearheading this event.
We had the National Anthem (a recording) then dispersed to our courts to play. We’d be playing games to 11.
Here was our bracket:
Eight teams, seven rounds of games. For whatever reason, they decided to hold it as a round robin instead of double elimination, which is great, we are all guaranteed seven games instead of two.
Match #1
We had our first match right off the bat at Court #3. We played against Lorraine—she said only her friends call her “Rainey”—and Ed, both from the south San Francisco area. We lost that first game 11-5. It wasn’t really ever close. It was a disappointing start.
Match #2
Becky and Roy from the Monterey area were our second opponents. We lost 11-0! I hit two service returns into the net and another two service returns long. That was 4 points right there. Miserable. Becky hit one shot between us which was my fault for not tracking enough to the left. Becky hit one shot at my shoulder from the kitchen off a high ball from Carrie and I wasn’t ready and my return sailed out. A consistent theme for the morning—and most mixed matches—our opponents were very much targeting Carrie.
In a match. Honestly, I’m not sure which one. This photo was taken and shared later—along with other photos—with the members of the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club.
Match #3
In a game against locals Jim and Sharon, we lost 11-3. This game should not have been nearly this lopsided.
Of particular note in this game was during warm up, Jim hit a shot down the right sideline. I switched my paddle to my right hand to get it back to him and—PAIN! The ball sailed wide to the right. This intense and surprising pain was in my right shoulder. Wow. I really need to get it looked at.
Match #4
Locals Kristin and Mike were our opponents for the fourth match. Kristin is funny. While we were all hanging out in the shade of the injury tent, She jokingly asked how my car was. (She backed into it at the Scotts Valley courts about a year ago.) We kidded back and forth as Mike enjoyed the exchange. Oh, and Kristin early had said they’d won first game 15 to something. “15?” I told her that we were all playing to 11. She said Jennifer had told them that they were playing to 15. Oops. A little administration confusion!
Carrie and I took the lead off the bat and held it for quite a while, it was 6-2 in our favor. We continued to lead most of game including to the point of 9-5. But then they went on a run and came back and won 11-9. Bummer! So close.
Match #5
Our next game was against Lori Cambridge (lives in Aptos) and Roger (Pleasanton). Being that they were from two different towns, I figure that Lori and Roger had signed up independently without a partner and were thrown together as a team.
Someone had taken and kept the starting server band from the basket so there was only one which our opponents took. There wasn’t one for me to wear. After a few points, Lori was obviously irritated about me having no band—especially with Carrie and I stacking—so she walked over to the next court and since it was between matches, she took a band out of its basket and gave it to me to wear.
Carrie and I lead early and chugged along and won 11-8.
After the match, I asked Mike Hoxie if he had some extra bands since one of the courts was missing one and he produced a whole bag. I took a couple—one for court we’d just played on and another for me just in case another court was missing bands.
Match #6
Lisa from Danville and Ed from Walnut Creek were our next opponents. After our win, we were feeling more confident. But after not very long, we were down by a lot of points. We came back to 10-6, but they got that last point and we lost 11-6.
A panorama of one side of the courts.
We had a rather long wait until our last match. I think it was almost 45 minutes.
Match #7
Husband and wife team Rick and Kelly May from San Juan Bautista were our last game. They set up a camera on a tripod to record the game. They steamrolled to a 11-2 win. It was never in doubt. Carrie and I made our only stacking mistake in this game. Our score was even and Carrie got the ball and served from the right side—I didn’t even think to check if she was the correct server and just assumed she was right . . . a dumb mistake since she was relying on me to tell her what to do with regard to stacking. After the point—which we lost anyway—Kelly called us out on the mistake and Carrie served again but as the correct (second) server from the correct court. It would have been a real drag had we won that point and had to have given it up!
The nearly final bracket grid. For the bottom sheet, you read the columns down for a particular team’s score in a game and to find the opponents score in a game with us, you go down their column until you meet our horizontal line.
Tennis Elbow
I did take maybe a dozen service returns with my right hand—those that came significantly to my right side. Everything else was left-handed including all of my serves.
After our last, I walked over to the Mays and chatted for a minute. Rick said he had really bad tennis elbow and tried a bunch of forearm bands until he settled on the Bandit. It’s the same brand that Stuart had recommended to me months ago. I’m going to have to get myself one of those.
Wrap-Up
I feel bad that I got Carrie into this, even though she was a very good sport about the experience. She wasn’t looking to get into tournament play but I asked her. If you do the math, we averaged just over 5 points per game—5.142 points to be more exact. It wasn’t a fun experience for us losing games 11-0, 11-2, 11-3. Me, playing left-handed, and her less than a year into pickleball and her used to her tennis-based drive shots being more effective against run-of-the-mill players. Tournament players are much better handling drives. We were the second worst team out of eight. Carrie wasn’t quite ready in her skill development and I’m often optimistic to a fault and thought our opponents wouldn’t be as tough as they were.
Men’s Doubles
As I was on my way out around 1 p.m., Binh said, “We’re going to have some tough competition tomorrow.”
Forearm Band
I found a Bandit online and ordered one. I still need to get a more elbow-friendly paddle too for the day I get to return to playing with my right hand.
Number of days on a court: 294
Number of total hours: 813.5
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