Thursday, January 30, 2020 (Court Day #331)
I emailed Mark Dettle to see if people were meeting at Skypark tonight. (I’m the last few weeks someone told me that they weren’t meeting there anymore—I figured it was mostly a weather thing where they were meeting indoors instead.) I didn’t get a reply after a few hours so I emailed Sharyl instead and she replied within 5-10 minutes that they were. Excellent. My legs and body were a little sore from yesterday’s mini tournament, but I wanted to get back out and play.
Skypark
I arrived just before 7 p.m. The four permanent courts were in use. (A fifth temporary net was briefly set up later.)
I got into a few games. Stuart was there. I was hoping to get a game in with him since one could argue he was the strongest player there. I did get a game against him and it was telling. His ball placement was excellent. For one point, he hit a sharp crosscourt shallow shot and I really had to stretch to get it and ended up popping it up which his partner slammed for a winner. Arrrgh! Stuart is good with those angle shots.
Husband Ryan
Jenny—who I’d usually see at Derby—brought her husband Ryan. He’s tall and fit, with short gray hair. Wayne and I played against them. It was a good game. Ryan had the perfect answer for Wayne’s drives from the baseline—drop it short at an angle off the court. He did this several times. (About a month ago, I did something similar, but I just dropped the ball right over the net where it just died, impossible to reach.) I earned a few points with spin against the two of them. At least three deep back spin drives were hit into the net. I had a great forehand slice drive. Spins are coming along left-handed.
Jennifer
A woman I’d never seen before named Jennifer was there. I played against her while she was partnered with Shawnte. I had Maria as my partner. After I messed Jennifer up with my serves and spin, I figured that she wasn’t the strongest of players so I told her I’d dial it back a bit. There was a funny moment of Jennifer assuming that Shawnte was younger than she was but he’s 42 and she’s 39. I thought both were younger than that—well, I learned a while ago that he was in his 40s.
The lights clicked off at 8:30. It was mentioned that the City of Scotts Valley neglected to reset the automatic timer after the time change. Oops.
Heading Out
Walking out, I told Ryan, “You need to keep playing. You are going to just get better and better. When I switch back to playing right handed, you’ll be a formidable opponent.” Jenny said, “Oh, yeah. You are playing left handed. You are playing awesome.” “Well, awesome is relative.” (Remember, I’d just placed 7th out of 8 players in our mini tournament yesterday!)
Number of days on a court: 331
Number of total hours: 935
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Are the PB courts open on Saturday?
My understanding is that there is no formal organized play due to pandemic restrictions still being in place, but individuals are arranging their own games at Skypark. With COVID-19 rates dropping significantly, we may see the return organized play in the next month or two. We’ll see!