Sunday, July 5, 2020 (Court Day #355)

I walked out my front door and it was already warm. It was going to be a hot one! I would pass 1,000 court hours today. Three and a half years of pickleball. Two years playing righty and the last year and a half playing lefty—a frustratingly long stretch of tennis elbow.

I arrived at Brommer Park at 9:10. When I walked in and saw Binh, he said he’d already played two games! Early bird.

I had to sit and wait for about ten minutes for my first game. The four permanent courts were full and tennis players were using the tennis court—there’s no putting up temporary pickleball nets while it’s in use, unfortunately.

9:10 and courts hopping!

I played a number of games. My play was ok in some and not ok in others.

I have to give credit to Shawnte. I attempted a lefty backhand ATP, but Shawnte saw what was coming, was there, and returned the ball back over the net. I popped it up and he finished off the point. “I couldn’t let you have that!”, he smiled. Nice work, Shawnte!

We had several groups of newbie players come and go today as I played on and on. It’s fun to see random people who I don’t know appear at the courts—especially when they are young. The sport is growing!

The last three games of the day were Stuart and me against Dan and Rick. They won the first game. They were trouncing us in the second but we came back and made a game of it . . . though we still lost. We played one last game. This time, I was making a special effort to get my serves deeper and my returns deeper. (Out of my lefthanded comfort zone.) It been a weakness for me playing lefty. And it worked. Stu and I won the last game handily. “We played one too many games!”, said Dan.

I checked my phone. 1:13 p.m. Another day of playing over four hours. And now over 1,000 hours on a pickleball court. Milestone accomplished!

ProKennex vs. Rogue2?

Late last night, I posted this question in the Facebook Pickleball Forum:

Drat. Three typos on the last line! Holy cow! Missed that! I went back and fixed those!

I received a fair number of helpful comments—some about tennis elbow in general and a handful answering my question. The consensus was in favor of the Rogue2. I think I’m going to order one. $125. I’m starting to think about selling some of my paddles. I don’t need 4 or 5 of them, honestly. 2-3, sure. 5? Nah.

Injury-wise, my right knee is still bugging me, but it’s slowly improving. My left triceps is sore and has been for about a week—it’s my current paddle arm, after all. It’s quite painful when I lock my arm straight then use the triceps to move my arm back behind me. My lower back is fatigued. My right ankle, the one I rolled a couple of years ago still acts up occasionally. And the tennis elbow, of course.

Tomorrow, I have to let one of my staff in to work. He’s got a medical note saying he shouldn’t be at work with other people during this COVID-19 pandemic. Being that we are currently closed on Mondays, that means he can work by himself on that day. Hopefully, it won’t delay me too much getting to the courts.

Number of days on a court: 355
Number of total hours: 1,002.5

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