Monday, May 17, 2021 (No Play)
I got a surprise email from a guy I know, Reed. Reed and I were best friends when we were living on the same street here in Santa Cruz about 50 years ago. My mom took this of the two of us heading off to kindergarten:
My family moved across town, we went to different schools, life moved on. But these days Reed works two blocks from me at a company that supplies items we need for our family business, so I get to see him every month or so. Reed has an athletic background and coached volleyball for a number of years at the high school and college level:
https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1998/mar/04/whitworth-volleyball-coach-picked/
So the surprise is that I got an email from him saying his sister is coming to town in mid-June and she wants to play locally and Reed found online that I’m a site coordinator for the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club. I gave him a call and he said it would be his sister Julie—I haven’t seen her since high school—as well as her husband and Reed’s niece … and Reed himself. Initially, I thought it was just going to be the visitors playing, but Reed said he wanted to play too: “How hard can it be?” I told him the story of my first time out—maybe it was a time or two later, I can’t recall, it’s been four years now—how I was going to “take it easy” on an older woman player and then she unleashed a fast serve that I couldn’t handle! Reed was interested in getting a jumpstart so he’d be ready to make a good showing when he sister arrives!
I sent Reed a couple of videos, one with highlights of pro rallies, and another of me and some locals playing a few years ago. Ok, fine. I’ve shared them before, but here those two are again:
I offered some nights to go play and Reed said he’d get back to me.
Pickleball Zoom Meeting
Ted arranged for weekly Zoom meeting of some of us pickleballers. Unfortunately, his wife was attacked by ants and Eric ended up hosting the Zoom meeting instead. In the conversation, it was mentioned that Ted was working toward arranging a league of sorts using a website that organizes such things, called Playtime Scheduler at playtimescheduler.com. I haven’t had a chance to dig into it yet.
Blast from the Past
It looks like John P., Eric, and I will play Friday night. It’ll be the first time in over a year that we’ll be on the same court. Eric said he’d work on finding a fourth for our game. (Eric is my partner in the video above.)
Wednesday, May 19, 2021 (Court Day #376)
I got word back from Reed that he, his wife Sunshine, and his teenage daughter Mia were ready to go for tonight at 6:30. We were on for an introduction to pickleball. I had one of my staff close and I left work at 6:10. It had been quite windy outside just before, so I was concerned about that interfering. I arrived early at Skypark at 6:25 and they had beat me there. Fortunately, the wind was negligible. There was a court with four guys that I didn’t know playing a lower intermediate game and a couple of middle-aged women leisurely playing against each other on another. We had two of the four permanent courts to choose from, I picked the one next to the two women.
I spent about 10 minutes explaining the basic rules then handed out paddles and got them into dinking with Sunshine across from Reed and Mia across from me. I took my old autographed Tempest Wave paddle myself figuring I’d use the unsigned side for forehands. Once they got a bit of an understanding of the paddle and ball weights and how they interacted, I had them back up to mid-court and we hit some longer shots. Reed offered, “I can see injuries happening in this game! My sister said she hurt herself playing.” I told him that I’d wrenched my back twice, rolled my ankle, and developed bad tennis elbow. (My right shoulder rotator cuff surgery was almost certainly from playing league summer softball in the outfield, so I didn’t share that.)
We soon started a game with Sunshine and me against Reed and Mia. Periodically, between points, I’d stop and explain some additional rule or some key piece of strategy. They all had difficulty getting their serves in, but got the hang of it with some practice . . . there were a lot of service mulligans in this game!
I had forgotten how bad my old delaminated paddle was. Boy. I hit one shot and it should have gone over but made a thud noise and the ball sailed low into the net! When I wiggled the top edge of the paddle with my other hand, the paddle made crunching noises! Eep! (I have to give credit to Paddletek replacing it under warranty.)
Mia hit a shot between Sunshine and me and when Sunshine reached out for a backhand, she wrenched her back. Grimacing in pain, she stepped off and leaned against the light pole encouraging us to continue without her. (Later she said it wasn’t too bad, just sore.)
We continued with me covering the entire court on my side of the net and getting only one serve while Reed and Mia played their side normally.
With Sunshine nursing a sore back and merely watching, Reed decided that our first game would be the last. At one point, I intentionally hit my serve into the net. (I didn’t want the game to end too quickly!) And strongly avoided hitting any winners. I was up 10-6 and I attempted to miss another serve but to my chagrin, got it over anyway! I gently played the point, just getting the ball back over for each point, but eventually, Reed hit it into the net. Game over. Sometimes, it’s just too difficult to keep a game going—even playing left-handed!
We finished at 7:30. An hour lesson. I fished out my “Pickleball Strategies” handout I’d made up for a club group lesson we’d done about a year and a half ago. I had hoped it was one of the sheets at the back of my backpack and it turned out that I had several still and passed one to Reed.
It seemed like a successful evening.
Thursday, May 20, 2021 (No Play)
A friend from high school, Tom Carter, stopped in at work to get some picture framing done and said, “Hey, that paddleball or whatever it is you play is really taking off! It’s on the Olympics on TV right now!” “It’s not the olympics, but it might be nationals.” (Knowing that it wasn’t nationals, but I didn’t know what the heck he was watching.) “It’s really taking off! I wish I was the one who invented it! I’m going to have to try it.” I told him to just let me know and, as a matter of fact, I was showing some newbies the ropes last night.
News from the Pros
The big news of the day is while playing singles, Simone Jardim withdrew just 2 points into her second game. Someone said this was the second time she’s done this in a tournament. Having played rec singles, I know singles are draining. A person online complained about singles being scheduled before doubles and mixed at tournaments, saying that you can “lay it all out there” if singles is the last event, while if it’s before, you owe it to your partner(s) to not injure yourself. I get that. On the other hand, from an energy/physicality standpoint, it’s good to get the most demanding event out of the way and “coast” (ha, ha) in the following events where you only have to cover half the court.
[Later note on May 24: I found out that the PPA tournament that Simone was playing in was a “Best of 5” format, that is, a five game match—very demanding. I can sympathize with the physical demands of having multiple finals on a single day when using best of five.]
Speaking of Nationals, the USAPA sent out an email saying it has been moved from November to December. A big tennis event will be hosted at Indian Wells to close in time to a November Nationals, so we’re getting bumped. I say “we’re” as a member of the greater pickleball community, not as a participant. I hope it doesn’t stay in December. I still have hope of playing in Nationals some day—when I can play right-handed again—and if it’s held in December when it’s super busy every year at work, I’ll never get to go. The challenges of running a family business…
Number of days on a court: 376
Number of total hours: 1,067
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