I managed to arrange a Friday night with Eric, John P., and Eric got Tom B. as our fourth. All good intermediate players. I was coming to the courts from a family gathering at my brother’s house in Scotts Valley but he missed a turn in his explained directions to Skypark and I ended up a few minutes late for our 7 p.m. time. It was sunny, mild, and calm.
This would be my first time playing with these guys since pre-pandemic.
Eric (left) warming up with Tom B. (middle) and John P. (right).
The guys were already warmed up, so I quickly warmed up for about two minutes then we started games where we switched partners between games. They asked how I was doing and John immediately figured out and commented that I am still playing left-handed instead of with my natural right hand.
Eric was bouncing a ball up and down a few times off the edge of his paddle. Being that he has a thick Selkirk paddle, the edge is wide and flat. He said, “My record is 22.” That’s 22 bounces on the edge of his paddle before it falls.
Here’s a list of our games and their result. A true round-robin would have meant some increment of 3 for games: 3, 6, 9 and we only played 8 before calling it a night at 9:20. I played with Eric 3 times, John 3 times and Tom only 2 times.
Difference of scored points each a game totaled up. Negative numbers are losses.
It’s pretty easy to figure out that Eric played really well and Tom had an off night. Here’s another analysis, maybe a bit more fair since it limits things to just the worst and best games with a given partner.
Only counting the games with the best and worst performances with each partner.
It’s even easier to see Eric’s dominance in the above chart. Eric won 7. John won 3. Tom won 2. I won 4. Even with me winning one more game than John, based on a simulated round robin, he outplayed me. In my defense, I wasn’t playing for at least six of the last 12 months while he continued to play and I am still playing lefty.
And I will say, I have sympathy for natural lefty players. Partners have to adjust. I lost at least two points tonight when my partner expected to me take a ball in the middle with my forehand when it was, in fact, out of reach of my lefty backhand.
The things that struck me since I last played with them was Eric has developed a much faster serve that he mixes in and John has continued to develop even more side-spin in his lofted service returns.
Oh, and I guess that with the charts above, I’m demonstrating my inner nerd. Hey, my university degree is in computer science after all!
Saturday, May 22, 2021 (No Play)
YouTube served this up for me and I just had to share. I wish there were more overhead singles videos like this. Very educational.
Number of days on a court: 377 Number of total hours: 1,069.5
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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:
That’s me on the right in bright red pants. Reed’s the one with the letter around his neck and sporting stylish pants.
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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I had one of my staff close our business for the day and I was able to get to Skypark in Scotts Valley at 6:25 p.m. There were two tennis players but other than those two, the courts were completely empty. I don’t think I’ve ever been there when there are no pickleball players.
Terry (who likes to play barefooted) arrived a few minutes later, so she and I started dinking back and forth. Allan K. arrived then the three of us warmed up. Since we didn’t have a fourth yet, we opted to start a rotating 2 on 1 game, with the 1 having to protect only one half of their court, all of us changing positions after each service was broken, rotating as the “1”. Kind of like skinny singles on one side, doubles on the other.
At 6:45, I texted Alain to see if he was still coming. The funny thing was, he was in the parking lot when I texted! We were soon in a full doubles game and rotated through partners after each game.
That’s a ‘Pickle‘
While we were playing on a nearby court, two couples arrived to play doubles—one in their early 30s another in their 50s, it appeared. At least one of the men knew the game, as he was explaining it to the women. I’d never seen any of them before. At one point, the man told the women that something was called a “pickle”. I thought it was weird, as there really isn’t any universal convention as to what a “pickle” is. In fact, I’ve never heard it used locally—or in any of the venues I’ve traveled to—over the last four years. Sure enough, Allan walked over to me amused and quietly said, “Did you hear that? He said something was a pickle. I’ve never heard of that.” Terry said, “I’ve heard of a ‘golden pickle’.” I had too, just not a pickle. When Allan asked Terry what a golden pickle was, she gave a good explanation, “When the game is won with only the first server ever serving.” Based on what I heard later, what he was calling a “pickle” was when a member of the serving team volleyed a third shot violating the double-bounce rule. But maybe I misheard. I didn’t ask.
After three regular doubles games, Allan said he was tired from playing pickleball in the morning and swimming in the afternoon, so he called it a day.
With only three of us, we reverted to 2 against 1. This time, we didn’t rotate after each service change but after a complete game.
Singles
Terry wanted to drive home before it got dark, so that left Alain and me. We went on to play three games of singles.
Playing singles is exhausting. I lost all three. It’s hard when you have a fit 20-something who can run a 4.4 40-yard dash and a 50-something who needs to lost 30 pounds that hasn’t been getting near enough exercise! And, yes, I’m still playing left-handed from right shoulder surgery, but still… For the last game, I was leading 7-2 but ended up losing 11-7 . . . go figure! Alain is quick. I’d hit the ball to one corner, he’d race there, get it back over the net, then I’d hit it to the other corner, he’d race there, get it back over the net. Sheesh. Singles is so different and it takes some time for me to adjust—I suspect many people have that problem of adjusting, especially when you don’t play singles much. Even my strategy and experience advantage wasn’t enough to keep Alain at bay. Hats off to him.
It was getting late and I was beat. We grabbed our things and walked to the parking lot. Alain asked about Sunday. I told him that I’d be playing but that I had to leave by 11 a.m. It sounded like he’d come. I turned on my car. The clock read 9:11. “Home, James”, as they say.
A bright side of singles was that even with the demanding starts and stops, my right knee wasn’t bothering me. After the MRI on it, the surgeon was ready to go on the minor tear, but I’m going to wait until it really needs it.
Sunday, May 16, 2021 (No Play)
I had a meeting this morning at 11:15, but figured I could get in a couple hours of play. That was before I woke up around 2 a.m. and tossed and turned for about 3 hours. I was going to get up at 7 a.m., but after losing that much sleep, I reset my alarm to 8:30. But I didn’t even make it to that. At 8:28, a smoke detector went off at work alerting my phone and prompting a call from the monitoring service. I scrambled and met the fire department for a false alarm. Miserable. At least it wasn’t in the middle of the night. Thes dirty looks from the firefighters weren’t as bad this time. (I’m going to see about fixing this issue. We’re having a smoke detector false alarm on average every 5-6 months. It’s super annoying.) But with the time I got home—approaching 9:30—and with a bit of drizzle and lack of sleep, I decided to give pickleball a miss today. Bummer.
Tonight, I emailed John P. and Eric S. to see if they were interested in playing an evening this week at Skypark. With COVID, they’d been playing singles with just the two of them. Eric has said that once I was fully vaccinated, he’d play with me. I’ll be three weeks—only two are required—past by second shot as of this Wednesday.
Number of days on a court: 375 Number of total hours: 1,066
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