Tuesday, August 10, 2021 (Court Day #400)
I got one of my staff to close the family business and I was able to leave earlier than normal. I arrived at Skypark at 6:30.
The first game was with Janet against Rich (tall, not Renee’s boyfriend) and Mike B. I always enjoy Mike’s southern drawl—plus, he plays well! Not long after, Tristan arrived. Even at just 17, Tristan has become a very strong player and I love playing against strong players. Tristan has filled out into an adult body, instead of a skinny kid.
Adrian’s Serves
Later in the evening, I was paired with Rich against Adrian and Tristan. Adrian got point after point by serving very fast and low serves. I’d love to play against that more often, I’ll have to ask him to serve fast when I play against him.
I got Tristan twice tonight on hard crosscourt forehand drives—right to left—that were barely over the net. (It’s my old college tennis class experience.)
Service Ace
I pulled out my spin serve right to left to outside front corner of the service box that aced Tristan. Terry said, “Andrew, do that again!” It was pretty obvious that Terry didn’t believe it was intentional and that she thought it was a mis-hit. I did a few more standard serves then when it was right to left again, I aced Tristan again on the same serve. I smiled and pointed at Terry and said, “See? It was on purpose!” But it’s high risk, so it don’t want to do it all the time. It has to “feel” right. When it feels right, I make a high percentage of those, 80% or more.
Woops
Disappointing, I did make a switch to my left hand on a crosscourt dink I popped the ball up and Rich nearly killed Janet, my partner for that earlier game. I’m kind of annoyed that I didn’t pull that off. Playing lefty for two years, I should have made that shot.
I did get the sense tonight that Tristan wasn’t playing as hard as he could. (That’s not to say he didn’t try very hard to return my aces!) It could very well have been like me when I play against weaker players . . . I relax a bit and make mistakes I wouldn’t make otherwise.
The last five of us left 8:50. I went home, had dinner then iced my elbow.
Tonight was pickleball outing #400. And it was fun evening.
Wednesday, August 11, 2021 (No Play)
Steve Sutton is the Western Region Director for the USAPA. He accidentally sent out an email intended for USAPA Ambassadors to all members. This started a conversation where he invited me to consider becoming an ambassador since “we need more good ambassadors in Santa Cruz”. I looked online and it only lists Karen Long as the ambassador for our area. Terry and Karen are highly instrumental in pickleball starting in Santa Cruz and Karen is currently the president of the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club. But they are gone a big part of the year.
Friday, August 13, 2021 (No Play)
I emailed Steve and Karen separately about me becoming a USAPA ambassador. I have yet to hear back from either one. Steve, I’m sure is busy. He accidentally emailed thousands of people. Karen, not sure. Emails sometimes get filtered as spam. Dunno.
Number of days on a court: 400
Number of total hours: 2,037
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