Adventures of Andrew Lenz and a Yellow Ball

Month: September 2021 (Page 2 of 4)

Late Start

Thursday, September 16, 2021 (Court Day #412)

I had a non-profit board meeting tonight via Zoom and attended it from my house after leaving work a little early. Once it finished at about 7:40, I was on the fence about going to play and had decided to stay home, but my wife said, “Go ahead and go play.” Ok. Nothing like a kick in the pants. I arrived to at dark Skypark a few minutes after 8 p.m. The lights were already on. We’re heading into fall!

Arrival. Terry and Larry on the near court. The “boys” on the other courts.

I quickly got into a game with Terry vs. Mark G. and Kristin L. It was a good game. We lost. That’s not a big surprise with no warm up and me playing lefty—my tennis elbow is acting up still. It’s minor still, but I don’t want to make it flare up again.

There were three courts full of the 30-something and 40-something guys. When my normal group of players all left, I wandered over and asked some their group—who were between games—if I could jump in. They were agreeable and I went on to play another 3-4 games with their group. I played with bald Dan against Matt and Paul. Then with newbie Dan against Matt and Paul. Then me and Josh against newbie Dan and Paul . . . Paul commented that was I taking it easy on Dan . . . even playing lefty, I could have ended points quickly and easily. Matt and Paul and still mostly raw bangers, but they hit hard, are quick, and are good at getting the ball back over the net. It’s different going up against unorthodox players. You have to kind of expect the unexpected.

We played until about 9:40. The lights hadn’t gone out—yay! fixed!—but it was late and people were tired after a long day.


Friday, September 17, 2021 (No Play)

I found this to be a very interesting video. I haven’t explored these serves yet, but boy, they look deadly. At some point, it’ll be good for me to experiment with these types of serves. There has been talk of outlawing the chainsaw serve which has been allowed under 2021 rules due to a COVID-directed change. But with the technique shown in this video, it would comply with the old rules too and would be difficult to enforce it being eliminated . . . they could say “no spinning the ball on serves” but that will be very difficult to call by opponents or a referee. Or I suppose they could say we can only drop a ball with no upward tosses. We’ll know in about three months!


Number of days on a court: 412
Number of total hours: 2,071.5

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Playing with the Boys

Tuesday, September 14, 2021 (Court Day #411)

Nine times. I’ll explain in a minute.

I was going to have one of my staff close at work so I could go to pickleball early, but both my closers left due to not feeling well, so I arrived at Skypark at about 6:30. It had been cloudy until later in the day, so it was cooler. There were two tennis players on their courts and fourteen pickleball players at the other end of the facility.

Judy, Tim, Debbie, and Sharyl.

Even with my forearm strap tight, my tennis elbow was bothering me some tonight. Not super painful, but still a slight annoyance. I played games lefty for the most part tonight.

After I hit the white net tape with the ball, I started counted. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. I drove the ball into the white tape nine times between warming up with Kristin L. and half a dozen games that followed. Ugh. Dave Weinbach is known for the mantra “Respect the Net”. I need to more of that. Yes, you want to keep the ball low, but—rule #1 in pickleball—get the ball over the net!

I played a game with a group of Matt, Paul, Dave. I asked the time and Matt said 9:33. The lights were still on but were expected to click off any second, yet they were still on after we’d gotten into our cars and left. Dunno.


Wednesday, September 15, 2021 (No Play)

I opted to order my USA Pickleball ambassador business cards today. I have no idea how long they will take to arrive, but at least they are coming. They’ll be handy to have to pass out to people interested in learning pickleball.


Number of days on a court: 411
Number of total hours: 2,070

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

Sacramento Visitors

Sunday, September 12, 2021 (Court Day #410)

Right before I was heading to play, I remembered that I needed to fix the modification to my Bandit forearm strap. I had added some foam padding to it with some cloth tape, but after a couple of years of abuse, the tape failed. I reattached the padding with new gaffers tape and I was good to go. The point of the padding is to apply more targeted pressure the forearm muscle and further reduce strain on the tendon at the elbow.

Repair complete!

It started out overcast but it burnt off later and we had a wonderful, sunny day. I arrived at Brommer Park at about 9:15 and the parking lot was thinner than typical. It’s a tournament weekend, so some players were off competing.

Sacramento Contingent

Even with many stronger players off at a tournament, I got in some good games regardless. There was a group from Sacramento staying at a local beach house: Jim, Lexi and her fiancée whose name I forget . . . Kevin? We’ll call him Kevin for sake of having a name for him.

Jim and “Kevin” were 4.0 players. Kevin said they took up pickleball during the pandemic. I told him he was really good for having only played a little over a year. He said he played a lot of tennis and another paddle sport and that helped.

The visitors put me in my place. Any small error, they took advantage of. I wasn’t playing badly, I just wasn’t as consistently good.

SwiftNet

Today, I had my first chance to try and set of one of those new “SwiftNet” portable nets. As we gave up winging it and reverted to the instruction sheet, the woman who owned it and was letting us use it trotted over and helped us finish. It is pretty quick to set up, no doubt. There’s a red stripe on the center Velcro strap that probably determines the correct center height, but I think the owner overdid it as it seemed too low until we adjusted it. They are pricey at $350 new. Later when the woman was leaving and took her net, it turned out that Art B. had another of the exact same model net! It was easy to set it up the second time!

Another Andrew

There was a tall younger fellow named Andrew. It was the first time in my pickleball experience that there is another player with my name. Andrew and I played a few games against Jon B. and a young fellow named Nate who lives a block away from Willowbrook. Nate said the play at Brommer is much stronger. Yep. We played a couple of fantastic games with long rallies.

Cathy and Rich

There was a couple there whom I’d never seen, Rich and Cathy. Around fifty and heavier-set. I was paired with a woman named Ellen against this new couple. I think I’d seen Ellen before, but I’d never played with her. Our first game was won 11-0. I played lefty in second game and we won 11-3 or something. I later played with Rich against two stronger players and he is much better than teaming with Cathy seemed to make him.

I got in some really great strong games to finish off the day. I played a few games against Jon B. I can see why John P. and he won that 3.5 gold medal about a month ago. Jon is a very solid player. He’s awesome to play against.

Tournament with Dave?

As I was driving away from the courts, I got a call from Dave Cox. He asked about my arm then asked if I was interested in playing in a tournament in two weeks. I told him I’d been talking to a guy Clayton about doing tournaments, but nothing was firm yet. I also told him Saturdays were a long shot with working being so demanding right now.

Review

I have to start recording my games. I need to drill and I need to figure out where I need the most work. Drop shots are a weakness, but I could be missing other opportunities for improvement.


Number of days on a court: 410
Number of total hours: 2,067

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

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