Tuesday, May 10, 2022 (Court Day #493)

Yesterday, my wife and I left my son’s apartment in Durham at 9 a.m. eastern and walked into our house in Santa Cruz about 10:45 p.m. pacific. It was a long day. I finally got to sleep about 11:30 p.m.—also known as 2:30 a.m. eastern! My wife and I were both miserable from delayed sleep, delayed takeoffs, a 3-4 hour layover at JFK in New York, and being stuck on airplanes for hours on end.

Pro vs. Amateur

This morning, a guy promoting his blog, posted an article link in one of the pickleball groups on Facebook. The premise is interesting: What do pros say differentiates themselves from amateurs?
https://www.thatpickleballguy.com/p/3-reasons-why-pros-are-pros-and-amateurs/

And what do they say?

  • Great shot execution consistency;
  • spending more time drilling than playing;
  • better at resetting a point (drop into the kitchen from anywhere);
  • better spotting/predicting/anticipating strategic opportunities;
  • better ability to adapt to win (changing tactics and having the tools to execute various tactics well).

Time to Play

Arrived in Skypark at 7 p.m. Obviously a few people had recently left, because there were cars parked in weird places but when I drove in there were three empty normal spaces. Things are hopping; there were several temporary nets set up.

Overall tonight was one of those nights that you prefer to forget. I felt pretty good about my play . . . until the last three games.

Smoked

Tim and I took on Matt and his friend Paul. In an absolute stunner of a game, they beat us 11-0. It was one of those games where you just shake your head and laugh.

We had a rematch and this time Tim and I won 11-7.

We played a third game, switching sides, and this time it returned to a lopsided result like the first game, Tim and I lost that one 11-3.

Matt and Paul are definitely getting better, and they have a tournament this coming weekend in Monterey. Matt was saying that there are only five or six teams in the 3.0 bracket even lumping all the different age groups together. I expect them to do well. They should medal.

Maybe I can blame jetlag for my poor performance in the last few games. Tim made some mistakes too but I suspect the number of mine were double the number of his.

We checked the time after the last game, 9:24 p.m. TK and some friends were playing in the court next to us and they wrapped up their game just before the lights clicked off at 9:30.

Um, Keys?

When I went to leave, I couldn’t find my car keys. I ended up taking out a bunch of items out of my backpack’s zipper pocket but I eventually did find my keys. They were in an interior pocket—in the bigger pocket—that I never put them into. I’ll have to be a little bit more careful next time so that I don’t stress myself out thinking that my keys had disappeared and that I wouldn’t be able to get home!


Number of days on a court: 493
Number of total hours: 2,312.5

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