Binh had arranged a private game at 6 p.m. at Derby Park with me, Charles, and Jason. I left work early and was five minutes late to the courts and the last of my group to arrive. Four women were already playing using one of the two new nice rolling city nets. We claimed the other. (Later Avery would show up with two friends and they were stuck with one of the older crappy city nets.)
Jason, Binh, and Charles.
Jason and I won the first game, lost the next three, and won the final game. None were easy games.
Video
I recorded one of the middle games that we lost. There’s a 24 hit rally in this game!
I recorded another game, but the battery died in the middle…
Maybe Jason and I came back to win 12-10 from being down 2-10 . . . kidding! Not this game! The big debate in this one was when Binh in a ball down the middle from his left side and I left it for Jason since it would have been a reach for me but Jason was expecting me to cut it off and hit it with my backhand. It’s at 10 minutes in video. I think it was Jason’s ball, but some people think otherwise.
I arrived at Derby Park about 8:50 a.m. to set up and there are two games of doubles going on already when I arrived. René and Rick were off at a tournament today, and I think there may have been others gone too as there were not very many truly advanced players at Derby today. Charles, Binh and me and that was about it. The next two strongest were Adrian and Ted.
Aside from my first two games of the day, most of the games I played today were pretty decent, however there weren’t any games with truly all strong advanced players—three of the four was as good as we could get. As a result, we were splitting the best two players to make the games more evenly balanced . . . which is unfortunate for an advanced game.
Long Game
There was a game mid-morning with Binh and Ted against Adrian and me. It was a very balanced game that dragged on and on. They finally won 17-15. That was the highest scoring game that I’ve ever played in. Binh said his was at tournament where the score climbed to 23-21. Wow. That’s something!
On Fire
I was very happy with my play today. Sure, I made some mistakes. For some points I should’ve opted for a soft shot instead of a driving shot, but overall I played very well. Ted and I played against Charles and Binh. That would be a difficult game with Charles (the strongest) and Binh (fairly equal to me) and me partnered with Ted, the least strong of the group. As Ted said, I was “on fire” in that game. I went on a run of points which ended when I hit a shot in the white tape. “Andrew is back to earth,” observed Charles. Ted and I were leading 6-0. Binh and Charles did come back and they eventually won by a couple of points. That was the expected result.
Last game ended about 12:30 p.m., and I spent another 20 minutes storing club equipment—thankfully, Rick had done a bunch of the work—and talking to other players who were still hanging out.
Nicholas
While my son Nicholas hasn’t been back to the courts since his first weekend back home, a woman stopped me and asked, “Isn’t Nicholas your son? He is such a nice young man.” Chip off the old block! I told him that he has a fan club!
Winners
I checked in with René tonight to see how they did at the tournament. Rick and René won gold at the U.S. Seniors Pickleball event at San Juan Bautista today. Congrats to them!
René and Rick center stage!
Private Game
Binh wanted to arrange a game tomorrow night. He got Charles and I told Binh that I’d be interested but I’d have to make sure I was wasn’t forgetting something. Later, I got a blessing from my wife to play and I reached out to Eric S. as a fourth, but he wasn’t available. So I texted Jason, who will be my partner for Chamisal next month, and he said was going to be back in town just in time to join us. This should be fun!
Number of days on a court: 534 Number of total hours: 2,441.5
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On Tuesday, someone posted this online. I thought it was funny.
Skypark
I got my brother to close the family business so I could leave a little early. I was expecting to go to band practice tonight, but the leader of the pipe band cut his finger and it required stitches so he canceled practice. That meant that I could go to play pickleball, but I needed to go home first, change, and get all my gear.
I arrived at Skypark at 6:30 p.m. There are no tennis players to be seen and there were six courts going for pickleball. Eventually there were eight courts set up with a number of players waiting. There were about 35 people at the peak.
Daniel B., who has been there the last few weeks but I have not seen for quite a long time prior—like a year or two—partnered up with me for a number of games.
Ouch!
In a game against Paul and his friend Matt, Paul served and the ball hit me on the tip of my index finger. The ball did go back over the net crosscourt and was unreturnable for a winner. However there was a cost for that mis-hit. I had broken the end of my finger nail on my index finger, and it was mildly bleeding and slightly painful. I keep Band-Aids in my wallet so it wasn’t too much of an inconvenience. My biggest concern was ripping off the rest of the broken part of my nail—that would be quite painful!
Nice
Tonight was a really good night for challenging play. The weakest game was me playing with “Swoop” against Daniel and Sharon. (I’m almost certain that Swoop and Sharon are part of the local Derby Girls roller derby team.) It was still a fun game. A amusing moment was when I served to Daniel as Swoop’s partner and she blurted out an “OoooOooo” when served hard to Daniel. (I was serving less hard to Sharon.) I don’t think she’s used to speedy serves.
The other weaker game was me and Aaron against Daniel and the “other Mike”—not Texas Mike.
The rest of the games were all at least 3.5 level. Daniel and I played Casey and his dad Tim, losing a very close first game, winning a second game fairly decisively, and then losing a third game. Anytime you can beat Casey and Tim do you know you’re playing a good game.
In the game where Daniel and I beat Tim and Casey, after one rally, Tim said, “Really, really nice play, Andrew.” And he was very sincere. It was a solid compliment. I was playing reasonably well tonight.
Weaknesses
My two biggest weaknesses tonight were hitting balls that otherwise would’ve flown out of bounds, and also returning low balls to my backhand short of the net. Another issue that made itself known when I was playing with Shanté as my partner, was me taking balls in the middle to my backhand when I should’ve left them for my partner’s forehand. That’s definitely something I would need to look out for in a tournament—leaving balls for my partner’s more powerful forehand.
Play wrapped up at 9:30 p.m., with the lights clicking off less than a minute after we finished a last game.
I got Daniel‘s phone number so that we can maybe connect up for a tournament later on. Daniel is a good player.
Number of days on a court: 533 Number of total hours: 2,438
To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.
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