Month: August 2022 (Page 4 of 5)

Saturday, August 7, 2022 (Court Day #530)

My son arrived in Santa Cruz last night from his extended cross country trip from North Carolina where he’s been in grad school at Duke for the last two years. At dinner, my wife Kristen said that her sister Liz and her husband Steve wanted to challenge Nicholas and me to a pickleball match. She said that Steve is “getting pretty good”. Nicholas seem to think that this match concept was a good idea. I told that Nicholas that should come play pickleball with me tomorrow morning (now today) and he agreed.

This morning, my wife was asking him on “a scale of 1 to 10” how much he wanted to play, and he told her a 6 or 7. Coming from Nicholas that’s probably a 8 for anyone else! I was pleased. Considering Nicholas was cooped up in a car for the most part the last couple of weeks, I suspect he was quite happy getting exercise. We left the house at about 8:35 a.m., with Nicholas wanting to take his own car in case you wanted to leave earlier. So he followed me on my trip down to Derby Park.

At Derby

Nicholas helped me with my site coordinator duties and set up some portable nets while I got things in order and blew off the courts.

I played some stronger games and some weaker games over the course of the morning, but due to the rotation timing, I was having a hard time breaking into games that were truly challenging . . . players I wanted to join had just started games and it was a very busy—and beautiful, if windy—day with at least 20 people waiting to get onto courts, so I might have to wait half an hour to get into a game with them. As it was, I made due with what I had.

Great Games!

The best games of the day by far were the last three where Eric S. and I took on Charles and firefighter Rob. I decided that I was going to play with Eric, and Eric agreed to be my partner, announcing immediately that our opponents would be very much a challenge—the inflection was one of not expecting to win. As one might expect, Eric and I did indeed lose the first game by about a 2 to 1 ratio. But we did a little bit better towards the end of the game.

We opted for a rematch, switching sides. This time Eric and I won by a pretty significant margin, also about 2:1, I believe it was 11-5. We turned the tables!

We went on to play a tiebreaker match with Eric and I leading that game 9-4. All we needed was two points to finish off that third game. Unfortunately for us, Rob and Charles went on a seven point run winning 11-9. But still have no regrets—that was a super fun game! Charles complimented me on my net play and said that balls came back that he had been expecting to be winners.

Nicholas

We finished up that last game at about 1:45 p.m. Nicholas had finished up his last game (with Anne and her husband Erick) while Eric S. and I were in the midst of our last game. For all the talk of leaving early, he stayed 5 hours! “I wanted to get better.” That’s my son, Nicholas, also a perfectionist like his dad.

Skill Creep

It was a free-for-all today with a number of lower-skilled players signing up in advanced. I was shocked at some of the names. I just have shake my head. At least they weren’t in my box.

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Monday, August 8, 2022 (No Play)

My sister-in-law tagged me on Facebook post sharing a local article about pickleball:
https://lookout.co/santacruz/guides/story/2022-08-05/pickleball-take-over-the-planet-we-investigate-this-fastest-growing-sport-laughter-trash-talk-ensue

It’s a long article with interesting insight. And, of course, there are photos of local players that I know, like Jon on the swing, Wendy with her arms raised in the air, Dan Bliss and Nolan partnered in a dink battle and another with them tapping paddles after a game.

Also seen today, a TSA post from five days ago, some people playing a mini-game in an airport using sandals as paddles and a fabric portable divider as a makeshift net!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CgzpcGjvdZo/

I can’t tell you how many times that I’ve imagined a pickleball court in the walkway of an airport while waiting to depart! A lot!

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Wednesday, August 10, 2022 (No Play)

I’m so overloaded with deadlines and duties that I skipped pickleball last night. Something had to give.

Tournament

I recently talked to Jason Brown about playing in a tournament. He said he’d never done it before, but was interested. Binh and Eric, my former tournament partners were already booked (Binh) or not interested this time (Eric). I talked Jason through signing up for the “Monterey Bay Pickleball Championships” tournament at Charmisal last night. The men’s doubles events will be held on Saturday, September 10. Jason is now a dues-paying member of USA Pickleball.

Today, I was trying to register but PickleballTournaments.com was forcing me to register as a 3.0 player . . . or at least as far as I could tell. It was a bit confusing. My official UTPR rating is 3.432—unchanged since my last sanctioned men’s doubles event over three years ago. M playing in 3.0 would not be fair to true 3.0 players. I emailed Michael Zury who runs the event (the Tournament Director) to see if I should just sign up anyway and he could fix my rating category to 3.5. He wrote back quickly and said he could fix it once I registered. So I did. Kind of. I accidentally registered for Mixed Doubles. Oops. I wrote Michael again. Hopefully, he’ll get things all fixed and pair me with Jason as requested.

Oh, the registration plus event fee was a manageable $55. I find it crazy that some tournaments want $130 or more.

As of tomorrow, it will have been exactly three years since my last men’s doubles event. That was unsanctioned and was with Binh at the first—and so far only—local Cabrillo tournament.

Later

Someone posted a link to this online, aside from spelling ”Erne” wrong, its pretty funny…

Number of days on a court: 530
Number of total hours: 2,428

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

Friday, August 5, 2022 (Court Day #529)

This morning the back of my hand was aching a little bit as it has been last night. However, I didn’t affect my play at all today and I didn’t even notice it.

This morning I need to make a stop at work and take care of some unfinished business which delayed me a fair amount. I arrived at Brommer Park about 9:50 a.m. and took the very last parking place in the parking lot. It would turn out to be the lighter attendance day, although everything is relative. At the peak there was about 15 people waiting to get onto one of the 8 courts. 8×4=32. 32+15=47. 47 is still a lot of people, but I’ve seen nearly 60 people at Brommer on holidays.

Wind

Things got kind of windy towards later morning and wreaking havoc on some of my shots. Serves going long, opponents’ shots changing mid-flight.

Tournament?

I asked Jason if he plays tournaments, and he said he never has, but he was interested and I got his number.

Today was a mixed bag of play, although overall I left the courts at 12:20 p.m. feeling pretty good.

Where Have the Elites Gone?

Some of the really elite players have not been appearing in recent months. Dan Bliss blames this on ”skill creep” where intermediate players are signing up as advanced and the advanced players getting bored/disappointed with the competition as a result . . . so they stop showing up. I’m not an advanced player in Dan’s eyes, but I understand the problem. I’m pushing the skill level found at Derby Park. There are enough strong players to get some good games, but not enough to make sure weaker players don’t end up mixed in. And often there will only be one player who is better than me. And sometimes, it’ll just be me at the top of the pyramid.

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Saturday, August 6, 2022 (No Play)

Greg, A long-time friend of my wife, messaged me from San Diego:
‘Dude, literal headline on the new down here this morning…”S.D. TENNIS COMMUNITY FENDS OFF PICKLEBALL TAKE OVER ATTEMPT.” What the heck?’

Here’s the newscast:
Pickleball players stage takeover of Peninsula Tennis Club to make a point

After looking into it, a local group of pickleball players staged a protest at an Ocean Beach tennis facility, refusing to get off the courts there. The city permit for the facility had expired and the PB players are trying to get the city to convert the courts to pickleball courts. The story goes that San Diego has not a single permanent pickleball court for its population of 1.4 million people. By comparison, locally, Scotts Valley, with a population of 12,000 has four permanent courts. Using the same ratio, SD should have 400 pickleball courts!

On the flip side, consider the City of Santa Cruz has no permanent courts, though Derby Park has six temporary courts and two very sturdy rolling pickleball nets. The City of Santa Cruz has work to do too.

Number of days on a court: 529
Number of total hours: 2,423.5

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

Thursday, August 4, 2022 (Court Day #528)

I left work relatively early and arrived at Skypark at about 6:10 p.m. Seven courts were in use and eventually a temporary net was later set up for an eighth court as well.

Tonight was a mix of games with weaker players and also games that were great against stronger players. I played the better end of the spectrum tonight, making some really good shots.

Matt Smith is a total banger—it’s very good for me to play against him. One of my biggest challenges is judging the trajectory of out balls. That is a major Achilles’ Heel for me, that is, hitting balls that would otherwise land out and end the rally. The other issue is doing a better job hugging the sideline and preventing passing shots. As in previous games, Matt Smith successfully hit at least two passing shots along my right sideline out of my reach for winners. After each shot, Matt made eye contact with a knowing smile on his face. Yep, that’s something I need to fix.

The back of my right hand is aching a little bit. I have to keep an eye on it. Hopefully it doesn’t get worse, it does worry me a little bit.

The last game ended at 9:29 p.m., one minute before the lights with click off.

Number of days on a court: 528
Number of total hours: 2,421

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