Tuesday, September 27, 2022 (Court Day #553)
There was an article in the New York Post yesterday about pickleball players “battling” kids for playing area in New York City:
https://nypost.com/2022/09/26/parents-go-to-war-with-pickleball-players-over-nyc-parks/
Big cities have to be about the worst place to try and find courts with the land being so expensive.
Skypark
I told René that I would be playing at Skypark on Tuesday night, and—with the tournament together coming up on Sunday—she drove over from San Jose area to play as my partner for the evening. When I arrived at 7 p.m., she was finishing up her first game.
We played a couple of games against weaker players and the result of those two games were never in doubt. They were lopsided.
Tim and Matt S.
We went on to play a game against Tim F. and Matt Smith. Tim, of course, loves to lob. Matt Smith on the other hand, likes to drive shots very hard. Often, if you can get out of the way, his drives will go out.
Between the difficulty of playing under lights, and Matt and Tim seeming to target René, René started to get a little bit annoyed. She and I were not playing our best in that game and Tim and Matt are taking quite a lead. When the game ended René wanted to play against someone else.
Mark and David
Our next game was with Mark G. and the older Asian fellow David. David is a very good player and has wicked drives that easily equal those of Matt Smith. He also has good control and can also angle the ball well. He’s quite the formidable opponent. René and I got clobbered in that game. And when that game was done, René did not want to rematch.
I was a bit disappointed. The harder the competition, the faster the shots, the more I want the game. It’s a bummer to lose, but in rec play, I’d much prefer to lose than to slaughter my opponents. René just wasn’t matching the vibe. After a long hard day, she wanted more upbeat “fun” opponents.
We took a short break before we found some new opponents. We played four or five games against Mike (build like a linebacker) and another fellow Dave. Mike plays at Skypark now and then and I’ve seen Dave maybe a handful of times before. They were both weaker players and René and I won all of the games. They did improve over the course of those games, taking the games from very lopsided to somewhat lopsided.
We finished up about 9:20, René needed to drive about 45 minutes to get home and needed to be up early. I hoping to squeeze in one more game but everyone was done.
Number of days on a court: 553
Number of total hours: 2,497.5
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