Month: May 2024 (Page 1 of 6)

Tuesday, May 28, 2024 (Court Day #667)

This popped up today. Former tennis pro Genie Bouchard interviewed by CNN about pickleball:
https://www.cnn.com/videos/sports/2024/05/24/exp-tennis-pickleball-bouchard-wire-052407aseg1-cnni-sports-fast.cnn

In the interview, she describes how pickleball is entirely different than tennis and that coming into pickleball she feels like she did when she entered juniors tennis. Vindication for those who imply that pickleball is not challenging to tennis players.

DUPR

DUPR sent out an email message today:
“We are excited to announce the release of the DUPR Reliability Score, a new metric to help you understand your rating better. Your player profile will now feature two numbers: your DUPR rating, reflecting your current pickleball skill level, and the Reliability Score, indicating the confidence level of your rating based on match data.”

What stinks is that I entered games into DUPR from the Santa Cruz Classic Tournament a couple of weeks ago, but since DUPR requires all four players to verify the result for games not provided by a tournament itself, the games remain unverified and don’t count toward my DUPR rating.

Pro Fined

Romanian pro pickleball player Andrei Daescu had his paddle tested two and a half weeks ago at MLP Atlanta. (Pickle Pro Labs does the testing for MLP.) Lo and behold, they found a “foreign substance” on the paddle which made it more grippy. Well, in the last 24 hours, Daescu has been fined $50,000 (ouch), suspended from MLP and PPA events for two months, will be on “probation” for a year. I’m don’t know what probation entails other than the obvious . . . they’ll be keeping a close eye on him and his paddles. I guess the good news is that he wasn’t able to use the paddle in Atlanta as it was caught before play commenced.

_{LATER NOTE:
On May 30, Daescu issued a statement on Instagram:
“I am pained by the recent events. This was an unfortunate mishap. I would NEVER cheat.
There was no intent to use the paddle in question during competition; it was mistakenly submitted for testing. The paddle has never been used in competition.
The UPA has rules and policies. Paddle testing is the player’s responsibility. I will abide by their decision.”
The rumor has it the paddle was given to his practice partners to give them an advantage and make practice games more difficult for Daescu.}

Skypark

It was 7:09 p.m. as I was walking on the path to toward the courts from the remote parking lot. It was sunny but breezy. I was depressed over my play in my last game yesterday morning.

I was suddenly distracted by the sound of very distant fire works or the sound of nearer popcorn popping. Of course, it wasn’t. It was pickleball around a curve in the path and through the grove of trees.

It was a light crowd, with only a handful of people waiting to get on courts.

First Game

I got in my first game about 7:20 p.m., with Ethan and the young woman Caitlin (UCSC senior) against me and a woman who said that she just moved to Santa Cruz from Visalia—which is out in the Central Valley between Fresno and Bakersfield. She said her name was Laura or Lauren, I can’t remember which but she’s a good player. She has a really nice powerful two handed-backhand. It wasn’t a blowout, but we did win against Ethan and Cait, who is about a 3.0 player. (I strongly suspect that Ethan may have been dialing it down a bit.) I did go out of my way to hit more shots to Ethan than I did to Cait. I wanted a little bit harder game. There was some fun firefights in that game. Ethan is really, really good player. Easily better than me. He made a great shot . . . we were across from each other, Ethan to his right and me to my left. There is a wide shot by my partner. Ethan ran out, got it, and the ball looked like it was going to land out but he put so much spin on the ball that it curved back in and landed a few inches in from the corner of the court to win the rally. Nice.

Midway in that my first game that I realized that I grabbed my Rogue 2 paddle instead of my new Gearbox Pro paddle. Just as an experiment, I end up playing with the Rogue 2 paddle for number of games until I decided later tonight to change things up and see if the Gearbox would help me play better.

I went from game to game to game with very little waiting.

I played a few games with Daryl against Paul and Aaron. Daryl wasn’t playing his best and apologized to me. He didn’t need to, but I’m sure he felt more frustrated than I was at his play at that moment. I’m used to playing with weaker players, I’m patient.

Out balls! This continues to be my Achilles Heel. Paul mentioned after a rally that I’d hit several balls that had been heading out. Dang. I hate that.

After Play DUPR Chat

After the lights went out at 9:30 p.m., a few of us briefly gathered over by the bench and talked. Matt Babb was talking about the new DUPR announcement—the one announcing the new reliability score for one’s DUPR rating. I opened the app on my phone and I didn’t see where my reading my reliability reading was. Matt pointed it out—a small circle with a tiny “2” in it to the right of my numerical rating. He was saying that he has a 4% reliability rating, and apparently mine is just 2% . . . same as Paul’s.

I was complaining how I had entered a number of games from the recent tournament, but all four players need to validate the result for a player-entered game. Ofer was trying to convince me that you needed only one player from each team but I told him that any game not entered by a tournament requires all four players. Ofer didn’t believe me so I grabbed my phone and pulled up an announcement from April saying that, indeed, all four players in a match had to verify the score if it was a recreational game. (Recreational being any game not submitted to the DUPR system by a tournament.) It’s kind of a drag, because it takes only one player to either be lazy, or not be happy with the result of the match, to have the game not validated. So far, for me, none of the matches from the Santa Cruz Classic Tournament earlier this month been used to help calculate my DUPR rating since none have been fully validated.

I felt a little bit better about my play tonight, but not a ton.

My right knee is hurting a bit. I’m probably going to need to ice it the next few nights.

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Wednesday, May 29, 2024 (No Play)

Today, I shared on Instagram about my play this week on the court built 1977. A bit of a surprise, I got a comment from senior pro player Jennifer Lucore of Florida. Jennifer and I corresponded in November 2017 when she was asking for editors for her book coming out—her book about the history of pickleball. To date, I haven’t finished reading her book . . . I need to get it back out! Anyway, Jennifer posted:
“Hey Andrew, that is so cool! You know I love my Pickleball History 🤓 Can you send me more info on that court? I could add it to the continuation of the history of the sport, there is not a lot of documented courts in the 70s.”

I replied that I’d email her and I did . . . replying to that November 2017 email!

Vandalism

In New York, Manhattan specifically, a vandal has been causing all kinds of repeated problems for local pickleball players . . . putting equipment in garbage bags with the trash, cutting nets, and more devastation. It makes our local net disassembly pale in comparison:
https://www.mensjournal.com/news/mystery-pickleball-hater-vandalism

Number of days on a court: 667
Number of total hours: 2,839.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 37.5

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

Monday, May 27, 2024 (Court Day #666)

I had dilemmas this morning. All of them really good problems they have. Play or not play? Go to club play at Brommer Park and face long waiting times, but it has organized play? Or go to Derby Park and face an unknown group of players in terms of size and skill and with no organization?

At 9:40 a.m., I was in the car and on my way to Derby Park under cloudy skies and 54°F temperatures. I was sitting there, driving, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to stay for a long period of time since I had to come home and eat lunch in time and be on the road to San Carlos by 12:45 p.m. to meet up with my sister-in-law Liz.

Derby

As I walked in, some games were going on but at least a couple of courts were empty.

Rick Arnold was at the far end in a game with Tiffany and two men I didn’t know. Rick is always good for a strong game.

I warmed up with barefoot Terry and regular whose name escapes me. Maybe Judy? After about 10 minutes, Rick called over, “We’re ready for you, Andrew!” One of the two men passed me on his way off the court as I walked on.

Rick had left shoulder surgery a few months back and is now playing with his natural right hand instead of the left hand that he’s been using for the last few years. Poor guy!

I overheard Tiffany mentioning something about her sister Nicole not coming due to an injury. Whatever it was, it didn’t sound serious. The man that stayed is an Italian fellow in his 50s named Marco. I’d never met him before. It turns out, he’s a good player.

Games

Rick and I played Tiffany and Marco and won 11-8. Tiffany has gotten better over the last couple of years.

Next, we rotated and I played with Tiffany and we lost a close one 10-12. By now, it was 10:43 a.m. and the courts were filling up.

In a third game, Marco and I had a big lead, but we ended up losing 10-12.

Mixed Doubles

Rick and Tiffany both had to go. Marco and I were looking for someone—”Anyone?”—to join us to play more. A couple of women came over, Lauren and Amy. I’d say Amy is a 3.0 and Lauren is a 3.5. Amy played with me and Lauren joined Marco. We were down a lot but came back to win 11-8. Amy started slow but played better the longer we played in that game.

Games with Mike and Terry

Terry and me played a game against Marco and tall, white hair Mike. I don’t see Mike much. Mike is one of those people you can’t judge by appearance. Sure, a long reach and athletic build, but closer to 70 than 60. We lost 7-11. Terry likes to drive everything. Baseline? Drive. Midcourt? Drive. Net? Drive. Still, she manages to make a game of it regardless.

Marco and I played a game against Terry and tall Mike. Initially, they were leading but that didn’t last long and we came back and beat them 11–4. It would have been the upset of the month had we lost.

Hmmm.

I’m a bit hesitant, but I’m going to share this just for educational purposes. Not everything is always “flowers and sunshine” in the pickleball world. No matter where you are in the world, you’ll run into a situation like this sooner or later. It is what it is. Nothing major.

My plan was to leave after that game, but player who also does 4.0 tournaments showed up and he’s always a good challenging opponent. I’ll leave his name out. I really should have headed out to get prepared for my trip to the Bay Area, but he was insistent that I stay. Honestly, it’s not hard to convince me to play just one more game! I was hoping to play against him for the best challenge and Marco stood next to me waiting, but no one was willing to join the player. There was an awkward period of time as people waiting nearby simply tried to look busy or turned down the requests to join the game.

I figured that the only way to get this game to happen was to cross the net and play as his partner. After I did, Lauren came in to join Marco.

My partner for that game has a habit of providing a flow of corrections during games, so before we got started, I told him that I was there to relax and then I didn’t want him to coach me. (“Where did that come from?”) And, to his credit, he didn’t.

But, boy, I played a bad game. We lost something like 3–11. I was not playing well at all. After getting water once the game was done, I walked up to my partner and told him that loss was on me. He took that as an invitation. “That was a 3.5 game.” (Since I do tournaments in 4.0.) I replied, “At best. That might have even been a 3.0 game.” He went on, “You were hitting out balls. How many years has that been?” Ouch. He was talking about the high drive by Marco where I put up my paddle then tried to pull it back down but I was too late and the ball deflected off my paddle and landed out of bounds. But my partner was 100% accurate. Hitting out balls continues to be an Achilles’ Heel for me. “Yes, something that I need to fix.”

I said my goodbyes and headed out.

I ran into the Laurie on the street when I was walking to my car. I told her about my conversation with my partner after the game. She said, “He made plenty of mistakes.“ She added, “People like that take apologies simply as an opportunity to let you have it.” Instead of being encouraging and giving gentle criticism, it’s a chance to double-down on pointing out mistakes and shift blame. (Though I take the blame for the loss since I did not play a good game at all.)

I left feeling miserable. If you’ve been reading my blog entries, you’ll know that probably like most players—at least the ones who care about improving—how well I played in my last game determines my mood.

San Carlos

The original plan was for my son Nicholas and I to leave Santa Cruz at 12:45 p.m. in order to get to San Carlos about 2 p.m. As it was, between that one extra game, getting some things done around the house, and a phone call from my sister about my mother‘s health—she’s doing ok—we left closer to 1:15 p.m. Nicholas was in his car and I was in my car. We stopped at his apartment in Santa Clara, dropping off his car, and then the two of us continued in my car to my sister-in-law‘s house.

We arrived and we said our hellos. The group would be me, Nicholas, Liz, and her husband Steve. We gathered up our things and walked about a block in their neighborhood to the home of Bill and his wife Betsy, who have their own private pickleball court on the side of their house. Nice!

Bill and Betsy

Liz introduced Nicholas and me to Bill. Liz told me in advance that Bill reminds her of her late father—and my father-in-law—Ron. I could see why. Ron was about half a foot taller but Bill has similar build . . . and the warm, carefree attitude was there.

Bill explained that the president of Sport Court was personally responsible for building this court in 1977. (I looked up Sport Court and it was founded in 1974, assuming that’s the same company.) I have to wonder if this court is one of the first pickleball courts in the State of California. Pickleball was still mostly a Pacific Northwest sport at that time. Bill says they had done a miscalculation on the amount of concrete needed and had gotten too much, so the pad is really thick. This may be why the court is in such good condition as the surface of the court only has a couple of very minor cracks. Bill says the only maintenance they do is having the surface repainted every couple of years and have the landscapers wash it off of the hose once a month. The only real downside to it was net posts are not regulation and while the net was legitimate—even with a “Pickle-ball” company logo on it—it was bit too low. I didn’t measure, but I’d guess probably 2″-4″ shy of the proper height.

Liz, Steve, Nicholas, and I rotated partners for as many games as we fit into the roughly 2 1/2 hours that we played. Amazingly, though he didn’t play at all, Bill stood and watched the entirety of our session there. His wife Betsy came and joined him for maybe an hour, but she wandered back into the house to get things done.

Bill is pretty hysterical. He would poke fun at the level of play. His target was Steve or me or Liz or Nicholas whenever its struck his fancy!

Liz has good hand-eye coordination, though she tends to play tennis on a pickleball court. She has a tendency to stay back at the baseline and not come up to the kitchen, and she also has a tendency to drive balls all the time. By the time I left, Liz is doing better getting up to the net. She and Steve were demonstrating some semblance of a soft game too. They definitely made progress!

History

Once it was decided that we were done playing, I wanted to see the purported old paddles that were in Bill’s storage bin. I walked over and, sure enough, there were two really cool vintage wooden paddles with the Pickle-ball brand logo on them and a model name, “The Diller.” I took a photo of the two of the paddles in the bin and decided I wanted another shot with better light so I and walked out with one paddle onto the court.

“Those aren’t even the old ones!”, exclaimed Bill. “There are some older ones in there with no logo.”

I walked back to the bin and dug around a little bit and sure enough, there were two paddles completely devoid of any markings. Wow. These are certainly from the early days of pickleball. I remember reading about the founders making wood paddles in their garage! I was touching history!

We wanted to get some group photos.

Steve and Liz wanted a patriotic shot too.

We walked back to Liz and Steve’s home, got brief visits with their two teenagers, my niece Piper and nephew Grant, who were coaxed out of their holes.

From there, Nicholas and I made a stop at In’N’Out Burger for dinner. Once I dropped him off at his apartment, I was soon on my way over the Santa Cruz Mountains to the coast and home!

It turned out to be an amazing day! Not too bad for “court day” number 666!

Number of days on a court: 666
Number of total hours: 2,837.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 37.5

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

Sunday, May 26, 2024 (Court Day #665)

Last night, Dan Dewey texted a small group of people asking if anyone wanted to come early to Derby to drill. I replied quickly saying “yes”. Heck, I was going to be there early anyway opening up the courts as the site coordinator.

New Backpack

Today was my first day using my new Gearbox backpack. I’ve had it a couple weeks but I hadn’t made the move of taking everything out of my old backpack and putting it into my new one. The new backpack is definitely more spacious. I like that. And I’m still deciding where I want to put certain things.

Chilly

Later this week, it’ll be June. You wouldn’t know it from this morning. As I left my house it was 52°F and overcast. I don’t mind the clouds for pickleball although I wouldn’t mind it being a little bit closer to 60° instead of closer to 50°.

Brace

I brought my knee brace although I wasn’t wearing it this morning. I’ll admit vanity is part of the equation. I don’t want to have one leg tan and the other one white. We’ll see how my knee holds up.

Tomorrow, my son Nicholas and I are heading up to San Carlos to play with my sister-in-law Liz and some of her friends, I think. I’ve been meaning to get up there and play for at least a year, but now it’s actually going to happen.

Horses?

I saw something that I’d never seen this morning, there was a couple of young women riding horses down Swift Street. Aside from parades, I can’t remember ever seeing horses randomly on our city streets.

Derby Park

I parked at 8:38 a.m. and walked in. Mark G. and his wife Maree helped me set up. I was very grateful for their assistance.

Today was a really good day for play at Derby. There’s a tall guy named Aaron who came from tennis and plays really well. Dan Dewey continues to improve and was playing quite well too. There’s a younger blond guy named Jordan who played a number of games with me, Dan, and Aaron. Fun and challenging games.

Allen Goldberg came and I got into some games with him too.

Youngsters Kirby and his friend Juliette were back again. I haven’t been able to play with him since I first met him a few weeks ago. His skills have developed very quickly and I’m sure he’ll continue to improve.

A nice surprise, David L. and Minori came today. They live over by Emeline Street and David said that since it was a nice day, they rode over on bikes to Derby to get in some games. I didn’t get to play with them today, that would’ve been fun.

Brothers

Dan Dewey and I played a game against Jeff and his brother Scott. We beat them 11-1. Scott is working on getting his game up to the level of his brother.

My last game was with the young guy named Joshua against Jeff and Dan Dewey. Joshua is thin and sports a mustache and glasses. It was a back-and-forth game. I was starting to make more errors, I think I was getting tired. I think Joshua may been trying too hard. But Joshua also has a long reach and is very athletic. He made some good shots, he’s just inconsistent. 

As I was about to leave, Joshua asked about where he should be signing up in terms of colors. I appreciate him asking. He said that someone had told him that he should not be signing up in red (advanced) and should be signing up in blue (4.0+). I told him that the person that told him who told him that probably should be signing up in green instead. I told Joshua there’s a lot of “skill creep” going on. I added that if he wants to sign up in blue to ask first and “read the room”. When I mentioned that there’s no way he should sign up in blue when he’s at Brommer, he heartily agreed.

If every day was like today playing at Derby, I’d be happy staying at Derby indefinitely as a site coordinator.

Rec Teaching

As of today, both of my June 4-week Rec classes are sold out. That’s good. That means I get my full pay for the sessions. Rec sent out an email this past week stating that they will no longer compensate instructors a minimum amount regardless of the number of students, but instead will cancel classes that don’t meet their threshold of registrations.

Today was the last day of class for my current group of beginners that includes my wife.

Pickleheads

A couple of weeks ago, Connie Thrasher, the USAP Western Section Leader, sent out an email the USA Pickleball ambassadors in her area, including me:
“On April 16th an announcement was made by USAP regarding our selection of Pickleheads as our official Court and Game Finder tool.“

Pickleheads will be replacing Places2Play.org.

It went on to explain more then ask us to download the app and make sure our courts appear and have the correct information. As ambassadors, we get more weight to our recommended edits.

I downloaded the app, registered, and our local courts were already entered. It looks like I can do a little tidying up, but what is there is very workable. I will say that the capabilities of Pickleheads is far more than that of Places2Play. It has a means of organizing play in a group and other coordination features.

Number of days on a court: 665
Number of total hours: 2,832.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 37.5

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