Tuesday, June 11, 2024 (Court Day #672)

After leaving work, I got to the courts in Scotts Valley just about 7 p.m. It was very crowded and people were complaining about the waits. I didn’t count, but there were about 50 players.

Yes, the waits were long, but most of my games were pretty good.

Great Game

Sean Lynch and I played against Matt Babb and Oscar. It was a great game with dink rallies, speedups, and resets. Sean and I pulled ahead, then they got within a few points, but then Sean and I closed out the game. There was some redemption in that. The last time was in a game with Sean, he was on the other side of the net and I was making series of dumb mistakes like dinking shots wide of the court.

Later, I was teamed up with lefty “linebacker” Aaron against Tim Handley and Matt Babb. We got clobbered. Matt Babb was performing exceptionally well with his serves tonight. He’d hook his serve off the short side of the court out of the reach of my forehand or driving serves down the center of the court to my backhand. I know my serves sometimes don’t pop back up but Matt had a few that I’d swear that the ball was broken or it hit debris by how low the ball stayed. Tim Handley was also whipping some serves angled off the court and impossible to return. Matt got two aces on me and Tim got another. Aces are rare.

I was playing pretty well tonight outside of that one game against Matt and Tim.

My last game wrapped up about 9:20 p.m. and I helped take temporary nets down. Mark Dettle had asked me earlier to be responsible to make sure they got stowed properly and locked up.

Thursday, June 12, 2024 (No Play)

A funny article by a woman named Celia Rivenbark appeared on AOL this week—is AOL even a thing anymore?—about pickleball. After reading it, it’s obvious that either she did a lot of research or actually knows something about pickleball. For instance, this is the first time that I’ve seen “swing weight” appear in an article meant for consumption by the general public!

Beware! Pickleball addiction may affect you or loved ones
https://www.aol.com/beware-pickleball-addiction-may-affect-090315084.html

Number of days on a court: 672
Number of total hours: 2,853.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 40.5

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