Friday, June 14, 2024 (Court Day #674)

As the club secretary, I needed to be at the 12:15 p.m. monthly meeting. I might as well take the morning off from work and play. I pulled up to Brommer Park at 9:34 a.m. under partly cloudy skies. It was 59°F, but soon it would be clear skies and warmer temperatures. I lucked out and there was just one parking spot right at the courts. Nice. If the lot was empty, that was the exact spot I would have picked!

Almost all my games were challenging, which is great. I was playing well, though not quite as well as last night.

Tennis Elbow Back?

I really like this new Gearbox paddle, however, it seems as though I’m having little twinges of tennis elbow symptoms. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten golfer elbow before but the inside of my right elbow has been acting up a little bit. Same with the top of my forearm. But it’s just twinges. It’s nothing to worry about . . . yet. It does have me considering going back to a Players Rogue 2 paddle. Or maybe getting Players’ new gel core paddle. We will see.

Games

I played with Brandon against John Connors and a man named Shaun, whom I’d never met. It was a good game. I can’t recall who won, other than it was close. Maybe it was us, maybe it wasn’t. Regardless, it was about the experience of a good game where the ball comes back.

There was one rally where it was one of those how you don’t know how you pulled off what you did. I was on the left. John was straight ahead. Shaun was diagonal from me and we were all at the net. There was a high ball on their side. There was was a slam down at me by Shaun, followed by another from John—I was low and my paddle was lower!—then another from John but now the ball was high enough for me to drive it between them . . . for a winner. “I thought that was over after my first slam!”, shared Shaun. They were impressed. Heck, I was impressed!

Communication?

Shaun was my partner for one game. I was on the right. An opponent lobbed directly over my head. I knew I wouldn’t be able to get it. I immediately shifted left get out of the way and to cover for my partner going after that lob to hit with his forehand. But, no. I turned around and he hadn’t moved. Rally over. I would have expected any advanced partner to just go after that lob. I was mildly annoyed in passing, but I hadn’t yelled “switch”, so I have to accept at least some—or maybe a lot—of the responsibility.

Just like the last time that I played against John Connors, afterward, he told me, “You played well.”

Board Meeting

Today was the monthly Santa Cruz Pickleball Club board meeting. Dan Bliss didn’t make it and Kristin Long had an appointment outside the area and couldn’t make it either. For the rest of us, the meeting lasted about an hour and forty minutes and we were out shortly after 2 p.m. One problem we are having is some of the players aren’t doing the $2 donation. As it is, we are not covering the costs associated with reserving the Skypark courts on Saturday mornings. If someone comes and sets up camp in the tennis court that is dual striped for pickleball, without that club reservation, half the pickleball courts would be unavailable.

Paddle Wars

I found out that Selkirk issued a statement yesterday supporting USA Pickleball and integrity in paddle manufacturing.

STATEMENT RELEASE 06.13.24
EQUIPMENT STANDARDS & THE FUTURE SUGGESS OF PICKLEBALL
As with any sport, maintaining high standards and enforcing rules is essential to ensuring fair play and the sport’s integrity. We encourage all pickleball equipment manufacturers and the general pickleball community to support USA Pickleball (USAP) in their recent efforts to enforce the current rules, as well as hold manufacturers to higher quality standards.

In pickleball, it has become a common issue that the production models of paddles differ from those that were originally approved in testing.
Enforcing the rules and ensuring a level playing field is critical to the current and future integrity of the sport.
SELKIRK

Obviously, this is in response to the Joola’s lawsuit against USA Pickleball.


Saturday, June 15, 2024 (No Play)

The one thing about coaching professionally on weekends with regular classes is it’s often “do teaching or do tournaments”. Tournaments are almost always on weekends. Mixed doubles is often on Sundays, so there’s still a chance for doing men’s doubles on a Saturday, though I regularly work that day.

Number of days on a court: 674
Number of total hours: 2,857.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 40.5

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