Tuesday, July 9, 2024. (Court Day #684)

My brother Matt was working on checking in an order at work and would be staying late, so I left work at 6:15 p.m. and left him to let staff out and close up.

It was sunny and 72° as I drove to Scotts Valley.

Paddle Issue

I emailed Players Pickleball yesterday morning, but I have not heard back from them yet regarding a possible replacement of my Rogue 2 paddle, which is rattling. It’s a couple of years old, so it’s not like it’s a new paddle that’s failing.

Registration

The City of Scotts Valley wants us to register for play on Tuesday and Thursday nights. I went ahead and signed up for one of the 24 slots for Skypark between 6:45 p.m. and 8:30 p.m. . . . and I was the only person to do so! After I signed up, there were 23 additional spots left. I can guarantee that there will be more than just me there tonight!

It was a little bit lighter crowd tonight than common recently. Later, I figured out that a bunch of women were doing league play over at Brommer Park.

Games

I don’t remember my earlier games other than I felt that I wasn’t playing that great initially. The first game, I jumped in with no warm up. As the games went on, I got more and more dialed in and played better and better.

Tonight, I got to play three or four games with Tim Fieckert against Jordan and a young guy whose name starts with the G. G what? I don’t recall and when I texted Tim, he couldn’t remember either other than the games were a good challenge.

In the first game, Tim and I lost by a significant margin. Both of us were pretty disgusted with our play. Fortunately, it worked out for all of us to have a rubber match.

The second game, we still lost, but at least it was close.

We went on to play another game and this time Tim and I eeked out a win . . . I think. Honestly, I can’t remember.

We played a fourth back-and-forth close game. We lost 13–11.

Visitors

I got talked into playing a game with Ofer against a couple visiting from Temecula, Sue and and her husband Russ. (She originally said “San Diego,” but being a little familiar with that area, I asked for where exactly.) She said they are on the tailend of a cross-country road trip. Sue is a banger. Ofer wasn’t playing as well as he typically does but I was playing very well. We had a strong margin, even with me missing a couple of shots as the light was slipping away. I overheard her saying something to Russ about Ofer and I being “good players.”

Lights

It’s definitely a bummer having the lights go off at 8:30 p.m. these days since it’s better for me to get more exercise. But I will have to say that there is a part of me that actually likes getting home closer to 9 p.m. versus 10 p.m.

Wednesday, July 10, 2024 (No Play)

37-year-old tennis superstar Novak Djokovic expressed concern this week about the future of tennis:
“…at the club level, tennis is in danger. If we don’t do something about it, like I said, globally or collectively with the growth of padel in Europe and pickleball in the United States, we’re going to see more tennis courts converting to padel and pickleball because it’s cheaper.”
https://en.as.com/other_sports/djokovic-tennis-is-in-danger-clubs-are-converting-courts-for-padel-and-pickleball-n

As a pickleball player, let me make it clear, I do NOT want tennis to go away. And I don’t expect it to. That said, pickleball, with its low physical barrier for entry, smaller demand for space, very social aspect, is continuing to grow like crazy. All of my 4-week beginner pickleball classes since November have sold out. And Sean has been also teaching beginner classes, so it’s not like mine are the only ones.

The Santa Cruz Pickleball Club continues to train new players with short intro sessions at club play, on average, about one every day. In June, we trained 28 new players, for example.

There is more demand for pickleball courts and cities and counties are not keeping up.

I don’t expect padel to catch on here in the USA. It’s has similarities to racquetball but with glass walls and a net. It looks like fun, but courts are much more expensive to build and there is no way to quickly set up a temporary court . . . you can’t just temporarily prop up glass walls. Pickleball is far easier. In a pinch, you can relatively easily lay down tape and set up a portable net.

Number of days on a court: 684
Number of total hours: 2,885.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 49.5

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