Tuesday, July 16, 2024. (Court Day #688)
In the bandwagon realm, even Chick-fil-A has a pickleball set in their online shop. (I didn’t even know they had an online shop!)
Stepping Down
The board and other site coordinators have been very supportive of my decision to relinquish my role as the Sunday Site Coordinator at Derby Park. And Barb offered to cover for me this Sunday. That’s great, as I have a boatload of relatives in town—including from different states—for my great-uncle’s memorial service this weekend.
Skypark
I left work and arrived at Skypark just before 7 p.m. and sunny skies.
It was a light crowd and rotations in the games off of the whiteboard happened fairly quickly.
Rachelle stopped me and thanked me for getting her driver’s license back to her. She said my daughter, who dropped it off to her a few weeks ago, was very nice. I had picked up her license on the ground at Skypark and my daughter Charlotte was heading out past Rachelle’s area of the county anyway, so it worked out.
First Game
My first game was paired the Rachelle. She’s a lefty, and still a fairly weak player. She is still learning the game . . . I had to frequently remind her of the score and where to be on the court. We played against Barry and his wife Christy. Rachelle and I fell behind really quickly. Then we crawled back and tied up the score, but we couldn’t pull off a win. Yes, it was my first game, but, boy, I was not playing well in that game. There was no way I could make up for Rachelle’s inexperience.
In that first game, I played horribly. That generally came from me underestimating my opponents—doing net speedups or drives from the baseline, where Barry or Christy then put the ball away. There were a couple instances where I decided mid-shot to return a serve intentionally to Barry (who is the better of the two players) and I distinctly remember hitting two of those into the net. It was just weird.
Next!
Roman and I played against Barry and Christy. I played so much better. We clobbered them.
Lefty
I played with Beth against Mark Dettle and Laura (formerly from Visalia). We won.
In the rematch, I decided to play the entire game left-handed and Beth and I still won. Mark wasn’t playing his best.
Tall vs. Short
I played with Roman—young guy—against tall lefty Aaron and tall Mike. Aaron and Mike are about the same height, both over 6 foot. Roman and I are also both about the same height . . . but shorter! About 5’8″. Aaron is getting really good. While I was able to return all of Aaron’s serves, but Roman wasn’t so lucky, he missed a few. Mike has also gotten quite a bit better over the last few years. But Aaron is definitely the stronger of the two. After the game, Roman thanked me for playing with him and apologized for his performance. I told him he had some really nice shots, which he did. He just needs to be a little bit more consistent and not try to be so tricky with his shots . . . like trying too hard to add spin.
Spencer
Spencer was there tonight although I didn’t get a chance to play with him. Someone told me this week that he and Diego had taken silver in the 4.0 bracket in recent tournament. Between rallies, I congratulated Spencer when he was playing next to me on an adjacent court. Spencer is a good guy—upbeat and a good player.
Last Game
The last game of the night was Mark and myself against Beth and Laura. I decided to play lefty in that game too and for a series of side outs, the score was stuck at 5-3 with Mark and I leading. Then Beth and Laura went on a 4-point run and when their service ended they were leading 7-5. When they were up 9-5, I decided to switch to my right hand. For whatever reason, I had a hard time switching back to righty after playing three games left-handed and I missed a few shots, so I can’t say that the loss was all on Mark for this one.
Night, Night!
There were still four games going on in the twilight and Laura, Beth, and I wanted to play one more game, but we couldn’t find a fourth. With that, I helped out Ofer by taking down one of the temporary nets. After that, I was in my car and on my way home.
Tennis elbow is kind of acting up and my right knee was a little sore. *sigh*
Number of days on a court: 688
Number of total hours: 2,894.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 52.5
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