Friday, August 9, 2024 (Court Day #699)

I took a big chunk of the day off from work today. I had a busy morning. I took our older corgi Oliver to the vet. On my way home, I got a call from my daughter asking me to confirm that her passport was here in Santa Cruz and not among her things after her move to Tucson. (It was indeed here.) After that, I had a little bit of prep to meeting minutes from last month for the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club board meeting today.

Brommer

I stepped out of my car at Brommer Park at 9:52 a.m. There was one spot in the parking lot that I was able to grab, which was great.

Bruce and I played a game against Dean and Leslie. Leslie was not having a good day. Bruce and I won that one.

I was playing against Bruce and Soji. I hadn’t met Soji before. She’s tall, thin, sports bleached blonde hair, and about 10 years younger than me. Her play is not flashy and she doesn’t have a ton of power, but has good drops and is very consistent. She’s a good player. She said she started playing during the pandemic in 2020.

I felt a bit bad. There was a crosscourt dink from my right high enough for me to attack and I did a backhand flick into Soji’s torso. (My partner told me, “You’ll need to teach me that!”) Soji wasn’t expecting it and ended up on the ground. But we were signed up in a blue 4.0+ level game, this wasn’t a mixed skill game. There are going to be attacks.

Soji had a really nice crosscourt shot and I didn’t have a lot of choice and went for an ATP. I never use a two-handed backhand, but I did for this particular shot. Don’t ask me why, it was automatic. Regardless, I hit the ball alongside the sideline, and it dropped in behind Bruce near the corner of the court for a winner. While it was an ATP, it was a higher shot, about shoulder level. I suspect that Bruce didn’t think it was going to hook back and land in the court.

SCPC Meeting

I squeezed in one last game and was over at the park tables for the our board meeting at about 12:20 p.m. It was supposed to start at 12:15, but I was a little late. But Dan Bliss was even 10 more minutes, so I wasn’t the worst!

Number of days on a court: 699
Number of total hours: 2,919.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 63.5

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