Month: August 2024 (Page 2 of 5)

Thursday, August 22, 2024 (Court Day #705)

I couldn’t get out of work until a little bit later, but my hope was that my later arrival might at least yield a good parking spot next to the courts.

The sun is getting lower and lower in the sky with each trip out to Scotts Valley. I’m still wearing sunglasses when I arrive, but soon, I’ll be going right to my protective clear plastic glasses.

Skypark

When I arrived at the courts at about 7:05 p.m., I was astonished to find the no one was using the dry erase board. Yes, it was up, but when I looked around, it wasn’t needed. And no one would need it all night long. There were only three people waiting to get on a court. It was a warm evening, maybe that was part of it.

Games

In my first game, I teamed up with one of my students, Ray. We played against Francis and a regular, the tall fellow named John. This was the most equitable combination of players. Ray is still at 2.5 level player at best. We lost.

Matt Babb and I played a game against David L. and Francis. Matt and I did win by quite a margin, however, it was not as easy or as lopsided as it could have been since I was not playing ideally. I did a pretty good job of not speeding at balls that should’ve not been sped up. But I was not very focused and sometimes didn’t remember who is serving or what the score was. As I said, I was not very focused!

Mo and I played two games against Tim Feickert and Rachel. Both games went to 9–9 but then we lost both. Still, those games entertaining. We were all very much enjoying the company.

Mo, Tim, Rachel, and I have finished up that second game at 8:27 p.m., just before the lights clicked off. I help take down a couple of nets and made sure the dry erase board was over by the bin since it was left out a couple of weeks ago.

I got a quick photo of David. He can be a character!

I decided to call it a night and head out without a lot of hanging out.

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Friday, August 23, 2024 (No Play)

Jackie sent out a photo to the SCPC board about some stickers that she had made for the club.

Number of days on a court: 705
Number of total hours: 2,931.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 66.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

Tuesday, August 20, 2024 (Court Day #704)

I arrived at Skypark at about 6:45 p.m. The courts were busy and, as is commonplace for the last few months, the whiteboard was out to organize the wait for courts.

Games

I almost immediately got into a game, as I joined Mauricio, Marco, Mike (nearing retirement) in a game. Mike would be my partner. They had all played a game already and they asked if I wanted to warm up and I told them “no” since it would take me a few games to get going regardless. Mike started out pretty well but I was missing some shots. Marco and Mauricio pulled out ahead by a number points. But then I started dialing my game in a little bit and Mike and I clawed back to even out the score. I started playing very, very well, we came back and won the game. While tapping paddles, Mauricio commended our comeback to Mike, who said, “That was all Andrew.” 

Binh & Shawnte

Binh and I played against Shawnte and Francis. Shawnte was the strongest and Francis was the least strong, but the difference between Shawnte and us was not as much as between us and Francis. I told Binh I was going to try to hit more to Shawnte. Shawnte wasn’t trying his hardest, that happens not infrequently when playing against good players but your partner is down a skill level … you just take the game for entertainment and don’t try all out to win which you know will be almost impossible.

Coasting

I got into a game with Francis against Mav and Beth. (I met Mav last week, he’s the PE major at SJSU.) They started out a little bit ahead after Francis missed a couple of shots, but then we went on to win. Mav and Beth were leaving too many opportunities for me.

Ethan, Caitlin, Nick

The next game was Ethan and Caitlin against myself and their friend Nick. Ethan, of course, was the strongest player, followed by me… and I’ll probably give the edge to Nick over Cait. Ethan was taking it pretty easy with some exceptions. I tried to hit more to Ethan to keep the game more interesting. He and I had two or three pretty fun rallies in that game. Nick and I won the game although Ethan was not trying his hardest.

Bad in the Good

Paul Winn and myself played a game against Tim Feickert and Matt Babb as it was starting to get dark. I was not playing as well in this game. I was forcing speedups. That’s not going to work against Tim and Matt. The changing lighting didn’t help me in judging the ball, but that was only a small part of the equation of my playing poorly. A lot of it was shot selection and needing to be more patient instead of forcing things.

We played a second game and finished about 60 seconds before the lights clicked off right after 8:30 p.m. I didn’t stay long and instead said my goodbyes to everyone.

If I had left about 8 p.m., I would have been happy. But I was not pleased with those last two games. I thought I was awful.

Agassi

It was announced yesterday that retired #1 ranked tennis pro and Olympic gold medalist Andre Agassi has signed a promotional contract with Joola. Expect to see “AGASSI” Joola paddles in the not too distant future!

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Wednesday, August 21, 2024 (No Play)

Yesterday, an article appeared about Novak Djokovic:
“…the defending U.S. Open champion and 24-time Grand Slam winner, will face Sinner in The HEAD NYC Mash Up on Thursday ahead of the start of the Open on Monday.”

Today, another article appeared saying fans were encouraging Djokovic to pull out of the pickleball event:
“@IbrahimKhory penned: ‘Noooooooo. Please Novak, nooooo. I hate this sport.’ Tennis fan @2016daz exclaimed: ‘Nooooooo! That’s the worst racquet sport ever.'”

At least Mr. Khory called pickleball a sport. Some haters call it a “hobby,” so at least there is a little victory there! Ha!

Number of days on a court: 704
Number of total hours: 2,930
Number of paid coaching hours: 66.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

Sunday, August 18, 2024 (Court Day #703)

By 8:45 a.m., I was in my car and on my way to Brommer Park. It was sunny and already warm. At least, warm for a warning in Santa Cruz, that is, in the high 60s.

I had to be a little more careful about how long I stayed since I had the first day of my new classes at Skypark. I have an Intermediate class starting at 1:30 p.m., which is a class that I have not previously taught. (I also have an Advanced Beginner class starting at 3 p.m.) There is no curriculum provided by Rec.us—which is contracted with the City of Scotts Valley—it’s entirely up to the instructors to come up with material to teach. I’m kind of surprised that my Intermediate class didn’t sell out. There are so many local players who would benefit from the instruction. Oh, well. Not everyone is serious about getting better.

This week, on Tuesday and Thursday nights at Skypark, I felt that I was playing subpar. It was a little depressing. As I drove to Brommer Park, I was hoping that my play would return to more of a common level for me.

Games

Aside for one or two games today, all the games were pretty decent—though mostly games with 3.5 players.

I got the games with Ying, Pauly, Trevor Fish, one game with Art. There were players that I wish I had gotten been able to get into games with such as Oscar, Binh, Conner, and some others.

I left the courts feeling that I played ok. Not horrible. Not great. But ok. Satisfactory, leaning towards ‘blah.’

I played a few games with Hugh, those are fun. He was a mix of great angle shots for winners combined with inexplicable shots into the net. He was just really inconsistent, though his play got better over the course of the morning.

Aaron

Aaron Hicks came today. I’d never seen Aaron at Brommer and very rarely ever see him outside of Skypark. He played pretty well today . He’s come a long way since he started.

Mistakes

My mistakes today included driving short shots into the net. Serving returns too long. Not staying focused and thinking about other things in the middle of the game and thus adversely affecting performance. I generally did a pretty good job of handling speedups at me while at the net, but there were a couple—maybe three—that either I couldn’t handle well or didn’t handle at all. There is a speed up from Hugh across from me while I was on my left, and I did hit the ball back down, but it landed about 3 inches outside the sideline, so my partner and I lost the rally.

I mentioned it before, but I really need to get out and drill. Playing only gets you so far when it comes to improvement. The problem is chunks of time. A 6-day workweek doesn’t leave a lot of free hours.

I will share a simple thing that brought me some satisfaction. In one of the games, we were in a dink battle with me on the right. And I dinked crosscourt and my opponent had to adjust and take the ball near the back of his right foot. Satisfaction was knowing that his return shot had to be entirely defensive and there is no way he could attack that ball. I was thinking, “That was a extremely effective dink.”

Sean Promotion

On the Nextdoor app, I got a notice that popped up about pickleball. It was Sean Lynch sharing a photo of himself in advertising pickleball lessons. Good for him. I know he’s been trying hard to get additional private students. I’m too busy running a company to have the free time to do that. One day per week teaching is plenty for me.

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Monday, August 19, 2024 (No Play)

Here’s humorous reel about how to become a pro pickleball player:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/C9x4ooaPohA
“Genetics, height, D1 tennis background, no job, private court, drilling partner with no job…”

Number of days on a court: 703
Number of total hours: 2,928.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 66.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.