Thursday, September 12, 2024 (Court Day #715)
Kind of fun today, Derby Park players Craig and his wife Loni came in for some art materials at my work and it turned out that “an OG pickleball player” Beth Black was in another room getting some picture framing done. Craig said he and Loni have been nursing “his and hers” Achilles injuries and haven’t been playing for months. I told Beth that I’d seen her husband David out at Brommer a couple of times in the last month. She said that she’s been out due to plantar fasciitis. Bummer.
Skypark
I left work early to attend a work Zoom seminar but they are easier for me to do from home where I keep my iPad. Afterwards, rather than returning to work, I headed out early to Skypark to play.
It was sunny and a warm 75°F when I got to Scotts Valley at about 5:45 p.m. My son Nicholas was coming to town since he has a doctor’s appointment tomorrow. My wife suggested to him that he come play pickleball at Skypark and he agreed.
My second game was with Kristin Long against a woman named Rose and her friend who said she’d been playing for eight years. Kris warned me that she’s having incredibly hard time with her serving. I think she must have hit half a dozen serves before she got one in. She had a yips. We were losing most of that game, but then we came back to win 12–10.
Nicholas
When Nicholas arrived I was in the middle of a game against David Lai and Beth with David’s girlfriend Minori as my partner. That was probably the strongest game of the night. David, of course, is always a worthy adversary. Beth, I’d say, is a high level 3.0 player or a low 3.5. No doubt in a tournament of women’s doubles, she’d be at least a 3.5, especially if it were age brackets.
After my game was finished, Nicholas and I played every game together. We played a number of games with Ethan’s friend Caitlin in our group.
It was a completely lazy evening. Aside from that game with David and Beth, there really weren’t any games where I really had to try particularly hard. On the contrary, some of the games I was intentionally keeping the rally going by hitting the ball gently.
When Nicholas and Mike were playing against Caitlin and myself, I was trying to serve as easily as I could to their forehands, but even with that, they were having trouble getting the ball back over the net. (Maybe the off-speed was throwing them.) There was kind of an inexplicable game. Neither of them were playing well in that game for some reason.
Last Game
The last game was Nicholas and myself against Fabrizio and left-handed Mike. We won that one 11–5. Nicholas got better as this evening went on and he warmed up a little bit more. One thing he has to stop doing is inviting opponents to the net. I think he may have won a rally once dropping the ball short, but generally when players were back and Nicholas had a little short drop over the net, he would either put the ball into the net or the ball went over and bounced high enough for our opponents to run in, successfully hit the ball back over and join us at the net. Yes, something to work on. (As a matter of fact, later on, he asked me for tips on what to improve. I specifically mentioned that.)
Lights Out
That last game brought us up to 8:29 p.m. and the lights clicked off a few minutes later.
I hopped in my car and he hopped in his car and we headed home to my house. The evening was a wrap!
Number of days on a court: 715
Number of total hours: 2,956.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 72.5
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