Friday, October 11, 2024 (Court Day #726)
Today was the day of our monthly board meeting for the Santa Cruz Pickleball club, so I took the large majority of the day off from work. I spent part of the morning working on the meeting agenda and tweaking the meeting minutes from last month and I took our younger corgi Pepper for a walk. It was a bit chilly, about 55°F, and overcast.
First Game
My first game was with Gary Keck against Leslie and John Connors. My warm-up consisted of hitting three or four balls back-and-forth with Leslie and then we rolled right into the game. My play was very much not dialed in. Gary’s was not either. We lost. John was playing particularly well.
Second Game
I was hoping for a rematch but John wanted to play with his friend Bruce who just arrived so he removed his name off from our signup box. Simon, the tall thin man with dark hair—who I not seen for many months, replaced John in our box. Leslie and I played against Gary and Simon. It was pretty lopsided with Leslie and me winning.
Third Game
When we came off, Leslie took the last spot in the existing blue box, so our game ended up being tall Bruce and myself against Simon and Gary. It was another lopsided game with Bruce and me winning.
Fourth Game
Before that last game, I’d ran a copy of the minutes over to Mark and George—who already at the benches—to peruse. The last game of the day, Gary and I were playing against tall Bruce and Josh. (Simon had to leave.) Gary and I were up 8-4 but ended up losing 11-8. I felt a little pressured as I knew during the game that I should be over at the benches for the board meeting. The meetings are supposed to start at 12:15 p.m. and when I got there, it was 12:23 p.m., so I was eight minutes late.
I played four games over the two hours that I was there. It was fairly busy.
Bug in the Software
I have the strange thing that happened sometimes on drop shots from near the baseline. I’ll hit the ball—often this happens with my backhand—the ball will drop well short of the net. If I were a machine, I would describe it as a glitch or a bug in the software that appears now and then. What is the hardest things to do is analyze yourself. That’s why even the top pros have coaches. I suspect that I’m not following through on those errant shots, but I can’t say for sure. I have to pay very close attention when it happens next time and see if I can figure out exactly why.
And now for something completely different…
Genie Buchard
I’ve mentioned Miss Buchard here before. She came into the pickleball realm and got smoked in an embarrassing fashion, jumping in with relatively little preparation.
Today, she beat #3 ranked Lea Jansen 11-4, 11-8. Keep in mind that pickleball singles translates easier from tennis singles as both are typically played mostly from the baseline. I expect it to be a bit longer before Buchard is as successful in doubles. There is so much more finesse and “cat and mouse” (as some pros put it) in the doubles game.
Number of days on a court: 726
Number of total hours: 2,981
Number of paid coaching hours: 81.5
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