Sunday, October 20, 2024 (Court Day #730)
Last night was the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club’s holiday party, which was held at Bargetto‘s Winery in Soquel. My wife Kristen came along and got to meet a lot of pickleball people that I know like George Propper, Eric Schmidt, and Ted B., plus Gregg “3G” all of whom were at my table. Steve Bontadelli, one of our Site Coordinators, was at our table too, but he was on the far side. It was a bit difficult to hold a conversation from that distance given the noise level.
Tennis Snob
Early in the evening, I spoke to a man who I didn’t know, and he asked me if I was a pickleball player. There were a number of people there who were friends or spouses of players who didn’t play themselves, so it was an honest question. I told him that I did play and I asked him the same question. He said that he had played pickleball a little bit but taught tennis for a long time and continues to play tennis. He referred to pickleball as “a good activity for old people.” We chatted another minute and whenever I used the word “sport” in reference to pickleball, he’d use “activity.” I was mildly annoyed as well as amused. It seems as though he had never got into a game is anyone over a 3.0 or maybe a 3.5 level. Generally, opinions like his change when you play against better players. Perhaps I should’ve shared professional tennis player Genie Bouchard’s comment about coming to pickleball making her feel as if she was in the tennis juniors again. Or the male pro who returned to tennis after playing pickleball and found tennis to be “very slow” in comparison. As it was, I just let it go and later shared the story with Eric at my table. Erik chuckled and said something about that arrogant option is not uncommon amongst tennis players. And regardless, the average age of pickleball players continues to drop. Last I checked, it was 35 years of age and falling fast.
Brommer
I got the Brommer Park this morning at about 9:30 a.m.
The first game of the day I was paired with Drew against Evan and Jay. We got slaughtered.
The next game with Evan and myself against Drew and Jay and this time it
Evan and I who won by a similar margin.
My last game was Isaiah and me against Shawnté and Bruce’s son, Josh. (Josh said that Bruce has was in hospital for a week, but he’s doing better.) And we won 11–7 or 11–8. That was a fun game with a lot of battles.
Sweat Drops?
There is one rally this morning where I got distracted. As I hit drive near the baseline about half a dozen drops of sweat fell to the ground. I was confused. Did these fall off of my paddle? I made a mistake on my next shot which ended the rally. I shook my paddle again. Nope. No drops of sweat. They either came from my arm or from my head. I’m generally not a big sweater, but I seem to be a bit more lately I guess.
It’s nice to be in games where I’m not the best player on the court, which frequently happened at Derby.
There is one game with three advanced players when we asked for a fourth and a 3.0 player volunteered. I was partnered with him, and we got destroyed. He was popping up shots, returning serves into the net, hitting drives long… it was a bad combination. Fortunately, that was the only game of the day like that.
I checked the time and it was 11:48 a.m. It was time for me to go and get ready for teaching.
It was a good morning. I get a break from teaching next weekend, And then five weeks later, come December, I can play on Sunday mornings as long as I want since I won’t be teaching again until January.
On my drive back to you my house, it was 77°F and sunny.
I still need more opportunities to play with better players and hone my skills. I can understand why pros avoid rec play. It’s easy to get sloppy.
Number of days on a court: 730
Number of total hours: 2,989.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 87.5
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