Tuesday, October 22, 2024 (Court Day #731)
I dropped off my brother Matt at my parents’ house at 6:30 p.m. My dad is temporarily mostly bedridden with a very painful knee. He wasn’t complaining but when we convinced him to go to get an appointment, the doctor asked him about his pain on scale to 10, and my dad responded: “9”. So the doctor told him to stay off it for a while. I visited my dad for a few minutes then talked to my sister and my mom about him and also family plans for my mom’s birthday next month.
As I took the overpass and drove into Scotts Valley, it was 6:53 p.m. and 61°F. While there is still a little bit of light on the horizon, it was fairly dark.
Skypark
One of my first games, if not my first game, was with muscular Asian Aaron against Tim H. and his girlfriend whose name escapes me. I would say she is a solid 3.0 and she was well matched to balance Tim H.’s talent. Tim has dialed in his topspin lobs. They used to be quite unreliable, now however, they are deadly. In that game with him, he had at least two, if not three, lobs that appeared as if they were going out, but instead dropped comfortably about a foot inside the baseline. His girlfriend is coming along in her skill.
New Guy Dan
Mike Schmidt, who is retiring at the end of the year, was playing with a tall fellow, who I didn’t know named Dan. Dan said he has been playing for about six months. Dan is already easily a 3.5, if not a 4.0 level player. He has made astonishing progress. Granted, his soft game isn’t super, but he attacks very well. Manda and I were down quite a bit in that game, but then came back and tied up only to go on to lose 11–8.
We had a rematch, but this time Manda was making a fair amount of errors. He volunteered that he was tired.
While it was busy tonight, the rotation was fairly quick. The games were all fun, if not the most challenging.
Shaun White, Olympic Snowboarder
Gold medalist, Shaun White is into pickleball. This video appeared online a few days ago where he says that he tries to play as much as he can and that that his mom is addicted to the sport:
https://www.instagram.com/pickleballdotcom/reel/DBUvXoTyU8o
He’s been playing for a while, apparently. Here’s a video of him from a year ago. He’s running around his backhand and not getting up to the kitchen but there’s a good rough blank here.
Number of days on a court: 731
Number of total hours: 2,991
Number of paid coaching hours: 87.5
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