Thursday, October 24, 2024 (Court Day #732)

I left work early and arrived at Skypark at 5:45 p.m. It was quite the light crowd, though I still had to park down the street and around the corner. The courts were full, but there were only a handful of people waiting to get on. It did get a bit busier later, when we had about 8–10 people waiting, but it was definitely nowhere near as busy as Tuesday night.

Aireo

I decided to try out this new Aireo paddle. I played with it the entire night and I do like it. Little bit more poppy than my Players Rogue 2 paddle (which is very much a control paddle), but I can put a ton of spin to the ball with the Aireo. Aireo gave me a discount code to share, if anyone reading wants to order one: AL10P.

Arg

I was playing pretty well up until the point where it got dark. Then everything was just a little bit off. With hindsight, aside from just having a harder time judging the ball under lights, it was also probably me adjusting to the new paddle. What I haven’t done in quite a long time, I hit the white tape of the net at least half a dozen times.

I got to sleep after midnight last night and it was dragging a bit on the courts after a couple of hours of play. Maybe that contributed to my woes as well.

David L. was on his game tonight. He’s a great one to play against to develop your skills against aggressive power shots.

We wrapped up my last game with about 5 minutes of lights left, at 8:25 p.m.

Leaf Me Alone

A bit of a funny note, as I left Skypark a small leaf fell on my windshield right in front of my face. It was situated aerodynamically perfect to stay on my windshield, even when traveling on the freeway. It was only when I stopped at the stoplight just a mile from my house that it slid down to rest by my hood. Amusing.

Neck

I tweaked my neck a little bit, so it was painful to turn my head left or right and especially when I tried and lower my chin to my chest. My back was also pretty tight so leaning over to pick up a ball was uncomfortable. As I drove home, I was looking forward to Advil.

I hit a few out balls tonight, and there were also a few shots where I wasn’t position to close up to the middle. Like I tell my students, you want to follow the drive that you hit. To the right side of their court, follow the trajectory toward the right side of the court. Hit to the left side of their court, follow towards the left side of the court. You have to cover the middle.

Normally, I’d be depressed over my play. And I was. But not overly so. Just a bit. Maybe I was too tired to be depressed. Or I knew I was using a different paddle. Or that playing under lights is never my best. Or that my neck hurt. Or that there are ups and downs. Or all the above.

Tennis Worried

This month an article appeared in the Wall Street Journal. Here are a couple links to parts of the article:
https://www.sportsbusinessjournal.com/Articles/2024/10/08/tennis-pickleball-courts

The Turf War Between Tennis and Pickleball Is Escalating

A key takeaway is the claim by the U.S. Tennis Association that 10% of America’s tennis courts have been repurposed for pickleball. If I were the tennis guys, I’d be bummed too. What I dispute or at least question is the claim of 24.5 million tennis players and 10 million pickleball players. Based on local activity, it’d be more like a 20:1 ratio of pickleball players to tennis players. But, given, I don’t go where the tennis players go, but I’d be shocked to see 30-50 tennis players gathering daily like you see for pickleball in our area.

Number of days on a court: 732
Number of total hours: 2,993.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 87.5

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