Tuesday, November 5, 2024 (Court Day #736)
I checked today and the the 2024 World Championship (PPA) has 3,507 players registered, indeed making it the biggest pickleball tournament ever. Well, “ever,” so far. Bigger is likely coming. At a certain point, it’ll become logistically impossible to add more players. But if the money keeps flowing in, the PPA will make it as big as possible.
Selkirk new paddle
Selkirk is working on a new paddle—who isn’t?—that they are calling Project 007:
“The new InfiniGrit Surface paves the way for dramatically enhanced texture durability and spin performance, lasting 3x longer than raw carbon surfaces.”
Interesting. We’ll see if it lives up to the hype.
Olympian
Gabby Thomas, 2024 Olympic Gold Medalist in the 200m sprint, plays pickleball! Here are a couple of articles from about six weeks ago I just learned about:
Sport Illustrated:
https://www.si.com/onsi/athlete-lifestyle/news/gabby-thomas-rocks-fire-tennis-miniskirt-fit-for-pickleball-game
Pickleball.com:
https://pickleball.com/culture/olympic-gold-medalist-gabby-thomas-hits-the-pickleball-court-in-style‘
Pickleball is continuing to get more and more popular. And Gabby is only 27-years-old. It’s not like she’s a grandma! This sport is trending younger and younger.
Brother John
Late in the afternoon, I got a Facebook notice that someone wanted to join the official Santa Cruz Pickleball Group. That someone, this time, turned out to be my brother John! I guess he’s getting a bit more serious about his play!
Night Play at Skypark
With the cold weather that we’ve been having the last week today was unusually warm day. I got Joshua, one of my staff, to close the store for me tonight so I was able to leave right at 6 p.m. As I drove to Scotts Valley, my car thermometer read 68°F. Warm for after sunset!
With the time change this past weekend, it was pitch black as I left work. Ah, well. Always under lights, it will be for the next few months.
Today is the day of the 2024 presidential election and there are no doubt people who need to take Valium or other drugs to manage their stress. With all the mail-in ballots these days, we probably won’t know the official results for a few days, regardless. Plus, no matter who wins, I still have to get up in the morning and go to work just like I did through all the past presidents. There was a little talk at the courts of the election underway, but it was mostly avoided.
Games
My first game was a nice little Indian woman from the Silicon Valley. She was a newbie and was erratic getting the ball back over the net, but I’ve definitely seen worse. We did end up losing the game as I expected, however, we made quite go of it. It was against Kristin Long and Chris, the female player who has only been around for a few months. After the game, Kris asked me if I would like to play again, but I told her that I’d like to play with stronger players for my next one. She was understanding and we’re friends so at I knew that she wouldn’t hold it against me.
My next game was paired with Mark Dettle against Paul Winn and linebacker Mike. Mark did his best, but we did lose.
This evening we cycled through games with myself, Paul, Matt Babb, and linebacker Mike. We played two or three games with Paul as my partner, then we mixed it up and I paired with Mike. They were generally pretty close back-and-forth games with some really good rallies.
Nasty
In a funny moment, we were joking about “loser” shots in our game and Paul rushed the serve and nailed me with a Nasty Nelson while I was looking away and then he took the point. (Yes, that is the rule!) Matt and Paul were both quite amused as they swapped positions! I think that was the first time I have ever been hit on a serve!
More Lights?
As evening wore down, some people, like Rachel, we’re hoping that the City of Scotts Valley didn’t correct the lights for daylight savings which would mean they’d go off at 9:30 instead of 8:30. But if I had actually stopped to question it right then, instead of it occurring to me later in the car, they had it backwards. If the city hadn’t reset the lights, they would’ve gone out at 7:30, not 8:30. 8:30 p.m tonight was 9:30 p.m. last week.
Oops
Matt got me on a return of serve where, while I wasn’t inside the court, I was too close to the baseline his return of serve landed on the baseline and I was unsuccessful handling the ball. Gotta leave yourself space! Something to keep in mind going forward.
Paddle
And I have to say, I’m really loving this Aireo paddle.
Wednesday, November 6, 2024 (No Play)
Local pickleball in the local news… based on the file name, I think this came out in February this year, but I don’t remember seeing it. There is an article on pickleball in our county on page 12.
Number of days on a court: 736
Number of total hours: 3,005.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 90.5
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