Month: February 2025 (Page 2 of 2)

Saturday, February 8, 2025 (Court Day #770)

I woke up a little stiff and with the Chamisal event south of Salinas today, I took two ibuprofen.

I arrived at Dave Cox’s house at 11:09 a.m. At his invitation, I would be his teammate for the day. Dave had offered to drive, so after moving my gear to his car, we headed to Live Oak to drop off his dog, Brewster, then we were on our way to the south end of the Monterey Bay.

About 45 minutes later, now in relatively-rural Corral de Terra, California, a parking attendant in a fluorescent vest directed us to a spot. It was a touch chilly but with the sun out, I decided to leave my sweatshirt in the car.

Parked nearby was a car which I pointed out to Dave. It sported a “Pickleball Hoe” license-plate holder. Funny!

As we walked into the Chamisal Tennis & Fitness Club, I checked the time. 12:07 p.m. We’d have plenty of time to warm up.

Dave called out to a few people, including Vi, the tennis/pickleball instructor from Monterey County whom I played against in a gold medal match about six years ago. Dave is a former member of the Chamisal club, so it was not a surprise to me that he knows people there.

Registration

Dave and I got in line at the registration table and we checked in. I also forked over my $25 payment. Pretty cheap for a tournament these days.

Warm Up

To warm up, Dave and I split a court down the middle with Vi and his female partner, a woman Dave knew.

After Dave and I had a volley firefight at the net, Vi blurted out: “I’m glad you guys aren’t playing in 4.5!” Though I suspect Vi could have easily handled whatever we were showing!

We warmed up for about half an hour and after Vi and his partner had left, we drilled crosscourt dinks.

Announcements

About 1:10 pm, they started announcements. They pushed repeatedly—and comically—that “Love Dinks” was a social event. No medals, no tracking scores. Well, that changes things a bit. I didn’t know that, I was expecting a more formal tournament. Of course, I’d keep track anyway. I’m big into numbers. And teams will still be wanting to win.

Speaking of, Mike said there were 210 players participating and 268 signed up, meaning some were on the waiting list.

We’d be playing to 15, win by 1, switching sides mid-game. The grouping sheets were taped up on the window of the main building. Dave and I would be in 4.0, Bracket C. We’d be on Court #6, which was broken up into pickleball courts 6A, 6B, 6C, and 6D. (Later, it got changed so we’d on play on 6D, and also on 7A and 7B.)

Round 1

We’d be playing against Brian and Michelle Ford. I recognized Brian. I was pretty sure I’d played against him before.

It was looking good, we were ahead 12-9. Not to throw my partner under the bus, since I wasn’t perfect myself, Dave made a few mistakes in a row. We lost 13-15. It was a close and fun match.

Round 2

For our next game, we were over in the Court 7 side. We played against Vern and Michelle Russell. (Two Michelles in a row!) Vern is a big, stocky guy whom you’d be afraid of if he wasn’t such a nice guy. Vern was unquestionably a stronger player than Michelle. Mid-game, I started making an effort to intentionally hit to him rather than treating them equally. Even then, we won 15-8.

Round 3

This was a case of never judging your opponent by appearances. We played against Sue Brown and Kaustabh “KD” Duorah. Neither of them are tall and neither appeared to be overly athletic. But both were solid players. We lost 13-15. I felt we should have won that one.

Round 4

This was a the game of the day. We played against Jackie Signor and Geogiana “George” Foletta. (Jackie is on the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club board with me.) As the game went on and others ended, we collected more and more observers lining the fence. Dave and I built a hard-earned big lead. After I won a hands battle against George, Dave complimented me, “She has fast hands, but you have the hands to handle it.” We were ahead something like 8-3, though I don’t recall the exact score.

Once we switched sides and we were now facing the sun, aside from targeting Dave, they started lobbing us over and over. Lobbing and using the environment is part of the game, but I will admit that I was starting to get annoyed when we had to repeatedly look up into the sun to deal with them. Jackie and George probably won half a dozen rallies when Dave or I couldn’t see a particular lob. (I understand why Anna Leigh Waters’ mom lost her temper a year or two ago when her opponents lobbed them over and over and she had to look into the sun every time.) I remember one that I reached up and ended up hitting the ball into our side of the net. It was frustrating. It was a strategy that we could’ve employed ourselves when the sun was at our backs, but we had chosen not to.

In the end, I’m glad we still managed to close out that game and win, 15-13. It was a super fun and challenging game… and not just the lobs and sun!

Round 5

Our next opponents were quite different, Debbie and Brett Stocksick. They had watched our last match and explained to us that we were on a different level than them. (I’m not sure why they ended up in a 4.0 bracket.) Nonetheless, Dave and I found ourselves down 0-2. We were a bit fried from that last game and had no downtime before rolling into this match. But their lead didn’t last. We quickly scored a series of points then started taking it easier on them. Even with that, we won 15-3.

Round 6

For this round, we had a bye. Being that the matches were staggered and we didn’t have to wait for a specific time to start, we merely had to wait for our opponents to be ready to play us and it wasn’t too long. We just had to deal with getting stiff and cold.

Round 7

Next up were McKayla and Matt Deal. We were up 8-4 and we appeared to be cruising to an easy win.

After I knocked a speedup at the net from McKayla back with an off-angle passing shot down the sideline for a winner, Matt asked me, “Pingpong?” I responded, “No, just eight years of pickleball.” I had gotten very low and hit a scorpion-style shot.

Something that I had not expected, they came back and tied up the game 14-14. Dave then asked them if they wanted to play win by 2, instead of 1. They agreed. Smart, since it gave them an extra point to try and win, but we finished it off with a 16-14 win.

It was just before 4 p.m. when we wrapped up that last game.

Results

Not everyone was filling out the master sheet with the scores, so it was hard to tell how we did overall. We’d have either likely ended up with silver or maybe bronze out of the seven teams. But again, “social event”.

Food

Dave and I ordered a burger and french fries in the restaurant to split. While standing in line, a random woman asked if I could show her the paddle I’d been using. I turned around and looked in my backpack. Bizarre. That paddle was gone! I racked my brain. No, I’m sure I put it in my backpack. It made no sense. After what seemed like an eternity, I got a tap on the shoulder. My paddle. Manda had helped himself to yank my chain! Stinker! He’d come down from Santa Cruz and played with Christine, a regular at Brommer Park back home. They played in the 3.0 bracket. I figured they would have been in the 3.5. *shrug*

Dave and I headed out at 4:42. I needed to get back to Santa Cruz for a family dinner at 6 p.m. (The crazy thing was I didn’t get over to my parents’ house until 6:41 p.m. And they were already opening birthday presents. My family, which is notoriously late to start dinner, ate at 5 p.m.! Ah, well, I still got to see my brother Mike and his daughters—they all live out of state.)

Overall, a fun day.

Number of days on a court: 770
Number of total hours: 3,086.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 111.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

Thursday, February 6, 2025 (Court Day #769)

About 2 p.m., I left work and I headed north to Stanford University for the 1-year followup scan on my right (surgery) knee as part of a 6-year research study. As of last year, there were only two of these MRI combo machines in the entire country—world?—and both were doing research. They wanted me there at 3:15 p.m. to do paperwork for the 3:30 p.m. appointment, but it was raining and there ended up being an accident on Highway 17 North. I texted them warning that I’d be a little late and that ended up being 3:27 p.m. It worked out fine, regardless.

After the scan—no injection this time and just one scan instead of two—it was time to head to my son Nicholas’ apartment and from there we’d carpool to his pickleball class. Unfortunately, it was already almost 5 p.m., so instead, we arranged to meet at the Santa Clara Adult Education Gym for the 90-minute 6 p.m. class. He had previously let Cindy, his instructor, know that I was coming and that I could be a volunteer coach, if she wanted that.

It took me about 45 minutes to get from Stanford to the gym. The lot in front of the gym was full, so I parked in the overflow lot. As I walked back, a few spots had opened up… figures! Fortunately, it was only a few minute walk either way… it was just cold and still spitting annoying random small drops of rain.

The Gym

I walked into the gym to find only 4-5 people, but I was also about 15 minutes early. There were six pickleball nets already set up, filling the space.

I found a woman who appeared to be in charge, “Are you Cindy?” She smiled and said she was, then she started asking—but I answered her barely-started question, “I’m Nicholas’ dad.”

Cindy pointed out, “You are wearing your USA pickleball cap!” I asked if she was a USA Pickleball Ambassador too, but she explained that she’s just a USAP member. When I asked where I could change, she kindly walked me to the double doors and pointed to the Men’s restroom. Easy.

When I got back, things were a little busier and Nicholas had arrived. Cindy asked if I’d played indoors before. I told her that I had, though it’s rare. (I think I’ve played indoors maybe half a dozen times out of over 700 outings.) She explained that the ball takes a little getting used to. She also said she opted for blue-colored balls since the yellow ones had been difficult for her to see against the tan wood floor.

Warm Up

Nicholas and I warmed up doing crosscourt dinks—”aggressive dinks” as Cindy suggested to us early birds.

Cindy gathered everyone to one side of the gym next to the collapsed bleachers. Cindy introduced the two coach volunteers, Tony and Cathy, then she also introduced me and explained that I was visiting from Santa Cruz.

She lead us through about five minutes of warm ups, jogging, lunges, sideways shuffles. I was going to sit out and observe the warmups with Tony—who said he was sporting a sore hamstring—until Cindy yelled over, “Coaches too!” So, in I went!

Drills

Cindy ran fairy quickly through a series of drills. Drive followed by drop, speedup readiness, lob defense, transition defense, others. I felt like we had 10 minutes tops to run though each drill. The acoustics are pretty bad in a gym for drill explanations but she managed ok. I rotated groups for the drills.

Game Time

At 7 p.m., it was time for 30 minutes of games.

For the last set of drills, Cindy had put particular players on my court. It turned out that she’d picked the strongest players, so when it came time to roll into games, the students would be challenged.

First, I played with Mike against Kristen and a female partner, we’ll call her “S”. (I was never introduced and Cindy wasn’t 100% sure how to pronounce her name.) I later learned Mike has only been playing for about five months. Some skills transferred from his tennis background—I’d put him at a low 3.0 level. Kristen was a strong 3.0 and I’d put S as a very strong 3.0 or even a 3.5 level player. For S’s first two serves to me, the ball didn’t come back up—blue indoor balls!—and I hit them into the net. Embarrassing! But after that, I figured things out and returned her serves just fine. This was a pretty close game with the most balanced pairing.

In the second game, Mike played with S, and I played with Kristen. This was a lopsided game, I think they scored just two points.

At 7:30 p.m. sharp, it was time to clear out and make room for the soccer players.

Cindy and I chatted for a few minutes. She had nice things to say about Nicholas’ progress. She asked if I’d be back again soon, and I told her I had no idea. It’s uncommon for me to come over to the Silicon Valley, unless it’s a trip to/from the airport and that’s not long enough for pickleball. If they were all 4.0+ players, it’d be more enticing.

Cindy had done a good job “herding cats”. 24 students is a lot to manage.

And that was that. After dinner with Nicholas at a Mongolian BBQ place, I headed back “over the hill” to Santa Cruz and sleep!

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Friday, February 7, 2025 (No Play)

About a week ago, USA Pickleball held what they called a “Media Day”. This was the first one I’d ever heard of. Guests were limited to pickleball paddle manufacturers and a few media outlets. It was mostly to explain their paddle testing procedures and seek feedback from paddle makers.

Here’s a good article about it, though it confuses terminology some. A paddle can’t be “delisted” if it was never approved in the first place!
https://www.speakpickleball.com/articles/usap-media-day-things-we-learned

Number of days on a court: 769
Number of total hours: 3,084
Number of paid coaching hours: 111.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.

Thursday, January 30, 2025 (Court Day #768)

A beer commercial appeared online this week featuring pickleball and, of course, I had to look it up to share with you! It’s to appear in the Super Bowl. And it doesn’t make pickleball look lame. Well, how do you like that?

The ad features Willem Dafoe (who appeared in the 2002 Spiderman movie as well as Platoon and many other films) and Catherine O’Hara (the mom in Home Alone, and she also appeared Beetlejuice). Both have been very prolific in the film and TV industry.

There’s a longer version too with a little commentary:

Now, those of us who actually play will notice that on the initial serve to Willem, he’s in the wrong place (at the kitchen) and hits the ball out of the air (a fault). Still, pickleball is ‘full steam ahead’ into the mainstream! (Of course, one could argue it’s a montage, and therefore not representative of a true game start.)

Tournament

Dave Cox invited me to play with him in a round robin at Chamisal. I had to break the news to him that it’s a mixed doubles tournament.

Private Games

Charles Overbeck had arranged a private game for this morning. Staffing was going to be OK and there were no major deadlines at work. when Charles contacted me, he already had Tony Sloss lined up and I would be the third. Charles later arranged Rick Arnold to be our fourth.

For the first time a long time, my right knee has been bothering me a little bit. I think I tweaked it playing on Tuesday. It was mildly aching again last night.

It was overcast and 48°F as I left my house. I almost was out of my neighborhood when I realized I left my phone behind and had to turn around and go back. Once I had my phone in hand, I texted the rest of the group and let them know that I’d be a few minutes late.

My wife texted me telling me the rain is supposed to come in tomorrow morning and stick around through Wednesday next week. She said today would be my “last hurrah” for pickleball. Ah, well. We’ll take what we can get!

Derby Park

As I walked into Derby Park, I realized that this was my first time there in probably 6 months… since I stepped down as the Sunday club site coordinator at the end of August last year.

I walked through the gate a few minutes after 9 a.m. and found the others warming up. There was a slow game happening on one court and Larry Yein appeared to be giving a lesson to two older men using his ball machine on another.

After charging its batteries last night, I had brought my neglected Akaso sports camera. (A GoPro competitor.) I hung it up on the fence, but with the guys waiting, I was having trouble getting a it started and opted to forego any recording. I think it’s been over a year since the last time I recorded any of my games with this camera. Locally, with games typically shifting court to court, only private outings at slow times are conducive to video recording.

Rick and Me

Rick and I paired up in the first game and therefore took on Charles and Tony. We started off the session with an extremely close game. I was playing well off the bat and earned a series of compliments. Rick and I pulled off a win 13-11.

We opted to play two games with each pairing, so we had a the rematch. After being up 10-8, Rick I lost 10-12.

My sweatshirt only lasted a game or two before it came off.

Charles and Me

Charles and I teamed up and coasted to 11-3 win. In that game, I hit an awkward shot that went almost straight up. I bounced on their side then came over to our side and Tony reached over and tapped the ball into our side of the net for a winner. I’d read about this, then saw Ben Johns do it in a recording of a pro match, but this was the first time I’d seen it in person. Charles said as much too.

In our next game, after the lopsided win, Charles and I got a bit complacent and lost 7-11. Oops. 

Tony and Me

Next up was the last possible combination, Tony and me against Charles and Rick. We lost that one in a miserable fashion, 4-11.

But, as was the pattern this morning, we split those two games, winning the second game 11-7.

Last Rotations

By this time, it was around 11 a.m. We decided to repeat the pairings but with one game each this time.

Rick and I lost 3-11. (Ouch.)

Charles and I won 11-5.

Tony and I won 11-6.

At 11:54 a.m., we were done. 

When I left Derby Park, it was still only 52°F. It was a chilly, overcast day.

Analysis

Later on, I did some quick analysis and shared it with the guys.

The nice thing is that we completed our full partner rotations. It reduced the necessary math and made drawing conclusions much easier.

Rick bemoaned, “Just what I needed … proof I was the weak link. ”

But he hadn’t played badly at all and I relied, “Rick, how  many times have you had to switch what arm you have to use over the last few years?? You were only two average points off of Charles.”

This was a really good outing, where balls came back that typically don’t, with speed ups, dink rallies, resets… good times.

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Friday, January 31, 2025 (No Play)

Here’s a very nice rally in a recent semi-finals match:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DFLG-rNtgX1/

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Monday, February 3, 2025 (No Play)

Weather report is not looking good for play on Tuesday and Thursday nights at Skypark! Gag.

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Tuesday, February 4, 2025 (No Play)

CRBN announced a new foam core paddle this week and then Selkirk announced their new foam core paddle within days. These new paddles feature a… wait for it… foam core. The story goes that polypropylene cores deform and compress over time and this new high-density foam composition lasts far longer.

The CRBN paddle has sections cut out of the foam and Selkirk’s is solid foam. Similar materials, different design/use.

Tournament

Dave Cox reached out and said that the round robin at Chamisal is pretty low-key and they are allowing any pairings in the event, man/woman, woman/woman, man/man… not just mixed. Dave said that the TD Mike said that they had one spot left and so I told Dave that I’d play with him. He added, “And I know, no coaching.”

Athletic Club Membership

The La Madrona Athletic Club reached out to my wife and after a couple of years on their waiting list, we’ve been told we can become members. I explained to my wife that the odds of me using that membership enough for it to make sense are very low. I told her to get her a membership for herself and I can always be added on later at any time.

Some Pro Analysis

There are a few things I want to talk about in this clip:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DDLfvozgX1U/

Watch Anna Leigh Waters (on the right) and see how she reacts differently to different scenarios.

When her dropshot is too high, she retreats with both her and her partner Catherine Parenteau. However, later, when there’s a lob over CP’s head, CP runs back to the baseline to get the ball, but ALW stays planted at the kitchen line. Apparently, ALW trusted her partner to a) get to the lob, b) hit a successful drop shot off that lob. Either those or ALW trusted her own ability to handle whatever her opponent threw at her after CP’s shot. It’s a risky move, but ALW is the #1 female player in the world after all, if anyone can handle what’s coming, it’s her.

Another thing to notice, is that their opponent does something at the pro level against conventional wisdom: “Never lob from the baseline.” Probably more true than not, but it worked this time. CP was forced back to the baseline and had to work her way back up to the net. Granted, ALW did something less common, as I mentioned, staying at the kitchen line on a lob, so only one partner had to work her way back up to the net. Now, if CP had hit her drop shot straight ahead, there would have been a crosscourt opportunity for her opponent to hit the ball into the gap between CP and ALW. Instead, CP hit crosscourt and there was no gap from that position. Geometry and smarts in action! Obviously, these two partners know and trust each other’s play.

Number of days on a court: 768
Number of total hours: 3,083
Number of paid coaching hours: 111.5

To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.