Sunday, April 27, 2025 (Court Day #795)
It rained overnight and there were wet patches on the ground. As a result, a “Delay until 10” notice was sent out to members about organized club play at Derby Park… though I wasn’t headed there, I was headed to Brommer.
My grand scheme was to be out playing by 8:30 a.m., but I’d been awake for about an hour in the middle of the night and I was moving rather slowly. I got ready then grabbed an old towel out of the garage to help dry the courts, in case that was necessary.
By 9:15 a.m., I was in my car. As I drove, little sprinkles appeared on my windshield and I wondered if it was going to turn into full-fledged rain? Was it going to make the courts slippery than they already are? Is it going to scare other players away? It was not an ideal situation.
As I drove, sprinkles turned into solid rain. Ugh. But I was undeterred and continued on my way. Within minutes, it returned to light sprinkles then nothing. My fingers were crossed.
Brommer Park
It was 54° when I arrived in Brommer at 9:24 a.m., a reasonable morning temperature. Fortunately, the courts were just dry enough to play.
I played with glasses Nick versus Laura and Dean. We lost the first game by a wide margin. It was my first game of the day, after all, but still embarrassing. It was bad. I will say that I went in with no warm-up, but still I missed shots that I would’ve expected myself to make.
But then Nick and I won the rematch by a wide margin.
Then we came back to win the third game.
We were playing one more game with myself and Nick versus Laura and Dean when it started to rain enough to make Dean uncomfortable moving around on the wet court. The court was slippery. We abandoned the game at 3-3.
Being optimist, I started dinking and warming up with Chayton across the net for me while Jon Barlow‘s son Ryan warmed up across from Nick. This is when it started coming a bit more and everyone left with the exception of six of us. Chayton said he was going to go home and play with his dog. We started doing a rotating kitchen game with Ryan, Nick, a man named John and myself. Kim joined in too.
Around 10:30 a.m., it was time to call it a wrap. Too wet.
Stray Paddle
I was out walking the dogs with my wife when we passed the 7-11 near our house. I saw something I’d never seen before. An abandoned random pickleball paddle on the ground outside the business. It appeared to have been chewed on by an animal. So odd!
Pickleball Reprised
After I finish teaching around 4:30 p.m., I was on my way out of the Skypark neighborhood when my brother John called hoping to hang out and do some pickleballing. My wife had her book group dinner tonight, so is there was no pressure to be home other than the take care of the dogs with her gone. I turned around and headed back to the courts.
I ran into René Baker in the parking lot just before 5 p.m., I rolled down the window and asked her what she was doing there. She, in turn, asked me what I was doing there! Then she explained that she was training with her minor league MLP team, Spencer, Chloe, and Jax.
Spencer wasn’t there yet and Jax was getting stuff from his car. I warmed up with Chloe for a few minutes. My brother John had shown up so Chloe excused me and I slid over and started to drill with John. We did dinking then we did serving and then a young couple named John and Gabi asked if we wanted to play a game. We agreed.
We played three games with them and they won two of them. I made 4-5 mistakes over the three games—mostly being lazy or underestimating my opponents—and brother John got credit for the rest of the errors. They were not hiding the fact that they were avoiding hitting to me.
Pros
An interesting turn of events, Anna Lee Waters will be playing with tennis great Andre Agassi at the U.S. Open. Yes, that’s the U.S. Open of pickleball.
Due to contract restrictions, ALW is the only PPA player allowed to play in the U.S. Open. The UPA—the umbrella company for the PPA—sees the U.S. Open as a competing tournament and keeps signed players from participating… except Anna Leigh Waters.
Regardless, it’s fun to see a very famous tennis player—even retired—out playing a pickleball tournament.
Monday, April 28, 2025 (No Play)
The Owl paddle I ordered on eBay arrived today in the mail. Quick observations. Short handle. (Which is fine by me as I don’t typically do two-handed shots.) It feels rather top heavy and the paperwork states that the manufactured paddle weight averages 8.8 ounces. That makes sense, that is a bit heavy.
Uh, oh. Pro Fight
Teenagers, Anna Leigh Waters and Hayden Patriquin, had a profane verbal altercation at an MLP event yesterday:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/thekitchenPB/permalink/2114149929099375/
Here’s the uncensored—don’t watch around kids!—bad language version from a different angle:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DI-WJQNpXoa/
And more about it…
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DI-SCkbpuYI/
Agassi Pickleball
Andre Agassi gives his take on pickleball in this interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xOao4HS0wpg
Number of days on a court: 795
Number of total hours: 3,134
Number of paid coaching hours: 132.5
To start at the beginning of this blog click on “1st Post” in the menu above.
Leave a Reply