Month: April 2025 (Page 3 of 4)

Tuesday, April 15, 2025 (Court Day #790)

I changed and left work as quickly as I could. It was 59°F when I arrived in Scotts Valley and the entire sky was shrouded in clouds from horizon to horizon.

Skypark

Arrived at Skypark at 6:40 p.m. I walked in alongside a shorter guy I’d seen once or twice before named Eric. The signup board was not hung and there was one vacant court with no net set up on it yet. I retrieved a net bag from the bin then after we set up a net, we started warming up. A few minutes later, we were joined by a couple of other players who had just come out of a game. A taller young fellow named John—whom I don’t believe that I’ve seen before—and Jens who is somewhat of a regular. I was paired with a weaker Jens and for every mistake I would make, he would make four. As expected with that ratio, we lost that first game. Jens is a really nice guy, just not a strong player. I really wanted to get out of that combination to play with some stronger players, but when they asked for a rematch my nice guy gene kicked in and I played with them for one more game.

In the next game, my third of the night, I played with Matt against Paul and another player who is almost as good. I was not playing my best in that game. I think Matt and I lost, but we did make a game of it. That loss was mostly on me. Sometimes it’s hard to adjust from a lax game to a strong game.

Better Games

In a nice turn of events, we had four strong players. I’ll take it every time! I teamed up with Marco against Paul and Matt.

First game was close but Marco and I won. I was making even more errors in that game, but as the game went on, I adjusted and tightened up my game.

We had a rematch and this time Marco and I won by a wider margin. I was playing better in that one.

We played one last game as a group and Marco and I won that game as well.

By this time it was 8:20 p.m and the lights should be clicking off soon. Aaron and I played against little Scott and Paul. Aaron and I took a good lead but then Scott and Paul went on a run and Aaron and I were down 4-8. But it was our turn for a run and we were ahead and serving 9-4 when the lights clicked off a few minutes after 8:30 p.m.

And?

I started out a little sloppy tonight, but then I started to tighten my game up. While it was only in the high 50s, I was still sweating, and overall it felt comfortable.

College Championships

This year’s pickleball college national championship had 64 schools involved. The first such championship was in 2022 which had only about 150 players, but this year it’s closer to 600. It’s nice to see.

Number of days on a court: 790
Number of total hours: 3,123.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 129.5

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

Sunday, April 13, 2025 (Court Day #789)

A bit of a surprise, my wife Kristen mentioned that a friend of hers invited her to play pickleball at La Madrona Athletic Club. Kristen has been swimming regularly up there since she joined about a month ago. Now, the surprise isn’t that she got invited to play yesterday afternoon, it was that this morning she suggested that I would need to get her back up to speed on how to play. So, there she is, after nearly a decade of me suggesting that she play, she seems open to the idea and even suggested I show her how again. Now, we’ll have to see if it really happens!

Clouds

Well, it was sunny on the westside of Santa Cruz, but on my way to Brommer Park I drove into a massive cloud bank cloud bank starting in downtown Santa Cruz. And with the temperature reading 48°F in my car, I was suddenly regretting not bringing a sweatshirt! But I was holding out hope the cloud cover would burn off before too long.

Brommer

My new series of classes was starting early this afternoon, which meant that I couldn’t stay as long as I prefer at Brommer Park. 

I pulled in at 8:43 a.m. and it wasn’t long at all before I was in a game.

Kyle called me over and I played with him against Fernando and Stuart. (This is a new Stuart, not the “OG” Stuart who lives out of state these days.) It was a very close game. If I recall correctly, we won.

Tall young Dave and I played against Stuart and Kyle. We lost 10-12. Dave got hit in the eye by a ball that flew off the edge of his paddle. “It feels like a brick in my eye!” And that, my friends, is why I always wear eye protection! Fortunately, Dave seemed ok. Maybe a minor eye scratch.

I played with Kyle against Kelly and another Kyle. We split the games.

OG Game

Kent and I played against Leslie and Dan Bliss. This was a game of “OG” players. I’ve been playing for over 8 years and they were all playing before I started! Kent and I lost 7-11. I played pretty well in that game, but it wasn’t enough.

Leslie and I played against Mike Sullivan and little Linda. We won 11-8.

Chayton

Chayton and I played against Nick and Antonio. We won 11-1.

Chayton and I then played against Evan and Mike Sullivan. Surprisingly, we lost the first game 4-11. (In that first game, I was making a bunch of errors.) But in the second game, Chayton and I took a big lead and ended up winning 11–5. 

I checked the time, it was 12:04 p.m. Time for me to go home and have lunch and get ready to teach.

Surprising for Brommer, the games were not that great. The last two games are really good. I have to say, Mike Sullivan has improved a great deal since he retired four or five months ago.

When I left, it was 63°F and sunny. I was sweating quite a bit. So much for that big cloud bank!

New Nets at Willowbrook

Yesterday afternoon, after some organizing by Mike sullivan, four brand new heavy-duty rolling Dominator nets were installed at Willowbrook Park in Aptos. It’s a far cry from the two dilapidated cheap nets that were provided by Rec.us a couple of years ago. The county of Santa Cruz paid a good portion as did an anonymous donor. A smaller remainder was paid for by the Santa Cruz Pickleball Club.

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Monday, April 14, 2025 (No Play)

UTR Sports, which operates the UTR-P pickleball rating system for USA Pickleball, announced a change today.

There has been confusion ever since this new UTP-R system was rolled out a year ago. The UTR-P goes to 10—I can’t help but hear line line in my head from the movie This is Spinal Tap, “These go to eleven”—but DUPR and the old USAP system (UTPR) both maxed out at 7. (The original USAPA system went to just 5.0 but as the game exploded, that became too cramped of a ceiling.) A standard 4.0 DUPR player would typically go and play in a USA Pickleball tournament as a 5.0 under the UTP-R system.

Well, today, UTR shared that they are knocking all their current ratings down by 0.5. If you were a 4.7, you are now a 4.2, which is closer to what your DUPR rating would be. I still don’t know if it’s a good solution, but time will tell.

Here’s the announcement:
https://support.universaltennis.com/en/support/solutions/articles/9000267476-utr-p-ratings-update-april-2025

Number of days on a court: 789
Number of total hours: 3,121.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 129.5

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

Thursday, April 10, 2025 (Court Day #788)

It was an absolutely beautiful day today in here in Santa Cruz County. Sunny and warm. Today would be my first day back at it after playing on Bainbridge Island a week ago. In the meantime, was a lot of work at a trade show.

Classes

I was sending out some informational messages to my students for the first meeting of my classes, which will be this coming Sunday. In the process, I discovered that one of my Advanced Beginner students had dropped out this week. Somehow, I wasn’t notified. That only gives me three days to try and fill that spot. Yes, sure, it is better than finding out on the day of the class! Also annoying, my beginner class still has three spots open. Usually my classes fill up. Some work to do!

After Work

The sun was still up, although it was getting low enough in the sky to get blocked by the tree line up on the hillside. I left the pair of sunglasses I typically wear for pickleball at my house. I do keep a pair of sunglasses in my car, but since they aren’t designed for athletics, they’re a bit more likely to fall off.

I arrived at Skypark at  6:45 p.m. It was a very warm evening. Even with me just wearing a T-shirt and shorts, I was sweating by the time that I left. Driving home later, it was 63°F. That’s downright toasty!

Tonight was the light crowd, but parking was very full. It was very difficult to get into strong games. I spent the entire evening with either one other strong player or two strong players but no game where all four players could get the ball back over the net consistently. Well, that’s not entirely accurate. But just that they were 3.0 level players and the rallies were short.

My last game was with a 2.5/3.0 young woman, whom I’d never seen before tonight, against David and Minori. I noticed that they were hitting a lot of balls to me… they wanted to keep the rallies going! 

We finished that last game a few minutes before the lights clicked off at 8:30 p.m. Then it was time to head home. Nothing really of note tonight.

Blowing On Balls?

A video popped up. This is the first time that I’ve seen this strategically. The player on the far right side, taps the ball up then imparts a strong push with his breath to throw his opponent’s timing off… not that it was an winner, but still unique…
https://www.instagram.com/p/DH_PVXPxKpR

Pro Split

The big news in the pickleball landscape is the surprising split of the very successful pro team of Anna Leigh Waters and Catherine Parenteau. The story goes that ALW will be pairing with Anna Bright the rest of this year. ALW and Parenteau won a whole lot of tournaments but they did lose a few. It sounds like ALW wasn’t satisfied and wants to try with another partner.

Comedic Pickleball

I missed this earlier, but there’s this comedian, Chelsea Handler, who has a Netflix special that came out last month. She makes fun of pickleball. I guess some people find this funny… heck, I can appreciate a good pickleball joke, but this is just crude and lame:
https://www.instagram.com/netflixisajoke/reel/DGL4WHjC_Mz/?hl=en

Then there’s this guy:
https://www.facebook.com/ZaneLamprey/videos/dont-mess-with-the-pickleballers-/1183431303364898/
The first line about breweries was funny, not so much the rest.

I’m waiting for some truly funny pickleball comedy.

Number of days on a court: 788
Number of total hours: 3,118.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 126.5

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