Thursday, May 1, 2025 (Court Day #797)

Early this morning, I dropped off my brother Matthew at the San Francisco International Airport. On my way up, about a mile south of SFO, I noticed a large building with giant letters on the side announcing “Pickleball and Tennis”. On my way back from the airport, I could see the other side of the building, “Bay Club”. Ah. My sister-in-law and her family are Bay Club members and occasionally play pickleball there. Sooner or later, I’ll have to arrange a trip up and go play with them there.

Ball Pickup

At lunchtime today, watched ball pickup tubes and contraptions. I haven’t decided what design I want to make yet.

Tournament?

In the mid afternoon, an email appeared in my inbox from pickleballtournaments.com suggesting some nearby tournaments this month. On a whim I took a quick look. There are a couple at the end of this month that could work out and be interesting. One is in Sunnyvale. The other one is in Palo Alto at Mitchell Park. I reached out to Binh and he told me tha—aside from the fact that his fiancé didn’t want him to do any tournaments on Memorial Day weekend—he said the tournament in Palo Alto had 371 people signed up for it and already had a waiting list. I will mulch this idea a little more. Unless you’re playing tournaments regularly, sometimes it’s hard to find a good match in a tournament partner… too big of a skill disparity, a personality conflict, too this, too that.

Weather

While I was using my windshield wipers this morning on my trip to San Francisco and back, it was beautiful most of the day.  It was sunny and a very nice 61°F.

Paddle

With my new Rallie ball machine coming next week and my plan to use it in my backyard, as I previously mentioned, I bought a cheap Owl paddle on eBay. New paddles always take a little getting used to.

Tonight, I played with that Owl Silent Storm paddle. It was interesting. I didn’t notice a huge difference in performance with it other than I might have been able to get a little bit more spin with it. It has a traditional stubby/square pickleball paddle shape versus the hybrid longer one that I’m used to. There is only maybe one shot tonight that I would’ve otherwise made had I had my longer paddle.

New Nets

This was my second night playing with the new $900 rolling nets at Skypark. They’re really awesome.

Games

Tonight was pretty unsatisfying with regard to the quality of play. There was one game where Mauricio and I teamed up against one of my former students and an unfamiliar player. Both are 3.0 level players. We beat them 11–0. That game was never in doubt. I think there was two service changes, maybe three, tops.

What’s interesting is observing the strategic errors that some of my partners were making. A common one is coming in after the serve then having to go backwards to hit the third shot. Of course, it’s not my place to try to coach long-time 3.5 level players. It would definitely improve their game though. It’s something I try to drill into my students: “Serve stay, return run!”

Mauricio and I were playing Manda and Scott. They went ahead 5–1, Mauricio and I went on to score the next 10 points and win the game. In that game, Manda failed on two ATP attempts. Then I had an opportunity and made my attempt. I couldn’t help but announce, with a broad smile, “That’s how it’s done!”

In the next game, I paired with Scott and we beat Manda and Mauricio.

But just a few minutes left of light, Mauricio suggested that he and Manda play a rally scoring game to 7 against me and Scott.(Scott and I had just clobbered them. ) it was my first rally scoring game ever. It was really different. It changes your mindset on the value of each rally.

College scholarships 

Apparently, there are some colleges that are now offering pickleball scholarships. Wow.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DI3crMlS_M1

I did a quick online search and found at least one example:
https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/paying-for-college/articles/college-scholarships-for-lesser-known-sports
“At Utah Tech University, students can apply for the Pickleball Club Scholarship, which covers up to six credit hours of tuition costs. Selected candidates become part of the team as either a player or officer. Applicants must have at least a 3.0 GPA and commit to volunteering a minimum of 20 hours per semester for club-related projects.”

Agassi and ALW Defeat

Well, with Agassi a relative pickleball newbie and this was his first pro-level tournament, it was unlikely that his doubles success would last. Here’s an article about it from CNN:
https://www.cnn.com/2025/05/01/sport/andre-agassi-pickleball-us-open-intl-spt
“…the dynamic duo losing out in their next match to [Len] Yang and [Trang] Huynh-McClain in three sets: 11-7, 4-11, 7-11.”

Number of days on a court: 797
Number of total hours: 3,138
Number of paid coaching hours: 132.5

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