Sunday, May 18, 2025 (Court Day #804)

As I drove to go play, leaving my house just before 8:30 a.m., I was simply thinking “This is going to be an absolute beautiful day.” While it hadn’t hit 60° yet, the sun was shining and there wasn’t a single cloud to be seen in the sky.

Brommer

I arrived at Brommer Park at 8:42 a.m. Five minutes after I got there and was waiting around, Kim arrived and when I asked if she wanted to warm up, she agreed.

Today was a really good day. I spent very little time sitting on the wall waiting to play and there were courts open the entire morning.

The young Andy (curly brown hair) was there again today and we teamed up against Dean and Dan Bliss. I asked Andy about his sports background and be said he grew up playing hockey in Fresno.

Those are some pretty fun games with Andy, Dean, and Dan. The first game was pretty close and honestly I can’t remember if we won or lost. In the second game, they started out ahead but then Andy and I pulled things together and dominated the rest of the game to win.

There was only one game today that I considered disposable and I played the majority of that game left-handed. I was paired with Art against Tony and a woman named Michelle whom I didn’t know. I played lefty until they were ahead 8-5 and then switched to my right hand. But Art was making too many errors to recover and win… it wasn’t his best game. That happens sometimes when you are playing against weaker players which makes the game less interesting.

The rest of the games were more challenging.

I left at 12:06 p.m., I had to get home to get ready to teach.

At Class

In my Advanced Beginner classes this afternoon, I was running a drill. I had one player at the net tossing a ball to a partner across the net in the transition zone, who would then attempt to volley the ball back over the net and into the non-volley zone. This proved to be a difficult drill for my students. One of my students wanted to test me and asked me to do the drill. Five balls were tossed to me and every single one I hit right back into the kitchen. Another student blurted out, “Of course, they are all perfect! Ok, enough of drilling for Andrew!” It’s nice when you live up to being legitimate in front of your students!

Monday, May 19, 2025 (No Play)

There was a post on Facebook in The Pickleball Clinic group about ball speeds in different sports:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/thepickleballclinic/permalink/1728311134561054

Here’s the meat of the post:

The Speed of a Pickleball vs. Balls from Other Sports

In a recent exhibition event held in China, pro pickleballers including Ben Johns, Tyson McGuffin, Anna Bright, and Chao Yi Wang had a friendly competition to see who could hit the fastest serve.
On the women’s side, Chao Yi Wang clocked the fastest serve at 59.03 mph, and on the men’s side, Ben Johns registered the fastest serve at 68.35 mph.

To put it in perspective, here are the highest-ever recorded speeds of balls in other sports:
Football throw: 62 mph
Baseball pitch: 105 mph
Hockey slap shot: 109 mph
Tennis serve: 163 mph
Golf drive: 240mph
Badminton smash: 351mph

Number of days on a court: 804
Number of total hours: 3,156
Number of paid coaching hours: 135.5

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