Month: June 2025 (Page 3 of 5)

Sunday, June 15, 2025 (Court Day #816)

A.I.-generated Bigfoot videos have been going viral the past week. This one popped up, which is hilarious:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKum9KrAXDF
Given there is a paddle that is shown as a link, they may have sponsored the video, but that’s just speculation on my part. I sent it this morning to Paul Winn and Matt Babb along with a Father’s Day greeting. They got a kick out of it too.

Mo & Spencer Medals

Mo had recently told me that she was going to be playing in her first 4.0 tournament with Spencer as her partner. Well, this weekend was that tournament. And they took silver in mixed doubles. I will admit that I’m a little bit surprised, however, it was mixed doubles and not men’s doubles. While theoretically the brackets should be pretty comparable, men’s doubles 4.0 is generally tougher.

Teaching

I had a busy morning, so I didn’t play at Brommer today. My Beginner class was full today, but for a variety of reasons, my entire 3 p.m. Advanced Beginner class of five students didn’t make an appearance. so I had no students!

Game

My son Nicholas—who I had asked to fill in for a missing student my Advanced Beginner class at 3 o’clock—arrived, so we split up and played a game with two of my Beginner students who stayed, Julius and his wife Nancy. I coached them throughout the game, so they got bonus instruction.

Oh, I should mention that before the first class started, Julius told me that he was golden pickled by his middle-school-aged son, who played pickleball one time at school. He beat his dad, and in the process, never even let him serve! Julius is not terrible, in fact, he’s one of the more-skilled students in my Beginner class. Julius said while his son is better, Julius had an off-game.

Drilling

Once our post-class game was done, my son Nicholas and I stayed and drilled for about an hour and a half, ending at 4:45 p.m. We spent about half the time doing volleys back and forth from about a foot inside the kitchen—to reduce reaction time—then Nicholas did drops from the baseline while I was trying to make it difficult for him from the net, then I had him work on his backhand drives which are a weakness for him. I helped him correct his footwork and also try to develop a topspin backhand instead of an extreme slice like he’s been doing lately with only limited success. He was noticeably better by the time we were done.

I will say that Nicholas has fast hands—Boy, I wonder where he go that from! (Yes, I’m being facetious!)—plus he got balls back that I wasn’t expecting him to. I told him later that his net volley skills are better than 75% of local players… which is absolutely the truth. It doesn’t hurt that he’s a full 6-foot and can reach shots more easily than shorter folks.

One thing that became apparent during our volley drilling was how effective hitting to an opponent’s paddle side between the hip and armpit is—the notorious chicken. I could make it pretty miserable for Nicholas: chicken wing, chicken wing, chicken wing. I need to make a conscious effort to use that more in games for speedups! (Duh.)

Knee

My knee is pretty sore. I ran after an errant ball that was wildly hit by a student and boy, my knee was not happy. It was painful enough to affect my movement. It’s probably a result of playing last Sunday, Monday, Tuesday night, Thursday night and yesterday morning… five times in a week.

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Tuesday, June 17, 2025 (No Play)

Pickleball at Indian Wells was in the news a month ago but it didn’t pop up on my social media until today. The city council down there put the kibosh on adding more pickleball courts:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DJusZKSPkrm
Here’s a web article about it:
https://kesq.com/news/2025/05/16/residents-at-indian-wells-county-club-upset-city-council-declines-pickleball-court-addition/
Indian Wells is where a number of national pickleball tournaments have been held.

Jack Sock Mad?

The social media narrative was pushed that pro Jack Sock was upset about getting “body bagged”—actually he was just jammed up—but here is Jack’s response:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DLBc68WMjEe/

Paddle Padding

PB Muffler sent a package which arrived at work today. It’s an interesting concept. It’s not for tournaments, but if you looking to keep your drilling quiet for the neighbors, this could be a solution for you.

The plastic packaging contains two thin foam pads, one for each of the two faces of your paddle, and an elastic fabric sleeve that slips over everything to keep it all in place. Well, it also includes instructions too.

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Wednesday, June 18, 2025 (No Play)

So there’s some kind of tournament event at Derby…

I’ll give this some thought. I’m not sure whom I’d invite.

Number of days on a court: 816
Number of total hours: 3,192
Number of paid coaching hours: 144.5

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

Saturday, June 14, 2025 (Court Day #815)

Due to other obligations tomorrow, I can’t play on Sunday morning and being that work was very adequately staffed today, I decided to take the morning off and play at Skypark with my son Nicholas who is in town for the weekend. 

Skypark

We arrived at Skypark about five minutes before club play was to start at 9 a.m. We grabbed one of the last two parking spots in the lot. No doubt, it would be busier later.

Nicholas and I played two games with two players I’d never seen before. They were 3.0 players. I had to try to keep the rallies going. In the rematch, I played left-handed and we still won handily.

After that, Nicholas and I played on different teams to balance them.

Nicholas and I played a few games on the same court before splitting up and signing up different skill levels.

Midway through the session, Mark Dettle, president of the club, stopped everyone and reminded folks about the $2 court fee. The court fees help cover the expense of reserving the courts entirely for communal pickleball play… no tennis, and no private groups hogging the pickleball courts. Nicholas and I had each already put in our two dollars.

Best Game

There is only one game where I felt I was truly challenged. I was teamed up with Francis against a young guy named Ralph and the guy I’d seen a handful of times before named John. John is tall and obviously has a lot of experience with racquet sports and he played very well. I was coming off games with weak players and being lazy and getting used to the ball not coming back. John, however, did a really good job getting balls back over the net. Francis was the weakest player in that game. I say say Francis is a strong 3.0 or a weak 3.5. I’d say Ralph is a solid 3.5 and John is a 4.0, easily. I wish I could’ve played more games with John, but he left after that game.

My son Nicholas and I left at noon sharp to go pick up my car from the repair service.

New Surface Coming

The City of Scotts Valley is supposed to resurface the courts “before July” but the Parks & Rec director, Allison, said that they didn’t have a date set yet. It’ll be nice when it’s repaired. There are a lot of cracks and there are patches approximately 2-feet in diameter where the surface flaked off completely.

Number of days on a court: 815
Number of total hours: 3,190.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 141.5

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

Thursday, June 12, 2025 (Court Day #814)

My right knee brace continues to be a companion, however, my knee is starting to feel improved.

Skypark

It was very sunny and 70°F when I arrived at Skypark at 6:45 p.m.

I pulled in the lot with the car in front of me taking one open parking spot and me taking the other spot right next to it. With spots open in the lot, sure enough, there was a light crowd tonight and wait times were practically nonexistent.

It was a night of playing mostly with weaker 3.5 level players, though games were generally decent. Not fantastic, although there were some good rallies. Only once or twice was I surprised with balls coming back that I was not expecting.

Tonight, I pulled off some amazing shots. Those are times when you get a ball back that you kind of shock yourself. “How did I get that back?” Of course, that is balanced with hitting three serves into the net tonight, hitting some drives into the net, hitting a few returns long… but overall I felt that I played reasonably well. I was content with my play. I received a lot of compliments—”Nice shot!”—but I’d rather get into games and lose with stronger players than me and get my skills stretched.

We played until 8:45 p.m. when it got too dark with the artificial lights off.

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Friday, June 13, 2025 (No Play)

In fairly routine news, Anna Leigh Waters pulled off a triple crown at the PPA Atlanta event today. Singles, Women’s Doubles, Mixed Doubles. She just mows down opponents.

I wasn’t going to share this, but, heck, with ALW winning again, it’s apropos.

It’s mostly a drummed-up controversy. Which has been more dominant in their respective sports? Serena Williams in tennis or ALW in pickleball?

https://www.thedinkpickleball.com/opinion-anna-leigh-waters-is-more-dominant-than-serena-williams-ever-was/

Newspaper

Oh, and Big 5 Sporting Goods was advertising pickleball paddles in their newspaper insert again. Speaking of routine, pickleball is getting pretty mainstream these days.

Number of days on a court: 814
Number of total hours: 3,187.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 141.5

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