Wednesday, July 30, 2025 (Court Day #836)

After got home from work, I was informally eating dinner by myself standing at the kitchen counter when I got a text from Conner McNicholas asking if I wanted to drill at Derby Park—like, right then!

Being a responsible husband, I checked with my wife to see if there was anything she needed me to do, but she told me was it was a beautiful night and to go play. I told Conner that I would be there in 20 minutes.

Derby Park

It was 66° and the shadows were long as the sun dipped low in the sky. Sunset would be coming in about an hour.

When I arrived, there were a couple of players on one court, a family of three on another court, and then there was Conner on the third court by himself, a little bit farther away.

We started with a few minutes of straight ahead dinking, and after a few minutes, we switched to crosscourt dinking—or if you believe voice to text “crossword thinking”—punctuated with an occasional speedup. Then we switched to drops from the baseline with the other player at the net trying to make it as difficult as possible for the dropper.

After about 20 minutes, Conner suggested we play skinny singles. Under Conner‘s rules, after serving from the even side, the returner would return straight ahead and the server would shift over. When the server was odd, both players would stay and play diagonally.

In the first game, while there was definitely some back-and-forth, I found myself down 1-9. I did claw back and make it 7-10, but then Connor scored one more point and won the game.

We switch sides and played it again this time, it was I who took a lead 8-4. Conner came back and tied it up 10-10 and then he won 12-10.

We switch sides again and this time it was tied up 2-2 when Conner decided it was too dark for him to continue.

It was just shy of 8:30 p.m. when we called it a day.

Junior Player

Here’s a news report out of Phoenix about a 13-year-old girl named Kelly Goodnow. According to the report, she’s the top-ranked “14 and under” junior pickleball player:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMgpFOQSNgR

Number of days on a court: 836
Number of total hours: 3,243
Number of paid coaching hours: 156.5

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