Month: July 2025 (Page 2 of 5)

Tuesday, July 22, 2025 (Court Day #833)

It was sunny and in the low 70s when I left work at 6:30 p.m.

Gas?

While I was on the freeway between Santa Cruz and Scotts Valley, I looked at my gas gauge and noticed that the gas light was on, then I looked at my dashboard to see how many miles I had left… a big red zero! I was hoping there would be enough in my tank to finish my trip to Scotts Valley and their gas stations right off the freeway. I did my best to kind of draft off of other cars—from a safe distance, of course—and keep my speed down and avoid braking to conserve fuel. 

Fortunately, I did make it to the gas station. Maybe I was coasting in on vapor, I have no idea. Surprising for an evening, as I filled up, the sun was warm enough that I stood in the shade to keep cool. The car took just over 18 gallons, a new record! (A record that I hope to never break!)

Skypark

Hugh was leaving as I pulled in the lot, but David L. took that last spot. I had to park a full block away. 

I walked into the courts at 6:50 p.m. I played a number of unmemorable games.

Adam and I played against David and Kirby. We lost 6-11. Adam shared that he wasn’t playing his best. I wasn’t either. It was getting pretty dark. We wrapped up that last game at 8:50 p.m.

And?

Boy. I was not happy with my play. This was one of those nights where I feel like it’s time to give up pickleball.

I sweaty when I left. It was still 64°F.

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Wednesday, July 23, 2025 (No Play)

Andre Agassi and Anna Leigh Waters presented a testimonial about pickleball that appeared on social media today:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DMddJ7Zqf2h/

Rec Sighting

Here’s a reporter up in San Francisco talking about new court booking fees:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMdvS0sB8Sa/
If you look closely at the sign in the background, you’ll see the “Rec” logo. Yep, that’s the same company that is contracted with the County of Santa Cruz and the City of Scotts Valley, and also employs me to teach pickleball classes.

Pickleball Teens Participation

SFIA is the Sports & Fitness Industry Association which does surveys to determine trends in the sports world. Here’s a stat from them:

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Thursday, July 24, 2025 (No Play)

Here is an hour long interview about DUPR…

I haven’t watched it yet, but I’m looking forward to doing so.

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Friday, July 25, 2025 (No Play)

This little video short is hilarious. In it, you can see pro player Zane coaching and the reaction of his student!
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DMffkubgIJi/

Dating?

A new dating app for pickleball players, PickleMatch, is launching today. I’m sure—or hope—this is better for those who actually need (or want) this. There is a Facebook group for pickleball singles, but it’s full of fake profiles seeking to scam people. Well, except for the male posts. The male posts are real. (Mostly.)

Rules Stuff

The “starting server” and “first server” are not the same thing. The starting server is the server who serves for the very first time for a given team. In a tournament, the starting server wears a band to indicate so—also called the “banded player”. On the other hand, the first server is whoever happens to be on the right side after a side out. 

Pro Player Representation

Wanting more control over their destinies, pro players started a new group:
“The World Pickleball Players Association (WPPA) is a player-led organization dedicated to uniting and empowering professional pickleball athletes.”

The UPA (parent of the PPA) issued a statement that the only player group they recognize is their own committee, their Pro Player Committee (PPC).

It seems that the pro players weren’t happy with the PPC situation and make their own organization.

Number of days on a court: 833
Number of total hours: 3,237.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 153.5

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

Sunday, July 20, 2025 (Court Day #832)

I left my house at 9 a.m. sharp. It was overcast and 57° and the street had damp patches from precipitation.

I needed to teach this afternoon so I couldn’t stay and play indefinitely this morning.

At some point, I’ll probably need to take a break from pickleball and give my right knee some rehabilitation time. When I sit too long, my knee gets stiff and a little sore. My knee was complaining some yesterday afternoon at work.

Brommer Park

I parked in the Brommer lot at 9:14 a.m., grabbed my backpack out of the backseat, and walked in.

I played good games with Hugh, Dan Dewey and the tattooed, tanned, bearded guy named Aaron who serves hard and likes to use inside-out deceptive shots.

It was another day of lighter attendance, so I went from game to game to game.

While I didn’t get to play against the strongest local players, most of the games were reasonably challenging. And there are a few rallies today where I really impressed myself.

The last game was Hugh and myself against Marquis and a guy I met once before at club play named Kris. That was the only game of the day that I lost. We lost 7–11. Hugh kind of imploded in that game and apologized to me as we walked up to the net together to tap paddles with Kris and Marquis.

While I had a couple of streaks where I was missing shots, most of the morning I was playing extremely well—I was on fire.

At 11:50 a.m., it was time to call it a day.

Over the course of the 2 1/2 hours that I played this morning, I may have had as many as ten of my serves returned into the net by my opponents. And I only missed one serve today. That’s a pretty good ratio of miss servers versus returns into the net.

It was still overcast in 63° when I left, but I was sweating nonetheless.

Stolen!

Mid-session today, Hugh arrived, was inside the courts for a few minutes, then left, then came back about 10 minutes later. He said that his backpack, which he had left outside the men’s restroom door and included two of his paddles, was stolen. Such a drag. I loaned him my Players Rogue 2 paddle and told him to keep it until he had a new paddle for himself.

Teaching

I taught my two classes from 1:30 until 4:35 p.m. when I called it a day—I gave them an extra five minutes.

Cole from Michigan

As I was talking to some of my students after class, a tall, young man with a trim beard walked up and asked if we wanted to play. My students said that they were worn out and didn’t want to stay. The young guy thanked us and returned back across the courts to stand near the gate, looking on.

I was about to collect my things and go when I figured I could spend 15 minutes drilling, so I signaled the fellow across the courts and as he made his way over, he was stopped by yet another fellow who wanted to get into a game along with the woman who was with him.

Cole, John, Stephanie

The 6-foot man with a beard turned out to be Cole and he moved to our area from Michigan back in February. The other two were John and his lefty mom Stephanie. Cole had his moments, but he is prone to some errors, especially with his backhand. John is definitely a stronger player than his mom, though she is decent. I would say Stephanie is in the 3.0 range, John is at least a 3.5, and Cole is probably a high 3.0.

Cole and I were losing the first game but then came back and dominated to win the game and a lopsided fashion.

In the second game, we lost 10–12.

Before that last game, Cole changed out his paddle and then mid-game—when he was still unhappy with his play—he switched paddles back to his original one. It was not the magic bullet however, since we went on to lose that game too… in a lopsided fashion.

It was about 5:25 p.m. when I left. I had to get home to shower and get ready for dinner with my wife and a couple of friends.

Wilson

Of course, Wilson is well known in the tennis world. I remember playing with Wilson tennis balls—along with Penn balls—back in the 1970s as a kid. They’re entering the pickleball world by creating a paddle. Here’s an ad:

One thing that rubs me the wrong way, but it shouldn’t, is the “racquet” reference. While pickleball is considered a racquet sport, there are no racquets in pickleball. A way to tell someone that you are either new to pickleball—or are simply are disrespectful of the game—is to call a pickleball paddle a racquet.

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Monday, July 21, 2025 (no play)

Zane Navratil on his The Dink podcast had a really good point about DUPR. He indicated that you could have two games that end with the same score of 11–2, but that final score is not necessarily representative of the skill involved. You could have an 11–2 game that ends in 10 minutes or you could have an 11–2 game that takes 45 minutes. In other words, one game could have just one side out, but another could have 30 to 40 sideouts. Both are treated exactly the same by the DUPR algorithm. But until DUPR allows you to put in score and server as you go, it won’t be able to account for these situations.

More DUPR

Wow. This was posted on Facebook. This is crazy. You beat another team 15-2 and your DUPR rating goes down? Down?

I looked up Kevin Chaves and he’s a 3.715. I found several “Stephen Fitzpatrick” players, with ratings higher than Chaves. One being a 4.813 and another being a 3.962. I suspect that in this instance must have been the former player. (I didn’t look up the other two partners, Matthew and Mike.)

This reminds me of years ago when Ben Johns and Kyle Yates came to Northern California for the Golden State Championships and Bryan from San Jose and his partner played against them, the #1 doubles team in the world. Bryan and his partner scored 2 points in their loss. (Bryan was not happy.) Now, if unranked players can score 2 points on the world’s best doubles team, should Ben’s and Kyle’s ratings should have gone down? (DUPR didn’t exist yet back then.)

The problem is this forces a team to be brutal against opponents. Mercy is punished. You can’t be nice and let the other team score a point to make them feel better. No mercy.

Number of days on a court: 832
Number of total hours: 3,235
Number of paid coaching hours: 153.5

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

Thursday, July 17, 2025 (Court Day #831)

I walked into Skypark at 6:49 p.m. It was busy enough that I’d had to park down the street and around the corner. 

I got into some mostly unmemorable games.

Later, Frabrizio and I played against Kirby and Mauricio. We lost the first game, but won the second, which finished up at 8:50 p.m. in the gathering gloom. (The lights still go off at 8:30 p.m. except Friday and Saturday nights which continue for an extra hour.)

And?

I’m still hitting out balls and speeding up at bad times. Better decisions and more patience.

I was tired and also not happy with my play. I did get three points in a row when my serves were returned into the net in that last game. 

Fun stuff!

One thing that was kind of neat tonight, was I had my first completely blind ATP. I was teamed up with David against the very talkative, newish guy, Michael, and Kirby. David was on my right and Michael was across from me. Kirby hit an excellent crosscourt shot toward my left. I ran to get it and with my back to the net, hit a backhand ATP for a winner. I’ve hit numerous ATPs over the years, it was the first one I ever hit with a net nowhere in my vision. I turned around just soon enough to see my shot land deep in the court behind Michael. Part skill, part luck!

Jamie Foxx’s House

Celebrity actor Jamie Foxx has pickleball on his property:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DK193XQx7tO/

Number of days on a court: 831
Number of total hours: 3,232
Number of paid coaching hours: 150.5

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