Month: July 2025 (Page 4 of 5)

Tuesday, July 8, 2025 (Court Day #827)

As I headed after work to Scotts Valley, it was still pleasantly in the mid-60s and sunny.

As I drove, I was musing how bad my play looked on video in that game against Frabrizio and Alex in the mini tournament last Saturday. It was depressing. My goal for tonight is to try to make fewer errors… such as keeping my return of serve in instead of hitting it too long, targeting my opponents’ kitchen line for drops instead of thinking about the white tape of the net—which I seem to have been hitting more frequently lately. Also I need to be more patient in my attacks and not slam any balls into the net. My goal is to play patient and play smart. “Now if I can just keep that in mind and execute it,” was what I was thinking.

I was very anxious to get out to play. I feel like I’ve been playing subpar lately and I feel like I need to get out and redeem myself.

Skypark

Parking was a pain in the rear end. I greedily grabbed a spot from a player who was leaving down the street then I was walking in at 7 p.m.

Games

My first game was playing with Rachel against her sister, Irene, and also Kirby. As with most games with little to no warm-up, it was a little rough for me.

My second game and beyond was paired with Kirby against various opponents.

There are a few times in early games where I was getting frustrated and annoyed with myself. Shots were not going where I wanted them.

Played against Aaron Bartley and his wife. His wife has gotten much better and her drives are a lot to handle. We probably would’ve had an easier time of things that we had managed to get her into the soft game. Kirby and I got clobbered in that first game, and it wasn’t even close.

We had a rematch and this time we won a close game.

We played the third game, which was another close one, but this time they pulled off the win.

The next to last game was against linebacker Mike and the shirtless tattooed guy who serves with his back to the net. I forget his name. He’s been around maybe six months now.

Last game was Kirby myself against Matt and Paul. It was fairly close to start with, but then Kirby and I pulled ahead and continue to extend our lead until the end of the game which was roughly 8:35 p.m.

And?

It was still above 60° when I left Skypark.

I hit two of my serves into the net tonight. Both times I was a little distracted. The first from from shifting courts, the second one from thinking about the previous rally.

I would say most of my errors came from hitting the ball too high and not too low into the net. Too low happened maybe half a dozen times over the course of the evening. Yes, I still returned two or three serves too long, giving my opponents a point.

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Wednesday, July 9, 2025 (No Play)

This popped up as a suggested YouTube video. For all the complaints that pickleball gets for its confusing scoring, honestly, it’s nothing compared to tennis. Tennis has a crazy scoring system.

Pickleball score simply counts up 1, 2, 3, 4… for each team and also has a server number, either 1 or 2. It’s pretty easy. It’s still confusing to some at first, but it’s not complicated. Tennis has advantage, 40, deuce, 15, love, 30. It’s only not nutty to some because they are used to it.

Number of days on a court: 827
Number of total hours: 3,222
Number of paid coaching hours: 147.5

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

Sunday, July 6, 2025 (Court Day #826)

I got an early jump on things today and by 8 a.m., I was on my way to go play.

It was overcast and 54°F… not exactly a warm morning. Enough moisture was falling out of the air that I used my windshield wipers.

I pulled into the Brommer Park lot at 8:10 a.m. 

Games

Oscar and I lost to Jordan and Shawnte 9-11. That was the game of the day. It was awesome. Fantastic rallies. (Later, Oscar told me, “We should have won that game.”)

This the games were pretty solid today. The lopsided game with Hugh and myself playing against little Linda and tall Nick. We beat them 11–2. It was also a short game and never in doubt.

The last game was Hugh and myself against David L. and Dan Dewey. That was a close game. We lost 10-12.

Hugh utilizes a drop serve and has the best drop serve that I’ve seen. Over the course of a few games, he had a few opponents return his serves into the net. He’s got some good angles on that thing too.

I checked the time it was 12:44 p.m. and time to go take my brother Mike to the airport who was heading back home after visiting for the holiday. 4 1/2 half hours of pickleball. I was pretty exhausted.

Baby!

Oh! Drew and his wife had a baby Tuesday. His name is Beau. Congrats to them! And David and Minori are expecting their first baby in September.

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Monday, July 7, 2025 (No Play)

DUPR got back to me with the response that I was expecting but hoping not to get.

Dear Andrew, 

Thank you for reaching out. 

Please note that your rating has been assigned to you based on your performance in the matches that have been uploaded to your profile.

On the other hand, after reviewing your profile, we have observed that you have very few matches recorded and a very low reliability score. This indicates that the algorithm has limited information about you, making your rating more susceptible to significant changes. The more data the algorithm has about you, the smaller the changes to your rating will be. Conversely, with limited information, the system will attempt to recalibrate your level based on any new data it receives. 

If you believe that your rating does not accurately reflect your skill level as a player, we kindly recommend adding matches at the level you believe corresponds to your abilities. Since the algorithm currently has limited information about you, your rating will undergo significant changes initially before gradually stabilizing. This will make it easier for your rating to calibrate to your true skill level even if you are currently higher/lower than your true skill level. 

Finally, if you add such matches but are unable to win them, this will indicate that your skill level is below the chosen level, and your rating will adjust accordingly. 

If you have any further questions about your rating or profile, please do not hesitate to contact us again. 

We appreciate your patience and cooperation during this process.

Best regards,
Sam
DUPR Support

Instructional Video

This pertains to tennis but the “tactical geometry” applies to pickleball as well:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DKbfLn8Ipot/

Number of days on a court: 826
Number of total hours: 3,220.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 147.5

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

Friday, July 4, 2025 (Court Day #825)

While it was only 61°F, it felt warmer in the bright sun. With it being a holiday, club play at Brommer Park would likely be a zoo. So I decided to try my luck at Derby Park instead.

I walked into the courts at 9:40 a.m. and there were a number of familiar faces that I haven’t seen in quite some time. Eric Schmidt and Ted B. were there along with others. I got into a game with Ted against Glenn and Eric.

Jordan R. arrived at mid morning. He said that he had forgotten that Brommer Park would be a club day, drove there first and found that it was crazy there, so he came over to Derby.  He also shared that the traffic was bad.

For at least the first two hours, I felt really bad about the quality of my play. I felt a little bit better in the last part of the session though that may have also been due to the lower quality of opponents. 

Nicholas

My son Nicholas arrived around 11:30 a.m. He had mentioned that he might be coming, but nonetheless, I was kind of surprised to see him. We played games with and against each other. While Nicholas continues to be inconsistent, he is getting better and better. 

There was a guy there named Dan who I’ve never met before and a shorter, very talkative fellow named Michael who I had also never seen before. Dan and I played it against Nicholas and Michael and won in a lopsided fashion.

Dan complimented me twice during different parts of a game together about me having really good drop shots. Nice to hear.

We mix things up and Dan wanted to play with Michael, so Nicholas and I teamed up. In our last game, Nicholas and I beat Dan and Michael 11–2.

We wrapped things up at 12:50 p.m. then we headed home to get ready to head to my folks’ house for an annual big gathering of relatives for independence Day.

Oh, any my Uncle Warren shared this yesterday, pretty funny:

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Saturday, July 5, 2025 (No Play)

I sent an appeal to DUPR about my rating. I figure the odds are bad of them doing anything, but it’s worth a shot.

I’m a PPR Certified Coach and USA Pickleball Ambassador and can tell you that I am NOT a 3.3! LOL! I haven’t done a lot of DUPR events and getting opponents to verify scores in non-DUPR events when you beat them is often like pulling teeth, so I haven’t even bothered to try lately.

I very recently did a local grassroots event and got dropped to 3.376… which cracked several people up when I told them. Aside from it just being inaccurate, my biggest concern is that I don’t want my one bad game (coming off of games against weak players can be a difficult transition for me!) to throw off a bunch of other people’s DUPR ratings with a ripple effect. I’ve entered a number of 4.0 tournaments and been in the mix.

For comparison, over 5 years ago, back when I was doing USAP tournaments, my rating was 3.58 and I’ve improved quite a bit since then. I know you can only judge from data in, but my initial rating is actually fairly accurate. If I’m “on” 4.5, if I’m really “off” 3.5, and most of the time is in the middle.

Thanks for all that you do there.

Great Pickleball

Here’s an impressive rally to feast your eyes upon:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DI1I8-IAnNw/

Rallie Ball Machine

My son Nicholas was in town for the holiday weekend and he was a bit bored after dinner. I suggested that we finally break out the rally ball machine and set it up. The insect said to charge the battery before use, but I took about 10 minutes before he had a green light so I think it was already pretty well charged. The only thing that needs to be installed was the ball stirring paddle and that only took a few minutes. I flipped the ball hopper over and set it on top after opening the brand new box of Franklin X balls I loaded up the hopper with as many as it would reasonably take.. After figuring out with the remote control, it’s only for adjusting and not starting. I use the app that I’ve already installed on my phone to get the machine to shoot a few balls, which it did admirably. Purely by chance, none of the balls ended up in the fountain across the yard.

It’s too late in the evening to really do anything with the ball machine, so I rolled it up to the barbecue and covered it with plastic for the time being. 

Network TV

Top pickleball pro Ben Johns made an appearance on CNN yesterday morning and did a great job representing the sport on national television:

https://www.instagram.com/p/DLsXeRhOgDN
(Make sure to click on the right arrow to get the the companion videos of his interview.)

And here’s an article about Ben’s appearance:
https://pickleball.com/people/ben-johns-talks-pickleball-on-cnn-you-can-play-with-anybody-and-have-a-great-time

Number of days on a court: 825
Number of total hours: 3,216
Number of paid coaching hours: 147.5

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