Saturday, September 27, 2025 (Court Day #854)

Frabrizio reached out to a number of us via WhatsApp chat last night looking for people to play this morning. I’ve been working a lot and so decided to take the morning off.

I texted Frabrizio this morning and he said that he couldn’t play but he had the court reserved at Brommer from 9 to 11 a.m. and had given the court to Daniel (Borlean), the tennis Daniel from Skypark.

Frabrizio said that Daniel wanted to get a DUPR rating and I figured this could be an opportunity to get my DUPR rating at least somewhat closer to what is should be. (3.3 is not accurate for me!!)

Including me, we had only three people lined up for the court, but I figured we’d pretty easily find someone else to play and fill out a group of doubles.

It was 61°F and overcast and very lightly misting when I left my house.

When I was a few blocks from my house, one of my staff texted, saying that she had a sore throat and was not coming in. I turned my car around figuring I would have to go in to work, but then I realized that we would still have enough staff without her. So I turned my car around again and continued my drive to Brommer.

Brommer Park

I pulled into the parking lot at 9:04 a.m.

Casey Feickert was playing on our reserved court with the number of his compatriots. Daniel and Christine were sitting on the wall waiting to get a foursome together. I let them know that I was there to play on Frabrizio‘s court. They thought this was great, but we still needed that one more player.

There was a guy named Bruce, who I had never seen before, who had just finished up a game on the adjacent court and was looking to play. What’s funny is that he said his DUPR rating was 4.6. But then later, after a number of games, he said his DUPR was really a 3.0.

Warmup Game

For our first game, we agreed that it would be a warm up game and not count for DUPR. Christine and I played against Bruce and Daniel. They took a big lead, then we started coming back but we still lost 7-11.

Frabrizio texted me asking if someone could send him the game results. I told him that I would keep track and send them to him.

DUPR Games

After our warmup game, we rolled into games that “would count.”

Daniel and I lost 9-11 to Bruce Brinkerhoff and Christine.

 Bruce and I won 11-5 versus Daniel and Christine. (That’s even with Bruce making more errors in this game.)

Christine and I lost 5-11 to Bruce and Daniel. 

Daniel and I won 11-5 versus Casey and Dave Cox. 

Casey and I won 11-1 over Daniel and Dave Cox.

A fellow with glasses named Dustin joined us. He’s a UCSC biology student. I suspect he’s either Filipino or Asian, but I didn’t ask. Nice kid. (When we asked for his DUPR, he gave his formal name, Jandel Maranan.)

Dustin and I teamed up and won 11-3 win versus Dave Cox and Daniel. 

Daniel and I won 11-8 vs. Dustin and Dave cox. 

Dave and I won 11-6 vs. Daniel christine. 

Dave and I won 11-5 vs. Jeff Hotchkiss and Daniel. 

Dave and I won 11-2 vs. Jeff Hotchkiss and Daniel. 

Over the course of the morning for DUPR, I was on the winning team 8 times and on the losing team 2 times. One never knows, but I’d think that would have a positive impact on my DUPR rating.

I left the courts at 11:53 a.m.

And?

I started out a little rough this morning, but, hey, it has been almost a week since I last played. Early on, I had a few shots in the white tape, but after a few games I got it dialed in. As the morning progressed, I played better and better and better. 

If I recall correctly, I missed a total of four of my serves. Two into the tape of the net, and two there were a little bit too long.

I felt happy about my play today though. The compliments on my play were flowing freely. It’s always nice to hear. 

It was still overcast when I left to go home and get ready for work. It was a little bit muggy and over the three hours or so, sweat went through the entire brim of my cap. That’s a rarity!

Scores for DUPR

At 12:19 p.m., I sent Frabrizio a complete list of games and scores for him to enter into DUPR. (I did ask everyone for permission, no one said no.) That should get Daniel a rating. And I’m very curious how it will impact my own rating. I’ll probably know in the next few days.

Pros in Sacramento

Genie Bouchard lost her first-ever PPA finals match to Katie Fahey. A unique twist to this event is that they were all playing with vintage wood paddles! Singles most translates from tennis to pickleball. Doubles is a very different game. I expect it to take Genie longer to adjust to pickleball doubles than pickleball singles.

Here’s some coverage of the event in the Sacramento Bee newspaper:
https://www.sacbee.com/sports/article312307181.html

And on Pickleball.com:
https://pickleball.com/news/fahey-ends-bouchards-run-earns-gold-in-womens-singles

Number of days on a court: 854
Number of total hours: 3,289.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 164.5

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