Thursday, December 18, 2025 (Court Day #884)
I got stuck at work, finishing up a large year-end order to one of our suppliers. (They have a year-end promotion that they provided to select select key relatively large retailers.)
Skypark
I arrived at 7:18 p.m. with it dark and in the low 50s.
It was a very lightly attended evening and at no point were all the courts full. It was more a problem of finding players than courts.
Games
I got a game with Chuck against a fellow I’ve seen once before named Jerry and his friend Ron who is a lefty.
Chuck and I lost the first game, then won the second. There are a couple of people waiting to get into a game so Chuck and I stepped out for a minute and drilled while waiting.
We got into a third game and this time we got clobbered, I think it was 3–11.
We had a fourth game, in this time there was a complete reversal with us winning 11–1.
We had won last fifth game in Chuck and I were ahead 6–1. Then it was 6–3. We scored a couple of points but not long after they scored again, which made the score 8–6. Then I was 8–7, then 8–8. Then 8–9 then they continue to score and win the game about five minutes before the lights clicked off.
And?
I do have to say, I was not playing well tonight. Everything was off by a little bit. When I was about to leave, I told Chuck that and he asked how I slept last night. Funny enough I shared with him that I’ve woken up completely exhausted. It was weird.
Camera
I tried out this new “NUISK Dual Screen Thumb Sports Camera” which has a metal plate on a cord that the camera magnetically sticks to.
My thoughts? It’s a piece of junk. I’d show you some of the video, but it’s practically impossible to get video off of this camera. I’m not a tech slouch. I have a computer science degree from U.C. Santa Cruz, which feeds a lot of students into the Silicon Valley. NUISK did not make this camera user-friendly. I followed the directions to the letter, but the video would not offload from the iPhone app via its own WiFi hotspot as it was supposed to. It would just fail. I’m not a fan of Amazon, but I knew this was a possibility, so I bought it from them knowing that I might have to return it…but I found out that the return window passed already. They only give you a few weeks, I didn’t check that. Alas. Some people seem happy with it, it has overall good reviews, but so far, it’s less than worthless.
Friday, December 19, 2025 (No Play)
Looking at the weather app, but I’ve never seen such a solid forecast for rain. Then this popped up on Instagram today:
https://www.instagram.com/p/DSbtYkFFQe6
California will be on of the wettest places on earth for the next ten days!
Saturday, December 20, 2025 (No Play)
The various leadership groups in pickleball are uniting to tackle the issue of counterfeit paddles. This has been posted by USA Pickleball:
A group of leaders in the pickleball community have joined together in a unified effort to address one of the fastest-growing threats to the sport, counterfeit paddles. This issue has aligned every organization: there is no room for counterfeit paddles in the sport.
The entities standing together include the Association of Pickleball Players (APP Tour), Dynamic Universal Pickleball Ratings (DUPR), Major League Pickleball (MLP), Professional Pickleball Association (PPA Tour), United Pickleball Association of America (UPA-A), USA Pickleball (USAP), and World Pickleball Federation (WPF).
Counterfeit paddles undermine competitive integrity and can pose real safety risks due to unregulated materials and performance. Authentic manufacturers invest heavily in research, testing, and innovation to meet established standards, counterfeit products do not. Through this initiative, the pickleball community is working together to educate players, support legitimate manufacturers, strengthen equipment standards, and discourage the sale and use of fraudulent paddles.
At every level of play, from local courts to championship competitions, players deserve safe, certified, and authentic equipment. Together, we’re protecting the integrity of the game we all love.
The article at USAP is here:
They are getting serious!
Popularity?
It keeps appearing on social media and articles that “Apple data now shows that pickleball is more popular than tennis.” But this is not new. There was a study over two years ago that released showing this in 2023. People! This is old news!
Monday, December 22, 2025 (No Play)
My sister-in-law suggested something different for our Christmas gathering tonight with her family and my family—which also included were my son’s girlfriend and my daughter’s boyfriend. After dinner at a Mexican restaurant, we went ax throwing! I started out really bad but later threw 10 bullseyes in a row then I stopped to let a relative use the lane. “Take that, ax!” I suspect that pickleball helped. Aside from hand-eye coordination, once you get a shot figured out, being able to repeat it is helpful.
Tuesday December 23, 2025 (No Play)
Retired NFL wide receiver Terrell Owens claims in an interview with The Kitchen that pickleball is harder that football, saying that pickleball has more strategy to it:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSjGVackTx0
Do I agree? I’m not convinced, but there are specific challenges to pickleball that give it its high ceiling for skill that can take years (or never) to develop.
Thursday, December 25, 2025 (No Play) – Christmas Day
Highly-ranked tennis pro turned “wannabe” pickleball pro, Sam Querrey, posted a hysterical video on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DSqN9rID4Zt/
Sam is the poster child to hold up when people say that they could switch over from tennis and dominate pickleball. Sam was ranked the #11 tennis player in the world and won 10 ATP singles titles. He’s also 6’6″… I’d kill for that reach! (I’m very average in terms of height.) Well, Sam did not come over and dominate pickleball. He flamed out.
Third Shot Drop Difficulty?
The Pickleball Clinic shared a post on social media saying:
“The Center for Sports Difficulty Research conducted a study that indicated a third-shot drop is the hardest feat in sports because of how precise players must be.”
Also, the The Kitchen posted this:
“According to the Center for Sports Difficulty Research (CSDR), hitting a perfect third shot in pickleball has been named the hardest feat in sports. In their 2025 “Precision Index,” the shot scored a rare 9.9/10 in difficulty.
Combining split-second timing, pinpoint accuracy, and flawless touch, it leaves even elite players humbled. The study cited several key challenges.”
The only thing is, there is no “Center for Sports Difficulty Research”—it’s completely made up! Then again, the Center for Sports Intelligence Research just determined that I’m the smartest pickleball player in the world. We’ll just leave it at that.
Number of days on a court: 884
Number of total hours: 3,348.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 185.5
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