Friday, December 26, 2025 (Court Day #885)
It has been raining a lot recently, including last night, but this morning, we had a lull. It was sunny and in the low 60s. There are clouds in the north and clouds in the south, but hardly any clouds actually over us.
While there was no cancellation notice sent out, I wasn’t convinced that club play was actually going on at Brommer Park. But it had been a while since I’d played and I really wanted to get out. I figured that even if club play was not going on, there would be players out at least drilling at Brommer if the courts were too wet.
Brommer
I arrived at Brommer Park at 10:25 a.m. The clouds were definitely blowing in and the rain was expected around 1 p.m. according to my wife.
There were empty courts when I arrived, and I assumed that it was just rec play, but that turned out not to be the case. I went to hang up my backpack when a woman on the court informed me, “Gloves going on.”
I was very confused. “Gloves?”
“Club is going on.”
Ah! That makes so much more sense!
There was indeed club play going on with signups. Between games, there either no waits at all or the waits were very short. Often times the wait involved waiting for a fourth player to go fill one of the open courts.
As I continued to play, my performance got better and better. It started out pretty rough.
First Game: Illegal
In my first game was playing against a guy I’ve never seen before. His serves were difficult to handle with unusual spin. It was a bit puzzling. But then I figured out that he was serving illegally. He was doing a volley serve, but he was swinging from high to low and putting significant backspin on the ball. I let it go during the game, but once the game was complete, I brought it to his attention. He asked why it was illegal and I explained. He said he’d switch to a drop serve.
Second Game: Illegal
He and I teamed up in the next game and I noticed him doing the drop serve, but that was also illegal because he was throwing the ball down instead of just opening his fingers and let gravity do its job. Then, during the game, he went back to his illegal volley serve. But it is rec play, I really don’t care a whole lot. Making the serve to me more difficult is fine by me when there is nothing on the line other than getting better and/or having fun.
Tournament for C & J
Chayton mentioned that he and Jordan are playing together at a tournament in Monterey in the 4.5 level in a few weeks. Chayton said that they were planning to stack, with Jordan on the left and he on the right. He said Jordan has some very nice backhand crosscourt shots and he prefers playing on the right anyway.
Tim F. and I were playing against Brendan Fish and Ken, the regular. We barely lost the first game and we played a rematch. We won 11–3. Just as we were serving the last ball, drizzle started coming down. By the time that we finish the game and I got to my backpack and pulled out my car keys, it was starting to come down pretty heavily. The last game finished up at 1:55 p.m.
It was windy like crazy today. It made some shots unpredictable.
My mini-vacation of two days off ends and it’s back to work tomorrow.
Pickleball Gift
Yesterday, my lone Christmas present pertaining to pickleball, was a gift from my wife—a 2026 pickleball calendar featuring literally pickle cartoon characters saying cliché pickleball jokes, such as, “I have a dinking problem!”
Saturday, December 27, 2025 (No Play)
A local news station interviewed an 85-year-old national champion in Maumelle, Arkansas, kind of fun:
https://youtu.be/nj8P3J3EDGs
New Rule Book
UPA Pickleball has released their new rulebook for 2026:
https://usapickleball.org/docs/rules/USAP-Official-Rulebook.pdf
And the change document which outlines the—well—changes!
https://usapickleball.org/docs/rules/USAP-Rulebook-Change-Document.pdf
Number of days on a court: 885
Number of total hours: 3,352
Number of paid coaching hours: 185.5
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