Tuesday, February 3, 2026 (Court Day #898)

It has been really warm this past week. In fact, we had some 70° weather. Tonight, it was 61° as I drove to Scotts Valley in the dark. That is practically summer weather!

Last week, on Tuesday, Skypark was an absolute madhouse. As I drove, I was hoping that this week would be slightly more mellow.

AWOL

Some regulars have not been coming to Skypark recently. Marquis has still been coming, but Sean Lynch and Casey F. and Dave Ryan have not. I ran into Casey’s dad Tim at Brommer about a month ago and he told me that he (Tim) has been playing at Seascape in Aptos instead.

Games

Tonight, I was playing mostly with 3.0 players. That was probably good, because my performance tonight was not stellar. It took me almost an hour to get really warmed up.

I met a player for the first time tonight. A woman who I would guess is in her 30s named Rachel. She’s Asian, and I would guess of Japanese heritage. She was very nice. For being tall and slender, she can pack a decent wallop on her drives.

Wednesday, February 4, 2026 (No Play)

It was announced in the last few months that USA Pickleball would be doing field testing on paddles. Part of this is to deter counterfeit paddles that are illicitly showing they have been approved by USAP when they are actually not. A video was posted to social media showing some of the equipment that they are using for testing:
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DUUBuwZEpTB

Number of days on a court: 898
Number of total hours: 3,380
Number of paid coaching hours: 197.5

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