Month: February 2026 (Page 3 of 3)

Thursday, February 5, 2026 (Court Day #899)

It was a warm 63°F when I arrived in Scotts Valley at 6:55 p.m. I had enough gas to get there and back home, but I’m definitely going to need to stop for gas tomorrow morning!

As I walked through the lot after being forced to park down the block, two cars departed leaving two empty parking spaces. Figures! Maybe someday the city will come up with a new location for courts or figure out a way to add more spaces.

Games

Chuck and I did a few games against Sonny and Chloe. Chloe has a rocket of a serve—tennis background!—although she is not super consistent with it yet. She occasionally served into the net or even once into the fence. It took a few serves for me to get used to the speed—I was hitting very bad returns (if they got over the net at all)—but after that, I had no trouble returning them.

We played several games. Chuck and I did manage to win one of them. In that game I was scoring so many points in a row off of my serves—it was at least 6—that I hit a high lob serve. It landed outside of the court. It was not entirely on purpose, but I wanted to something to change since I was feeling embarrassed scoring so many points with no rallies.

More Games

Chloe and Sonny stepped out and I teamed up with a guy named Andy who I’m pretty sure I had met once before—maybe twice. We played it against Chuck and River. River is a good player, he is at least a 3.5 and maybe a 4.0… probably a 4.0.

In the first game, we lost our serve without scoring any points and the ball went to Chuck. Chuck went on a 10-point run on his serving! Maybe it’s the poor lighting on the court, the adjustment from faster serves to slower serves, or something else, but I also was having trouble handing Chuck’s first three or four serves. I got things dialed in, though Andy continued to have trouble with those serves. Everything that could go wrong was going wrong. We eventually we scored a at least a few points, but still lost in a lopsided fashion.

When I was serving to Chuck from my right, River was standing practically on the centerline. I hit a curving serve that would have hit him had he not moved out of the way, but my serve still landed in. River was impressed.

We had a rematch, in this game was much closer although we still lost.

We went on to play one more game with the same partners and this time Andy and I pulled off a win. The tide had turned!

We were leading to comfortable margin in the last game when the lights clicked off shortly after 8:30 p.m.

Surprisingly, it was still in the low 60s when I got home at 8:52 p.m.

And?

I started out unhappy with my play tonight, but even with intentionally trying to hit balls to River in those later games, I felt happy with my play tonight.

At one point, Andy was asking me why I was wearing the glasses with no lenses in them. These are the Kitchen Blockers. I told him that I got hit in the eye once and I was not going to go through that again.

Number of days on a court: 899
Number of total hours: 3,381.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 197.5

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

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.

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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

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

Sunday, February 1, 2026 (Court Day #897)

It was a sunny 54° morning with only traces of clouds in the sky. For a January day, yesterday was an amazingly balmy 73° midday. I was thinking that maybe it would be that nice again today and it mostly was.

Brommer

I pulled in at Brommer Park at 8:50 a.m.

I got into an assortment of games over the next three hours.

In one game, Stoehr—whom I hadn’t played with in quite some time—and I lost 9-11 to Mo and Stu.

Caesar and I lost 7-11 to JP and Brendan. This one was more on me than Caesar. I was feeling low on energy by this point.

Cesar and I played against Evan and Paulie. We lost 9-11. It was a close fun game. There were more mistakes by Caesar this time.

Sean Lynch and I lost 7-11 versus and Austin and Isaiah, but we won the rematch 12-10. Those were fun games.

“Home, James.”

It was 68° when I left at 11:53 a.m. I had to get home then to teaching.

The last game helped me feel better about myself. My biggest issue in the last game was popping up volleys. (Or as my phone thought that I was saying, “follies“!)

Today was a mix of good play but also hitting the ball long, into the net, or hitting bad drops.

Skypark Tennis Player

I took a photo today when I was out at Skypark teaching this afternoon. One of the tennis players wasn’t happy that we hung our paddle rack two feet into their tennis area. (The tennis courts are more often empty than not whenever I’m there in the evenings.) Hanging the rack inside saves the trouble of having to go in and out of the gate. A few weeks ago, one of their players moved the rack outside of the courts and permanently secured it to the fence so it can’t be moved, and left a note.

Honestly, I don’t blame them. The tennis players already lost two of their four courts to pickleball and pickleball is so popular that the tennis players know to avoid the courts at certain times due to the lack of parking. Still, the note seems a bit aggressive . . . how about the word “please”?

Number of days on a court: 897
Number of total hours: 3,378.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 197.5

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