Sunday, March 8, 2026 (Court Day #909)

Mauricio arranged a foursome for this morning, but this time Mike Sullivan was out of town so it would Frabrizio playing with Mauricio, Ben, and me.

The spring time change was today so it felt like an especially early morning! I was already running a few minutes late when I realized that I left my phone inside the house I had to go back and grab it. Oops.

Into the Sun

One big annoyance this morning with the time change is that I was driving into the sun when it was still low in the sky. It reminds me of years ago when someone was telling me that she would commute to Monterey for work every day. She told me that she would be driving into the sun in the morning and then also driving into the sun in the evening and how unpleasant that was. That commute is 45 minutes to an hour, but my “commute“ this morning was only about 10 minutes. I can very much sympathize with her annoying commute to Monterey!

Right Knee

My right knee is bothering me a little bit yesterday and more so this morning. Putting weight on my knee a certain way was causing a little bit of pain, and while I was driving I was feeling a mild bee sting sensation to the upper left side of my right kneecap.

Brommer Park

I pulled into Brommer at 8:05 a.m. Considering the time and the time change, it wasn’t a surprise that there were less than ten cars in the parking lot.

Game 1:
Even with the advantage of the sun in the eyes of our opponents, Mauricio and I lost this first game 6-11.  We did drag it out once they were ahead 10-5 and forced a number of service swaps before they finally closed out the game.

Game 2:
Frabrizio and I lost 3-11. I was still warming up and made a sad number of errors. This loss as on me, not Frabrizio.

Game 3:
Ben and I won 11-5.

Game 4: (Labeled “Game 1” of the videos.)
Mauricio and I lost 1-11. I have a synopsis below. This isn’t every single rally, but does include how they got their points with some additional notes… the dash (-) in front is a point in their favor.

– Mauricio hits ball into net. (0:10) 1-0
– Mauricio hits ball into net. (0:26) 2-0
– Frabrizio’s ball dribbles over net. (0:39) 3-0
– Andrew ball into net after ball to my feet. (0:56) 4-0
[side out at 0-4]
Andrew hits bad high drive, Mauricio pops up a volley, Frabrizio slams it. (1:31) 0-4
Andrew hits a really bad lob, bad from there. (1:55) 0-4
[side out 0-4]
– Andrew chicken wings 4th shot past the baseline. (2:12) 5-0
– Mauricio pops up shot. (2:35) 6-0
– Andrew backhand shot out past the baseline. (3:15) 7-0
– Mauricio returns serve into the net. (3:40) 8-0
– Andrew does a speed up that sails long past the baseline. (4:00) 9-0
– While at the net, Andrew hits a fast out ball which then sails long. (4:26) 10-0
[side out]
– Andrew hits Ben’s out ball speed up at my face. (5:15) 0-10
And on.
So with Ben and Frabrizio winning 10-0, there was a lot of back and forth for several minutes where we scored one point and they don’t score at all.
– Mauricio hits a failed chicken wing shot off a drive from Frabrizio into the net, ending the game.

I played so badly in this game. I was “grabbing at points” instead of being patient and taking solid opportunities. A lesson there.

Game 5: (Labeled “Game 2” of the videos.)
Frabrizio and I won 11-9.

Game 6: (Labeled “Game 3” of the videos.)
Ben I lost 10-12 after leading most of the game.

Game 7: (Labeled “Game 4” of the videos.)
Frabrizio and I won 11-5.

More Games

My courtmates left, so I found new partners to play with.

Mo and I lost a lot to Dan Dewey and a partner.

Hispanic Tony and I won against Mo and tall Dave 11-5. We had to stage a comeback to win.

Tony and I then lost 3-11 to Mo and Rick. As I closed in three hours of play, I was starting to get tired and a touch lazy.

Then Tony and I won 11-5 in the rematch.

The rubber match, we won again 11-8. There’s nothing like winning the last two of three games to make up for a 3-11 loss in the first game!

In those games against Mo, she had at least three or four shots that she drove and her ball landed literally on the sidelines. Those are hard to defend. She had those dialed in today.

Done

When I left at 11:35 a.m., surprisingly, 5 of the 8 courts were open.

It was an absolutely gorgeous sunny 72° day as I drove home.

Number of days on a court: 909
Number of total hours: 3,408.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 203.5

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