Thursday, March 19, 2026 (Court Day #915)

I left work and headed to Scotts Valley. Shockingly even with the sun lower in the sky, it was still 88°. I can’t even remember last time it was that hot at this time of the day.

Skypark

There were more players in courts tonight, but it wasn’t too bad. The waits were generally pretty short.

I had an assortment of games tonight—nothing stellar.

Mid-evening, I bumped into Jess who I had played with a little bit on Sunday afternoon. I would either put her in a high 3.0 or a low 3.5. She has very good drives and is able to handle hard shots coming at her for midcourt, but she has no soft game to speak of. Jess and I played a game against Aaron Hicks and River and we took a substantial lead. They started making a comeback but then we finished them off 11–9.

I was in the middle of a game with a woman named Val, who I might have seen around but never played with before, against River and Rachel Kuo when the lights clicked off at 8:30 p.m.

And?

I wasn’t super thrilled with my play tonight, but it wasn’t horrible.

I earned at least half a dozen points off of serves of mine that didn’t get returned over the net. Those were low and fast.

I hit a couple of high balls into the net—giving up probable winners. I attempted 2-3 speedups where the ball was too low—ending the rally.  I missed 3-4 serves tonight while trying to be tricky. 

I have little work to do on court positioning at times, covering the middle.

I had a bit of a scare, one of my Aireo demo paddles was missing from my bag. I looked around, but it turned out that Humad had been trying one out and hadn’t returned it to my bag yet. Humad is a good guy, he wasn’t trying anything sneaky.

Friday, March 20, 2026 (No Play)

We had really big news in the Lenz Family this morning. Today was the national “Match Day” for those graduating for medical school. My daughter Charlotte got her first choice for her residency, orthopedic surgery down in Ventura. She is super excited about the program there and it’s still sinking in. Only three of her graduating class medical school (Burrell) matched an orthopedic surgery. It’s the 4th hardest specialty to match for residency, so she is thrilled. Last year, she earned “Student Doctor of the Year” and “Student Researcher of the Year” from Burrell, the first time in school history that both were awarded to the same student. (Each award is picked by a different committee, so there’s no “cross-talk”.)

Paddle Maker Bankrupt

Gamma Sports has filed for bankruptcy. Explosive growth only lasts so long as other businesses jump into the field and add competition:
https://usaherald.com/gamma-sports-files-chapter-11-despite-pickleball-boom

Saturday, March 21, 2026 (No Play)

Bad news here in Northern California. The $1.5 million pickleball courts have been shut down in Martinez. The Hidden Valley courts were built about a year ago, but the neighbors complained so much that the Martinez City Council voted to close down the new courts. Martinez is about 90 minutes of driving away. Here’s an article about it:
https://abc7news.com/post/pickleball-debate-martinez-votes-shut-down-courts-noise-complaints/18733338

Nadal’s Pickleball Connection

Rafael Nadal’s is building a new tennis center in the Dominican Republic, and yes, it has pickleball!
https://www.instagram.com/p/DV9F2HrEX1W/

Number of days on a court: 915
Number of total hours: 3,422
Number of paid coaching hours: 206.5

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