Monday, April 13, 2026 (Court Day #924)
Keeping with a recent change in protocol, our monthly pickleball club board meeting is continuing to swap between Derby Park and Brommer Park. Today, we were at Derby.
Yesterday, I finalized, printed, and laminated a membership sign and a court fee sign for each of the four venues where there is organized club play. At last month’s meeting, I got a little bit of feedback on my signs and I made those tweaks yesterday. Today, I brought the signs to our meeting for distribution.
A month or two back, my former tournament partner Eric Schmidt told me to let him know the next time that I was to be playing at Derby Park, and today I did, but he is traveling with his wife and is out of state. Oh, well. Maybe next time.
Weather
It has been pouring rain off and on the last few days. Today, the sun was popping in and out from behind patchy clouds. At 57°, one minute you’d be cold and another minute you’d be toasty in the direct sunlight.
Derby Park
When I arrived at Derby at 9:05 a.m. There were dark clouds in the northeast. I was hoping that it wouldn’t shower.
I can count the number of times I’ve been at Derby Park on a Monday that was not a holiday on one hand. There were a few players familiar to me today but most were not.
Being that it was not a club day at Derby—organized club play was at Brommer—once the courts were full, people were using the paddle rack.
I got into a game with a guy named Brian. We won 11-2 versus our opponents.
Brian and a man named Hugh teamed up and won 11-7 against me and and a man named Greg.
Hugh and I won 11-6 against a couple of opponents.
I’d seen none of those guys before. When you play at a location and time that you don’t normally play, you will see new faces.
Rain
In the midmorning, it started to rain and all but one court stopped playing. But it didn’t last long and the sun popped out again to dry things out and play resumed less than 10 minutes later.
Tall, mustached Mike and Sam are doing a tournament together—70+ bracket? Greg and I took them on. We won the first game, lost the second. They were picking on Greg. For tournament prep, Mike and Sam should have been hitting more to me! You don’t hit to the weaker player! It’s good for your ego, but bad for improving.
Allen Goldberg arrived about half an hour before our meeting. He said that he came from Brommer Park. Maybe I will consider that the next time we have a board meeting at Derby Park.
Board Meeting
Our board meeting was fairly short, wrapping up after only an hour at 1:15 p.m.
More Play
After the meeting, Jackie asked if anyone wanted to play and, of course, how could I say no? President Mark Dettle wanted to play and new Treasurer Allen Goldberg stayed to make up our group of four.
Allen and I started together and won a couple of games.
Then we switched things up and this time I was playing with Mark. We were a bit more balanced, but Mark and I still lost both games by a few points.
I have to laugh at one of Mark‘s comments. After Jackie had slammed a ball off to my left out of reach for a winner, Mark said, “Oh, she caught you coming over.” Truth be told, I was covering the middle since the ball was out in front of Mark off to my right. The real problem was that Mark popped the ball up nice and juicy for Jackie to attack. My court positioning was just fine. Anytime you pop up a shot like that, you are asking for trouble.
It was surprisingly windy, and gusts would sometimes change the trajectory of the ball.
After an hour play, Jackie said she needed to go, but I also needed to leave and Mark needed to go as well. It was a consensus.
Bonus Session at Skypark!
I wasn’t expecting to have another pickleball outing today, but Mike Cattivera texted me saying that he was looking for some games around 4:30 or 5 p.m. I told him that I had to work but I could I could be there by 6 or 6:30 p.m. In the end, he found other people to play but one would need to leave shortly after 6 p.m. and Mike said I could join them then.
Skypark
While the sun was starting to get low in the sky, it was still sunny and 63°F. The rain we had experienced this morning was long gone and the sky was mostly blue. It was still pretty windy, however.
I pulled into Skypark at 6:18 p.m. and the lot was full except for one spot for me.
Mike and I won 11-1 against Mauricio and Ben.
We had a rematch and won again 11-4.
Mauricio and I lost 3-11 (sun in our eyes), then 2-11. The losses were not 100% all on Mauricio, I made some errors too.
Ben and I found ourselves down 6-8, but came back and won 11-9.
Learning Experience
One very short, but memorable rally was when Ben was serving to me when I was on the right side of the court. I returned his serve to his backhand, which was, as a lefty, near his sideline. But the problem was two-fold. One was that my return wasn’t deep enough to keep them fully back but also wasn’t shallow enough to make the situation an uncomfortable stretch. And because I wasn’t coming to the net fast enough, that left him with an opportunity to hit a shallow crosscourt winner, which he did. Rally over. The thing to keep in mind is even with both forehands in the middle, sometimes not giving your opponent crosscourt angles has an advantage. (Hitting to the middle would have straightened out that angle somewhat.) The other lesson is depending on your return, you don’t want to dilly dally getting up to the net, and instead sprint up there as quick as you can, only stopping to split step when your opponent is about to hit the ball.
At 7:31 p.m., they were done and packing up. I was ready to go another hour, but that didn’t happen.
It was after sunset and it required lights on the court, but there was still some dim natural light. It was a pleasant 57° as I headed home.
Tennis Elbow?
My right elbow is bothering me a little bit. Nothing severe, but enough for me to consider maybe using my tennis elbow strap on my right forearm.
Number of days on a court: 924
Number of total hours: 3,447.5
Number of paid coaching hours: 209.5
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